Catalog ID:
ORH-006-0009
Creator:
Cruz, Johanna
Archives Field 21:
AUDIO Click to Play
Scope & Content:
Date of interview: Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Location of interview: Wilson Branch Library (New Haven Free Public Library)
Duration: 1 hour, 44 minutes, 48 seconds
Johanna Cruz was born on December 18, 1970 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Her mother was a homemaker from Jayuya and Ponce, while her father fixed cars. Johanna spent the first nine years of her life in Ponce, before moving to Bridgeport in June 1979, as a result of domestic violence. Her mother initially left in May 1979 to check out Bridgeport, sending for her two daughters (Johanna and her younger sister) a month later.
Johanna discusses the initial shock of moving from Ponce to Bridgeport; the wooden foundations of Bridgeport houses, for example, were an adjustment to the cement homes she grew up in in hurricane-prone Puerto Rico. She moved in with her great aunt and uncle on the third floor of their multifamily home in the West End. Her great aunt and uncle came in the late 1950s and found work in local factories (the only one Johanna could recall with certainty was Remington Arms, where her great uncle was working when she arrived).
Johanna also shares multiple bilingual educational experiences, from which she benefited from 4th through 6th grade. At Roberto Clemente School on the East Side, she was one of many Puerto Rican students, taught by Puerto Rican teachers themselves (she thought they migrated stateside as teenagers), and was taught her subjects in Spanish. Conversely, upon moving and transferring to Maplewood School on the West Side, her English language learning was done through a mainstreaming approach, pulling her and a few other Puerto Rican students once a day for language instruction. She preferred the former to the latter, believing that the latter approach made her look differently to other English-speaking students.
Aside from a brief, 6 month stint in Norwalk in the 6th grade, Johanna remained in Bridgeport, graduating from Bassick High School, Class of 1989, as well as the University of Bridgeport, Class of 1993 (the first to do so, on her mother's side of the family). A particularly important part of her college experience entailed her pledging to Beta Sigma Alpha, the first Latina sorority of the University of Connecticut. While some of the more "degrading" aspects of Greek life turned her off early in her college career, when childhood friend Yolanda Caldera-Durant notified her about her plans to co-found a Latina sorority at UCONN rooted in community service, Johanna became interested. She recalls fondly taking bus rides up to Storrs, Connecticut, both to build community with other Puerto Rican and Latina students at UCONN, as well as brainstorm ideas to bring back to Bridgeport to serve Puerto Ricans and Latinés more locally.
While Johanna wanted to become an educator, she found that the traditional public education system wasn't a good fit for her, and as such, she became a case worker for Optimus Health, specifically serving HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the mid-1990s. She considers herself an alternative educator, as her advocacy work entails not only the educational attainment and employment of HIV/AIDS patients, but likewise, empowering bilingual communities and addressing domestic violence, mental health, and substance abuse.
Location of interview: Wilson Branch Library (New Haven Free Public Library)
Duration: 1 hour, 44 minutes, 48 seconds
Johanna Cruz was born on December 18, 1970 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Her mother was a homemaker from Jayuya and Ponce, while her father fixed cars. Johanna spent the first nine years of her life in Ponce, before moving to Bridgeport in June 1979, as a result of domestic violence. Her mother initially left in May 1979 to check out Bridgeport, sending for her two daughters (Johanna and her younger sister) a month later.
Johanna discusses the initial shock of moving from Ponce to Bridgeport; the wooden foundations of Bridgeport houses, for example, were an adjustment to the cement homes she grew up in in hurricane-prone Puerto Rico. She moved in with her great aunt and uncle on the third floor of their multifamily home in the West End. Her great aunt and uncle came in the late 1950s and found work in local factories (the only one Johanna could recall with certainty was Remington Arms, where her great uncle was working when she arrived).
Johanna also shares multiple bilingual educational experiences, from which she benefited from 4th through 6th grade. At Roberto Clemente School on the East Side, she was one of many Puerto Rican students, taught by Puerto Rican teachers themselves (she thought they migrated stateside as teenagers), and was taught her subjects in Spanish. Conversely, upon moving and transferring to Maplewood School on the West Side, her English language learning was done through a mainstreaming approach, pulling her and a few other Puerto Rican students once a day for language instruction. She preferred the former to the latter, believing that the latter approach made her look differently to other English-speaking students.
Aside from a brief, 6 month stint in Norwalk in the 6th grade, Johanna remained in Bridgeport, graduating from Bassick High School, Class of 1989, as well as the University of Bridgeport, Class of 1993 (the first to do so, on her mother's side of the family). A particularly important part of her college experience entailed her pledging to Beta Sigma Alpha, the first Latina sorority of the University of Connecticut. While some of the more "degrading" aspects of Greek life turned her off early in her college career, when childhood friend Yolanda Caldera-Durant notified her about her plans to co-found a Latina sorority at UCONN rooted in community service, Johanna became interested. She recalls fondly taking bus rides up to Storrs, Connecticut, both to build community with other Puerto Rican and Latina students at UCONN, as well as brainstorm ideas to bring back to Bridgeport to serve Puerto Ricans and Latinés more locally.
While Johanna wanted to become an educator, she found that the traditional public education system wasn't a good fit for her, and as such, she became a case worker for Optimus Health, specifically serving HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the mid-1990s. She considers herself an alternative educator, as her advocacy work entails not only the educational attainment and employment of HIV/AIDS patients, but likewise, empowering bilingual communities and addressing domestic violence, mental health, and substance abuse.
Interviewer:
Interviewed by Amanda Rivera
Dates of Creation:
2024-02-14
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