Sergio Sosa is Building Power Through Community
For Sergio Sosa, community organizing has always started with listening. A Guatemalan immigrant who has spent decades working alongside immigrant and underrepresented communities in Nebraska, Sosa believes meaningful change begins by understanding people’s lived experiences and building relationships from the ground up. That philosophy led him to found the Heartland Workers Center in 2009—and continues to shape his work today.
Sosa was born in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, and witnessed the inequalities and social unrest surrounding Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. He later studied philosophy and theology at Universidad Rafael Landívar and the National Seminary of the Assumption in Guatemala before bringing his passion for social justice and community leadership to Omaha. His experiences in Guatemala helped shape a career focused on making sure people who are often overlooked have a voice in the communities where they live.
That commitment became especially visible in 2009, when Sosa founded the Heartland Workers Center after hearing from hundreds of South Omaha residents about the challenges they were facing in their everyday lives. Rather than creating an organization that simply spoke for immigrant workers, Sosa built one around developing leaders within those communities. HWC works to organize leaders, promote workers’ rights, and encourage civic engagement among immigrant and underrepresented communities.
One example of that work came through “I Vote for My Family,” an effort led by the Heartland Workers Center to increase Latino civic participation in South Omaha. The initiative trained young people to have conversations with family members and neighbors about registering and participating in elections. Sosa saw this as part of a larger generational shift, as younger Latinos became increasingly involved in civic life.
His work has also extended beyond voting and workers’ rights. In 2014, Sosa and the Heartland Workers Center partnered with OSHA to educate immigrant workers about workplace training, resources, health, and safety. His organization has earned recognition over the years, including the ACLU of Nebraska’s 2012 Defender of the Bill of Rights award and Nebraska Appleseed’s Roots of Justice Award.
Today, Sosa’s community work has taken another meaningful direction. He works with Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, an Omaha-based organization serving Maya communities, including as an Indigenous Food and Business Manager. Through the Heartland Regional Food Business Center, he has helped connect Maya farmers and food entrepreneurs with resources, markets, and business opportunities. The work recognizes something deeply important: the agricultural knowledge and traditions Maya immigrants and refugees bring with them are not simply part of their past—they can also be part of their economic future.
The impact reaches beyond individual businesses. Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim estimates that approximately 10,000 Maya people live in Nebraska, with about 3,000 in Omaha alone. Sosa’s work helps connect that community’s cultural knowledge, entrepreneurial goals, and agricultural traditions to new opportunities in the region.
Sosa’s legacy is rooted in a simple but powerful idea: communities already have leaders, knowledge, and solutions within them. The role of an organizer is to listen, build relationships, and help create the conditions for those leaders to step forward. From workers’ rights and civic engagement to Maya entrepreneurship, Sosa continues to build power by investing in people—and that work has the potential to shape Nebraska for generations to come.
