Cruzing the Streets of Boston

Waiting at Currier House to meet Remigio Cruz '86, one cannot help but wonder what to expect. There are the publicized incidents with Harvard police, who repeatedly stopped Cruz because he says he did not fit the Harvard student image. On the other hand, there is his well-praised work with Puerto Rican youth in Boston.

He arrives 10 minutes late, wearing jeans and a brown leather jacket and ragged tennis shoes; his exterior fits the stereotype of a stree-wise youth. But his piercing brown eyes reveal a side left out of the newspaper articles and Phillips Brooks House reports.

Cruz speaks slowly, guardedly, as if he weighs each word before sharing part of himself. His style seems at once tough and sensitive. The toughness perhaps stems from growing up in a Trenton ghetto. Perhaps the sensitivity comes from having weathered four years at Harvard without submerging himself.

"I felt like I didn't belong, as if Harvard were a club for rich, smart people. The language was different--people didn't understand my language," Cruz says of his reaction to Harvard in the fall of 1982.

Cruz's case was one of bonafide culture shock. He was closed out of a social life he had no experience in. "I did not know how to skate or swim, nor had I been to a movie theater or beach."

He had little in common with middle and upper class suburbanites who made up the bulk of his Harvard classmates.

"I was used to seeing teenage mothers, drug traffic, prostitution, illegal gambling, and robbery. I've never seen a rape--I guess I'm lucky."

One of Cruz's freshman roommates hailed from Beverly Hills. He remembers learning that "he was from the poor section of Beverly Hills, because his dad made only $40,000. I thought he was joking--anybody who makes over $20,000 I thought was rich. But for Harvard, he's not rich."

"At home we have a color T.V., a blender, cable, but I came here and students' parents make $80,000 yearly. I say, man, and I wonder what they do with all that money."

Cruz's initial reaction to the Harvard environment was to try to conform. "I started listening to white music, like Men at Work, and tried to make white friends to conform. I wanted to be like the others, but it just didn't work."

Cruz's courtship of middle class white culture was temporary. After he made the decision not to assimilate, he often felt as though he were part of "Harvard's liberal education."

Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanity Robert Coles '50, who supervised Cruz's independent research in the Sociology Department, says that Cruz has helped educate Harvard students. "Remy gave Harvard and example of someone who wants to offer a personal, individual, and moral example to lots of kids who need it and to other Harvard students," Coles says.

But Cruz's determination to resist assimilation at Harvard has not been easy. "Remy is his own person. He isn't like other students who have assimilated into the cultural mainstream. He held back and that has caused personal difficulties," explains Coles.

One of the most public of these personal problems has been Cruz's encounters with University police. By spring of his junior year, Cruz alleged that he had been stopped six times by the police, "because I didn't fit their image of a Harvard student."

After the fifth incident, Cruz filed a formal complaint with officers of the University--including President Bok--and the police. In addition, Cruz and representatives of the Black Students Association pushed the University to investigate police harassment of minority students and consider implementing racial and cultural "sensitivity training" for officers.

Vice-President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54, who oversees the University police, dealt with Cruz's complaints. Several months later he established a student-administrator committee to consider problems of police harassment. Cruz has served on the committee. "I feel very positively and very warmly about Remy. When we first met we had a somewhat antagonistic relationship, but over a few meetings, I came to like him," Steiner says of Cruz.

Of the student whom several police officers stopped for reportedly not looking like a Harvard student, Steiner says, "I have respect for his energy, imagination, and commitment--he's a credit to Harvard and to his family."

Cruz graduated from Trenton, New Jersey's public high school, where about two-thirds of the student body drops out before graduation. The son of poor immigrants from Puerto Rico and Costa Rica, he never thought of applying to agood college, much less Harvard.

"I hadn't the faintest idea of coming toHarvard," Cruz recalls. "A Harvard alumnus calledto ask me to apply, so I did. If the alumnirecruiter hadn't come along, I probably would havegone to a local state college or to a communitycollege," he adds.

Cruz's work study earnings at Harvardcontributed not only to his school expenses, butalso to his family. His freshman year, he held twojobs so that he could help his family financially."My mother needed $150 to see the eye doctor and Ionce sent my 17-year-old sister money so she wouldnot be evicted from her apartment," explains Cruz.

Cruz's work hours often left him little timefor studying. According to him, this and his poorpreparation for Harvard gave him countlessacademic headaches. Before coming to Harvard hehad dreamt of being a chemical engineer, but hechanged his plans after freshman year. He says hewas competing with students who had already takenadvanced placement math and science courses inhigh school--opportunities his school had notoffered.

Influenced by working on a project on PuertoRican immigration with Coles, Cruz decided onsociology instead.

"I never had any study skills," admits Cruz. "Iwas used to getting A's without studying in highschool. It took me about a year and a half tofinally start getting good grades."

Cruz says his greatest experience atHarvard--and probably the one which has mosthelped him survive here without assimilating--hasbeen his work with the PBH Keylatch program. Cruzhas worked with the youth program in Boston sinceits inception in the fall of 1982.

Keylatch is named for the label applied tochildren whose parents both work, leaving them towear their house keys around their necks and spendseveral hours alone each day. They are called"latch key kids." The $12,000 program that Cruzhas directed for the past two years operatesduring the school year and summers in VillaVictoria, a Puerto Rican housing development inthe South End.

Keylatch "put me in touch with a Puerto Ricancommunity similar to my own in Trenton," saysCruz. The neighborhood has also been a trainingground for Cruz, who has become a leader there andat PBH.

Carmen A. Pola, a former advisor to BostonMayor Ray Flynn, says, "Remigio is the type ofperson that society needs, in particular theSpanish community. He has a clear understanding ofproblems in out society, especially poverty." Shecredits Cruz with "making young people,particularly poor Hispanic youngsters, feel thatanything is possible."

According to PBH Graduate Secretary Gregory A.Johnson '72, Cruz will be "a community leader,though the community remains to be seen. He'simmensely strong, yet affable.... He's charismaticin Villa Victoria."

Fourteen year-old Jorge Palmerin, one of Cruz'stutees in the Key Latch program says, "Remy hastaught me many things. He has brought me closertogether with other boys my age. He taught us howimportant school is, how the future would dependon us, and we learned about other places and whatother places do for us."

Jorge's mother has also grown to depend onCruz's influence in her son's life. "Remy wouldcome and sit down with Jorge and tell him how boysgrow up and change. He'd call and ask Jorge if hewanted to go for a walk, and Jorge would call himup if he had any school trouble," says Ada N.Palmerin.

After graduation, Cruz will return to TrentonCentral to teach. "I want to go back to help thekids I identify with--to help build theirself-esteem," says Cruz.

He will try to pass on the self-esteem he builtat Harvard for himself. He says he "knows thatwhen I first came to Harvard I didn't realize Iknew so little.... I've gotten an all-aroundeducation at Harvard. I've learned so much aboutmyself and others--I'm glad I stuck around.