Gallego Speaks on Brotherhood, Connection at Symposium on Young American Men

WASHINGTON - Today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined the Symposium on Young American Men at the National Press Club to discuss how shared purpose and community can help young men build stronger bonds in the age of isolation. Gallego joined Antong Lucky, President and CEO of Urban Specialists; Wynn Smiley, CEO of Alpha Tau Omega and Chairman of the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC); and retired U.S. Army Col. Lance Van Zandt on a panel moderated by Marc Caputo of Axios.

Watch the full panel here and read excerpts of the conversation below:

On how his service and a shared sense of purpose shaped his idea of brotherhood:

"I think what it teaches you is a common goal and the idea of a common goal and working together to that. So much of this world is very individualistic, and to some degree, men at first are taught to be individuals, but don't understand the idea that you have to be part of this kind of greater good. And you're kind of forged, especially in combat, to do that."

"And you don't think about it, but it starts at boot camp. Marine Corps boot camp is pretty hard - they strip you down, they take away all ability for you to speak to anybody outside of your company, and they try to instill this idea of joint success - that you as an individual don't matter, what matters is, how is the rest of the group doing?"

On belonging and fraternities:

"I didn't grow up with a father. […] Sigma Chi was extremely important because it helped me connect to other men. […] It didn't matter that I didn't go to prep school, didn't matter that I wasn't in the same summer camps with these guys. There was an understanding of what my values were that was aligned with the fraternity. I joined this fraternity, and I got to meet men from all across the country with different experiences that taught me a new way of how to understand being a man in this world and my responsibility as a man."

On the stigma around masculinity:

"Trying to make men 'the other' or inherently bad [fosters] a sense of isolationism. […] There was and there is a problem with toxic masculinity. But by you inherently being masculine does not mean you are toxic. And I think it's gone too far, that if you are a masculine man, or if you're a man in general, you are [seen] inherently, by nature, as somewhat toxic. And I think that creates this horrible feedback loop that kind of creates even further isolation […] I think the most important thing we can do is just say, 'Hey, this is a problem. Let's talk."

On the disparity in the number of male teachers:

"Thinking of men as an asset to society is a first thing that we as policymakers can do. […] The fact that there are declining teachers that are male - that does matter. I did not grow up with a positive male role model. […] It was actually the male teachers in my life that I still talk to, by the way, and some of the bosses I had in different job sites that ended up being very key. One of things we could do is encourage men to be teachers. What does that look like? We should pay teachers more. […] We should actually have incentives to encourage men to be teachers."

"I even had a bill a few years ago - we recognized this was an issue with Latino men and Black men - to encourage our HBCUs and our HSIs […] to give them more money to train teachers, especially male teachers. Because we know statistically speaking, if a Black or Latino student sees a male teacher at some point in their progression, they have a 40% higher chance of them going to college. How crazy is that? What a great thing for society, if all we have to do is find a way to train the teacher, retain the teacher and pay a little extra - imagine like, how much are we gaining from that?"

"If we want the societal outcome to be a better society - 50% of society is still male, so let's figure out how to lift them up and not have a stigma around that."

11/3/25