In 2010, at the age of 24, I became the youngest person to hold a management position at a Grand Rapids non-profit organization and was given the position as Director of Language Services. This position has long been looked at as one of the most stressful positions within the organization because it is the revenue-generating branch that helps the Center keep its doors open.

“You are the director?

I thought you would be older”

As I started my career, I quickly learned that my age would was seen as a rarity within my field. I found myself receiving many comments and questions about my age such as:“You are the director?I thought you would be older” My age also proved to be a topic of conversation in national conferences,  business meetings, and networking events. Apparently, a young Latino in a management position was something uncommon, unusual, uncharacteristic, or simply… rare.

As eager as I was to prove everyone wrong, I first had to take a very long look at myself and my new-found position in order to best create a success plan. I knew my job was going to be tough because the department I was assigned to lead was not doing well and the CEO was counting on me to help restructure the department into being a successful part of the organization. I will always remember the words of my boss and CEO when she hired me; as I accepted the position, she said: “Sal, we need you to put together a team and we need the language services department to be successful; but first, build your team.”

The first 12 months of my career were spent doing exactly that, building a team around me. I created relationships, hired employees, networked with Latino professionals and businesses in Grand Rapids, and reached out to various organizations in search of feedback. I will forever remember my first conversation with my boss and I thank her for giving a young, college student, with little management experience, a chance to revive a department that was nearly given up for dead.

In order to better understand my passion for working with the Hispanic community, I must first provide a little background on where I come from and how I came to be where I am. The following childhood story is a simple but important part of how I came to be who I am today.

When I was a third grader in Natividad Elementary in Salinas, California, my teacher asked me and my fellow classmates to write and draw about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Most kids dream and write about becoming police officers, doctors, teachers or professional athletes. I wrote about being a part of a selected group that worked under the sun every day in extremely difficult working conditions; I wrote about becoming a strawberry picker. After all, my grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and older cousins were all part of this humble group of brown people, so why not me?

“My heroes were out in the fields, picking strawberries to feed their families, making just enough money to live to fight another day.”

My hometown was different than most towns or mid-size cities in Michigan because Salinas is well known for its agriculture and is commonly referred to as the Salad Bowl of the world . The smell of rich, green lettuce and red, freshly picked strawberries could be smelled from the low-income apartment complex where I grew up. My parents could not afford cable television; therefore having a fictional hero was out of the question. After playing cops and robbers with my friends outside of the projects, I would sit by a broken down fence and watch over the great Salinas agriculture fields where beautiful brown people worked long hours under the California rays. My heroes were out in the fields, picking strawberries to feed their families, making just enough money to live to fight another day.

By Salvador Lopez