This is one of four inclusion stories from communities who partner with Business on the Frontlines students, partners that challenge us to build a more inclusive economy, here in America and in corners around the world.
After growing up on the streets, in 2009, Mariana Henriquez Flores found her way to Homeboy Industries, a gang rehabilitation and reentry program in Los Angeles that provides training, education and wraparound services ranging from mental health support to tattoo removal.
After completing an 18-month training program, Henriquez was hired to a management position within Homeboys. Today, she leads food operations for three of the organization’s enterprises.
“Homeboys lays down a foundation of hope,” she said.
Homeboy Industries has been a partner of Frontlines in America teams for four years. Their social entrepreneurship projects model how growth anchored in inclusion creates and expands economic opportunities while generating broader access to these opportunities, so all members of society can participate in and benefit from growth.
Inclusive economic growth allows for all people to earn a dignified livelihood and shows what can happen when we give people a chance to succeed. This chance makes them more likely to pursue education, participate in the workforce and engage in activities that lead to economic prosperity.
Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who founded the organization in 1988, showed Henriquez the true meaning of unconditional love for the first time, she said. “The type of love that recognizes pain for what it is. To see right through the postures, the tattoos and the attitudes. To look at the person in front of you, and know that hurt people hurt people, and that our traumas are written all over us.”
Today, Henriquez aims to be that beacon of hope for others. She said Homeboys gravitates toward those who need it the most. “They come in broken, no families, off the streets,” she said. Progress can take a long time, but the successes are immeasurable — people moving into their first apartments, women regaining custody of their children.
The path isn’t always straight. Henriquez recalls one man who left the training program, confident he was ready to make it on his own. But reintegration is difficult in a system set up for people to fail. “It was a little too soon,” she said. “He came back. Now, he's leading, he’s mentoring, he’s guiding. He's a supervisor. And that’s one of hundreds of stories.”
Henriquez believes having people from the community in leadership positions is crucial to the success of Homeboys — and the success of its participants. “Because I came from the community, there's nothing I haven't felt, dealt with or overcome,” she said. “We know what domestic violence looks like. We know what substance abuse looks like. We lean on each other. Because we know how hard it is to leave a lifestyle behind.”
Homeboys understands that people with traumatic lives may need additional support. “We allow emotions to happen,” she said. “If something’s going on, take a break, take a breather.”
Participants connect over music and family meals. “We come from different gangs, so we're apprehensive at first. But we sit them down and invite them, and little by little, the layers start coming off,” Henriquez said. On someone’s birthday, they finish the happy birthday song by adding, "We're glad you were born!" She explained: “If you’re beat down, broken down, you don't love yourself, you're feeling worthless? We’re gonna be there. We’re going to smother you [with love] until you feel it.”
Annie Crider (MBA ‘23) was drawn to Homeboys “in a way that was magnetic and powerful” as a student in Frontlines in America.
“Work should provide dignity for people, not diminish it,” she said. “And throughout the history of labor, especially for those who've been marginalized — their work diminishes their dignity. They’re used almost as animals or as cogs in a machine.”
Crider said FIA really opened her eyes “in terms of seeing what the margins actually do to people, what it means to live on the margins and how hard it is. And how impossibly difficult it is to break free of that.”
“How do we expect somebody we won't even give a job to, to not return to crime? If we're constantly judging people by their past, by their CV, and not looking forward to who they want to become, who they are willing to work to become… That's a real loss for business."
Annie Crider (MBA '23)
“Something that is missing in a lot of business discussions, even around DE&I, is the reality and the recognition of people's potential, and not just their past,” she said. “How do we expect somebody we won't even give a job to, to not return to crime? If we're constantly judging people by their past, by their CV, and not looking forward to who they want to become, who they are willing to work to become… That's a real loss for business.
“What I saw at Homeboys, was what happens when you give people a chance, when they're ready to take it, and they run with it. They do things that surprise and amaze you.”
Through FIA, Crider’s team met people with past gang involvement and incarceration for the first time. “I think the gift of diversity, equity, and inclusion — when businesses do it right — is that you encounter people, and learn to respect and love and honor people, who have very different stories than you do.”
Henriquez encourages people to look beyond their own ZIP codes and at surrounding communities that are overlooked. “Stop just pointing at a problem,” she said. “What are you doing about it? You, who have the means, the tools. What are you doing about it?”
“We forget that we're all human, that we all feel, that we all want the same things in life. Except for some of us, it’s harder to get to it. So let’s look at each other, instead of passing each other.”