American Creed: “The ‘Dreamers’ are the American Dream”

American Creed shows how of members of the Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals program have reshaped the Wildflower Bread Company in the best way, making up five percent of employees and having a low turnover rate.

Claudia Guiterrez, a DACA recipient, has worked her way up to Head Pastry Chef at Wildflower. She’s one of many across the 14 locations in the state who have been welcomed into the Wildflower family.

“I love what I do,” Guiterrez says. “I love making pastries. The main thing is because we are like a family, we care for each other. We give each other the chance to grow.”

Founder and CEO of Wildflower Louis Basile wrote a letter to Sen. John McCain “pleading for a long-term solution for DACA recipients.” He says he can relate to them because “the Dreamers are the American Dream.” He’s familiar with starting at the bottom and working to the top.

“For me, it’s really encapsulated in one simple thing,” Basile says. “They are a part of this country, and we need to remove the uncertainty that somehow suggests that they’re not an integral part of what makes America great.”

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James Garcia, director of communications for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says there are currently 10 to 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, most of whom are working.

“There is the argument, of course, that these are folks that are coming here and taking jobs from Americans,” Garcia says. “The reality is right now we have full employment in the economy… They’re not taking jobs, they’re filling jobs that would not be filled otherwise.”

Basile agrees, if it wasn’t for DACA recipients then there wouldn’t be enough employees for him to run his business.

“The simple reality is that we need employees,” Basile says. “Some of our best employees are Dreamers and DACA employees. The bottom line is if we don’t have enough people, we can’t grow the business and we can’t do all the things that we do.”