José Cruz: Building Leaders

Born in Puerto Rico, Jose Cruz immigrated to the United States with his mother and his brother in search of a better life when he was just three years old. 
Although he was an American citizen, having been born in Puerto Rico, Jose didn’t speak English when he arrived to San Diego. This situation made him feel like he didn’t belong in the community. That experience was what inspired him to one day become the executive director of Barrio Logan College Institute (BLCI). 
“I wasn’t connected 100 percent to San Diego. It was until recently, when I started working with the Latino community, that I felt the connection,” Cruz said. “Through my education I was able to learn that I am part of the community. I have a responsibility to raise my voice, and to participate in the democratic system of the United States.” 
Jose grew up in a single parent home in City Heights and comes from a low-income family that depended on the government’s help to have food on their table. Jose’s mother had a lot of different jobs, all which paid a low salary. 
Growing up in a low-income household was something that his friends also experienced, many of which dropped out of high school to get a job. 
When Cruz was still in high school, he was the president of an organization called “Si Se Puede”, which was focused on inspiring Latino students to continue with their education to improve their life in the United States. 
Jose was the only one in his group of friends that went to college, and the first in his immediate family to go to college. Having cousins and other relatives in Puerto Rico that went to college, also inspired him to pursue his higher education. 
“Since high school, I had a passion for helping other Latinos”, he said. “I was able to enroll in college because people believed in me. I didn’t know what steps to follow, but my counselors at school helped me.” 
He majored in psychology, and in Spanish at San Diego State University. While in college, he wondered why none of his close friends from the neighborhood enrolled in college. He conducted research on Latino identity and academic achievement while at SDSU. 
“I started getting involved with research to try to understand why some Latinos were able to identify with the pursuit of education, and others didn’t,” he said. “What we found out doing the research was that Latinos that had role models they could identify with, were the ones reaching academic success.” 
Cruz thought that after college he was going to study a doctorate. He wanted to become a university professor and publish books about his research on Latino identity. But he also wanted to learn how to implement his research, so he ended up going to Harvard University. At Harvard, he got a Master in education for at risk students. 
After earning his bachelor’s degree and his master’s, he returned to San Diego to work as Program Director at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. From 2005 to 2009, he was in charge of managing the Health Careers Opportunity Program, which helped prepare disadvantaged students for health careers. 
In late 2009, Cruz got the opportunity to work at BLCI. 
“For a lot of reasons, I felt this was the organization where I was supposed to be. 100 percent of our students are Latino.” 
“We start working with students since they are in third grade. We prevent dropouts, social problems, and poverty in future generations”, he said. “We teach students that there are leaders that they can follow. All of the people that we work in BLCI are the first in our immediate families to go to college. Many of us come from low-income families, and we are role models to them. And the students become role models for the following generations.” 
Cruz’s first goal at BLCI was to increase their funding. When he first arrived, the non-profit had an annual budget of $500,000. Now, BLCI has a yearly budget of $1.5 million. Also, when he started working at BLCI there were 160 students. Now, there are 400 students enrolled in BLCI. 
To date, 100 percent of their high school graduates have enrolled in college and over 90 percent of them have either graduated or are still enrolled in college. 
At BLCI there are many success stories. One of these Francisco “Panchito” Martinez. There was a time when Panchito didn’t want to go to college even though he had already been enrolled at BLCI for 7 years. Panchito wanted to quit school to create change in his community. But at BLCI, they taught him that he could go to college and still create change in his community. Today, Panchito is a SDSU student, and a leadership specialist at BLCI. 
Through leadership programs at BLCI, the need for students to return to their communities has been taught to students, so they can use their academic achievements to do something positive for their community, and for society. 
Cruz’s next goal is to find a permanent location for the non-profit organization, currently headquartered at Monarch School’s facilities in Barrio Logan. 
“We need the help of our political, business, and community leaders so this organization doesn’t go away,” he said. “BLCI is an important thing that we have in the community.”