Professor hopes to bring education to native land
Spanish professor Ana De la Cruz may stand only 5-feet, 5-inches tall, but she has skyscraper dreams.
Born Ana Mercedes De la Cruz Tineo, De la Cruz grew up on a farm in a tiny town northeast of Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic.
“I’m a country girl,” De la Cruz said. “I’m kind of a legend in my hometown.”
Four of her aunts are nuns and one of her uncles is a priest. They founded a school, which she attended on scholarship. De la Cruz was an accomplished basketball player growing up and represented her province in the sport. She earned an outstanding youth award from the government for her volunteer work. She learned English from a Canadian nun she nicknamed “Hitler.”
“She hates children,” De la Cruz said. “I was the youngest in the class. I was scared to death.” It did not help that De la Cruz, a rebellious preteen, was tired of following in her older sister’s footsteps and would have rather watched her favorite soap opera than learn English for an hour after school every day. Her father convinced her otherwise.
“He was very philosophical,” De la Cruz said of her father. He told her that life sometimes gives chances that can’t be missed and advised her to take advantage of the opportunity to learn English.
De la Cruz graduated as the valedictorian of her high school and earned an academic scholarship to the Santo Domingo Catholic University. She studied business and graduated with the highest grades in the college of business. Only one other student at the university, a girl in journalism, had higher marks.
“If she had not gotten better grades than me, I would have been valedictorian,” De la Cruz said. “She was the daughter of one of the most famous journalists in the history of my country. I’m not over it yet.” Though she planned to work in business, several unsatisfactory sales and government jobs left her with a bad taste in her mouth and she sought another career path.
“I never thought I was going to be a teacher,” De la Cruz said. “I always hated that job.”
Her mother, with a degree in social studies, taught at a public school. De la Cruz substituted for her mother quite often, and said the only day she enjoyed was the last day of school on which students brought gifts to their teachers.
In 2005, the government started an English immersion program in the Dominican Republic. De la Cruz responded to a newspaper want-ad for an English teacher and was hired to teach English at her high school. Two weeks into her four years of teaching, De la Cruz was looking for a new job. She was thoroughly convinced she was never going to be a teacher, until the day she described as “life-changing.”
“When you are a teacher, sometimes you are some sort of shrink,” De la Cruz said. She said one of her students came up to her one day after class and emotionally expressed his situation. He had recently graduated with an engineering degree and desperately needed to learn English so he could get a job and support his mother and siblings. De la Cruz promised him that by the time he was done learning English in her class he would have a better job.
“I’m so happy that student came and talked to me,” De la Cruz said. “I wanted a job where I could make a difference. Teaching has become that job.”
De la Cruz landed yet another teaching job at a private school she called “state of the art.” She was teaching the president’s children, kids who would go to Miami to shop and Switzerland or Colorado to ski, she said. One student was utterly shocked to hear that she only had one pair of shoes. To this she replied that she only had two feet, why would she need more than one pair?
“To me, it was as if we were living in two different countries,” De la Cruz said. She felt this job wasn’t as rewarding as teaching those who really needed it, she said.
With two solid jobs, De la Cruz did not plan to move to the states to continue her education, let alone Utah. She was convinced by a former student to apply for scholarships for graduate school in the states. De la Cruz was the last to apply for the scholarship, and made the deadline with minutes to spare. She passed her English proficiency exam and had two weeks to study for the GRE to get into graduate school.
Though Utah State University was not De la Cruz’s first choice, she chose it for the education program, in which she wanted to get her master’s degree. She completed that goal this fall and is flying back to the Dominican Republic on Dec. 15. She said she is excited to go home, but dealt with homesickness well.
“I do not worry about things I cannot change,” De la Cruz said. She knew she had to finish school before she could return to the Dominican Republic, so she put it out of her mind.
She is not sure whether she will return to Utah, but said she wants to get her doctorate in education.
“My country desperately needs a better education system,” De la Cruz said. There is a large gap between the wealthy and the educated and those who are not, she said.
“I think we can make a change and I want to be part of it,” she said.
– noelle.johansen@aggiemail.usu.edu