Abstract
This oral history interview with Rey Arturo Esparza-Álvarez, conducted on June 19, 2025, documents his life journey from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, to Cleveland, Ohio, and his leadership role as President of Comité Mexicano de Cleveland. Esparza discusses his birth in 1975 in a low-income community, his educational experiences moving between Mexican and U.S. school systems, and his path from electrical engineering studies to a career in computer science software engineering. He details his 2011 relocation to Cleveland to work for Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems and describes the founding and growth of Comité Mexicano de Cleveland, which began in 2016 as a community group and became a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2020. The interview covers the organization's cultural programming including Mexican Independence Day celebrations and Día del Niño events, its collaboration with the Mexican Consulate in Detroit, and efforts to preserve the history of Club Azteca. Esparza reflects on the characteristics of the Mexican and Mexican-American communities in Northeast Ohio, challenges in building connections across regional communities in Lorain and Painesville, and the impact of contemporary immigration policies on Mexican communities. He also discusses his entrepreneurial ventures including Revy Fair Trade and his work promoting fair trade artisan products from Mexico and other countries.
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Interviewee
Esparza, Rey (interviewee)
Interviewer
Martínez Abeijón, Matías (interviewer); Souther, Mark (facilitator)
Project
Voces de Cleveland
Date
6-19-2025
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
165 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Rey Esparza interview, 19 June 2025" (2025). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 641002.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1400
Transcript
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:00:04] Today’s date is Thursday, June 19, 2025. My name is Matías Martínez Abeijón with the Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection at Cleveland State University. My colleague Mark Souther will be the facilitator for this interview. Today we will be interviewing Rey Esparza, President of the Comité Mexicano de Cleveland. Thank you so much for meeting with us, Rey.
Rey Esparza [00:00:25] Thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure being here with you guys and sharing a little bit of my history and my background and how I got here to Cleveland.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:00:34] Rey, where and when were you born?
Rey Esparza [00:00:38] I was born the precious city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, and I was born- The birth date is … 1975.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:00:51] For the record, could you state and spell your name for us?
Rey Esparza [00:00:54] Yes, my full name is Rey Arturo Esparza-Álvarez. First names, R-E-Y A-R-T-U-R-O. Last names, E-S-P-A-R-Z-A A-L-V-A-R-E-Z.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:01:12] Thank you. Can you please tell us a little bit about your family’s background?
Rey Esparza [00:01:17] Okay, family background. So going back all the way to 1975 from conversations or talks, you know, with the family, I can recall that I come from a low-income family. That for sure, I can assure that. So my family and my mother and my dad, both of them are from the city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and I was born in a low-income community in Ciudad Juárez. Our income was low. That, I can say, that probably this room right here, it’s probably about the size of where our living space was. I was not even born in a hospital actually, I was born in that room by a, what they called back then a partera. So I forgot the word in English. I’ll see if I can remember right now.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:02:21] A “partera” is a woman that helps you do labor [inaudible] that helps you deliver or midwife.
Rey Esparza [00:02:30] Midwife, exactly. That’s the word I was looking for. Yes. Yeah, so actually my parents, when I was born it was with the help of a midwife, you know like I said probably it’s about 10 by 15 room from there on I can recall that it was even with my grandparents’ house that we were sharing this room. My parents were sharing this room with them. My mom, her name is Magdalena Esparza and, well, Magdalena Álvarez de Esparza after she got married. My dad’s name is Arturo Esparza Castro and after that moment, I believe how they say it, I was, you know, like their beginning on a different view of the world. They had to take a little bit more responsibility. So my parents tell me that actually my dad didn’t want it to take responsibility. Not that he didn’t recognize me as his son, but it was like not supporting the family. So it was the classical person in the barrio who, at the corner just hanging around, you know, just waiting for friends or see what does the day has for them. But what my grandparents tell me it, my grandparents from my mom’s side is the one that, you know, almost forced them, like they say, gunpoint almost to, you know, you have to be more responsible, have to take care now of this family. So that’s what I recall they told me. And that’s how they started their family. My dad started looking for a job actually once my mom was able, she actually also contributed. Since then she had a job in a maquiladora in Ciudad Juárez. And both of them started from there on their journey as parents.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:04:48] Very good. Where did you go to school?
Rey Esparza [00:04:55] So part of the story here, it’s, I feel it’s kind of interesting. Why? Because actually my dad, he was born- He was son of a U.S. citizen, but we were in Ciudad Juárez. And my grandmother, Manuela, she was a Mexican citizen, but there were some conflicts in there. I believe in this is why and probably how earlier generations think. You know, she didn’t want to move to the U.S. She didn’t care about having U.S. citizenship or residency or nothing like that. So she stayed in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico. He, of course, he was from the U.S. He stayed in El Paso. My dad lived with her. So, going back to your original question, there was some turbulence as I was growing up and going to primaria, how they say over there in elementary school, how they say here? Because I started going to elementary school, primaria, in Ciudad Juárez. So I was there first grade, second grade. Second grade, we moved to El Paso, Texas, because my dad started a process such that he could get recognized from his dad as a U.S. citizen going through court and hopefully getting the U.S. citizenship that he deserved. After a year or two years later, the courts determined that no. Why? Because there was a misstatement that was provided by her mom, my grandma. So they denied the U.S. citizenship. And now we go back to Ciudad Juárez and I finish my primaria over there, which is third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade, in Mexico. So, before I forget, I wanted to add a little bit of dialect of what I can recall as I moved into the U.S. for the first time and being at a elementary school for the first time in the United States. It was way different compared to school in Mexico. Because in Mexico they only have, I believe it’s 3, 4 hour, two cycles during the day. So there’s “matutino,” which is in the morning, students going in the morning, and “vespertino,” which it’s going in the afternoon. So usually I would go in the afternoon, which is around from 2 to 6 PM, around 4 hours, which in the United States you go starting in the morning all the way to like 2, 3 PM so that was different. That was a different schedule. Of course, I didn’t know any English when I moved into this school, right? So because of that, and I could not communicate well, I was moved from second grade back to first grade as I came into the United States. Of course, there was bullying. I saw all the things that I had to see regarding bullying because I didn’t speak, my color, everything, you name it. And I was fortunate that I had a cousin that was living in El Paso, Texas. He was born in El Paso, Texas, he grew up in El Paso, Texas. So he was going to the same school as I was. He was about my age, so he was in the same grades. And he took care of me. And I’m happy for that because one of the guys who was bullying me, taking my money away, or the little money that I would get for lunch, or taking my lunch away or push me around, my cousin, he was well known and respected at school. Because if this guy was a bully, my cousin was the bully of the bullies. He was known at school. He was known the area where we grew up, which in downtown El Paso, it’s called Segundo Barrio. And he was, we can say, one of the head of the gangs there in Segundo Barrio. So that’s why he was respected. And once this guy knew that he was my cousin, he completely stayed away. And since then I did not have any troubles at school. No one would even try to touch me. So for that story, I’m grateful. Which I see it sometimes in movies and it does really happen in the bathroom. That’s, that’s where this encounter one time that he was pushing me around, my cousin saw him and he just jumped in front of him and pushed him back and told him, you know, don’t mess with him, he’s my cousin. So if you do something to him, you’re gonna get, you’re gonna see me. So since then that stopped and I was able to walk free at school.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:10:08] Very good. You mentioned that you started in school in Mexico, then you came to El Paso, then you had to go back to Mexico. What about high school?
Rey Esparza [00:10:18] High school after finishing elementary school or primaria in Mexico. How is known which is up to sixth grade. Then that’s another part of the story where my parent. My dad is involved because as I said, my, my dad started, you know, taking care of his family. By that, by 6th grade, I had- We had already- I had a brother, so they had another son. So now we were living at our own house. But he had already been working in El Paso, crossing the border every single day, which back then it was no issue. He knew across the border all across El Paso, at least downtown El Paso, as far as he can go. He could cross through any- There were several spots that he knew where to go through where he would come out in downtown El Paso. Downtown, yeah, main streets. He knew when was the shift change of immigration officers. So that was a bigger window of time to cross the border. And by, like I said, by that time he was already working constantly. He had a job in, you know, El Paso, in construction. So, after sixth grade it was already in the ’80s. And that’s where the amnesty program came into effect. Through that amnesty program, my [inaudible], my dad’s boss, he submitted the application. He worked with my dad such that he can get his residency. So that made it a lot easier for him. A couple years before that they passed another, I guess it was, yeah, I’m thinking it’s a law in pair with that amnesty where if you had amnesty, you could bring your immediate spouse or significant other to request for her to bring her to the United States. A year later or so, there was another amendment done to it that now you could bring your whole family into the United States. So it was first the person working, immediate family or spouse, significant other, and then your family, if you had any children. So that’s when I came into the United States. That was after finishing. Actually I could have gone to coming to United States through that program when I was in sixth grade. But my parents said no, go ahead and finish sixth grade in Mexico and then we can do the process such that it can move to the United States after finishing elementary school. So I started again back in El Paso in school at the beginning of seventh grade, which is middle school. From, I finished middle school. It was Wiggs Middle School in El Paso, Texas. I think I kept some of my English from the first time that I was in school. It wasn’t as hard, but still, you know, just getting used to again to how the school system is here in the United States. And now in middle school, you- I was, you know, it was something again, new to me that you jumped from one classroom to the other. That was- I was lost. I was. Why are we doing this? Because in Mexico, even the secundaria, which is after primaria, the professors are the ones [who] go into your classroom. It’s the other way around. But here, no, you’re jumping around periods, you know, for the different topics. So I had to get used to that. After that, you know, I went to El Paso High School, which- That’s where I finished my four years of high school. In high school, I was, you know, already I was, I guess, now accustomed to the school system. I already had friends from coming over from middle school. I actually played sports in high school. I played tennis and baseball in high school. I got my letterman jacket. We can say I was not hiding under the rocks, but I was also not the most popular student in there. I kept my grades up because that was something that my dad would always push into me because he didn’t want me to be working his area, which is construction, even though later on he was able to start his own company. So. But he wanted me to study to such that I wouldn’t be doing hard labor. We can say it that way. So I always kept my grades up. Actually, my GPA, I didn’t make it to the top 10, but I was top 20. When I graduated from high school, I think my GPA was 3.9- 98, 99, something, which was decimals that, you know, threw me from top 10 to lower top 10. So with that, finished high school. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was gonna do after high school because I’m first in family with my parents, so I’m the oldest. I don’t- When we moved again to El Paso, it was a similar situation as me and my wife moved here to Cleveland because we didn’t know anyone besides his boss in El Paso. I had no- I had my cousin here, but he never went for a higher education. And those- That was the only cousin that I knew. And I think by that time they had moved out to Denver. So I was like I knew no one after high school. Just friends that I made some good friends that I made in high school. But regarding college, universities, I was blank. I didn’t know, you know, how, how to apply, how to get funding. Nothing, nothing related to that. Good thing, like I said, I played baseball. I was pitcher, so I needed to have a good relationship with the catcher. So Alex de la Cruz, who was the catcher and friend of mine, friend of me and my wife, later, he’s the one that, because I talked to him and I told him, you know what? Because he asked me what university are you gonna go to? Have you applied to the university? So I’m like what are you talking about I don’t know how to apply, I don’t know, I’m not gonna be able to play to pay for that. You know, my dad makes good money now, better than before, but he’s, he cannot pay for university. So what I was thinking is going to a two-year technical school where I can get a degree or certification as mechanic, as electrician or something like that, goes no, you can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that, you’re too smart, you should be going to the university. And he’s like I’ll help you. So he took me, he worked with me, he showed me how to fill out the or how to go get the application. Fill it out. Applied for financial aid and I was glad that I did qualify for financial aid, the Pell grant that is offered by universities. So thanks to him I can say I went to the university. I went to UTEP, University of Texas in El Paso, and he went to a different university. I came into the university, again. None of my friends from high school were at the university at UTEP. We all scattered. So university was a different story. So I studied, I went in, started my basics with the idea of becoming an electrical engineer as I went to university. Why electrical engineer? This is part of a journey, history, memory that I have when I was in elementary, you know, they do field trips or middle school they also do field trips, but I believe this one was [inaudible] when I was still in elementary school. They did a field trip to Bowie High School in El Paso, and, as we were there, they already had a laboratory in which they were working with computers. And I like computers. Since then I fell in love with computers at that point, what they would do, what you could do. So when we finished that tour at Bowie High School, I was like I want to work with computers. I didn’t know what I was going to do with computers, but I want to work with computers. So when I went and checked the degrees they offered at UTEP. I was like I want to go into computer engineering. Which computer engineering was derived was from electrical engineering. So your core degree was electrical engineering, computer option. So that’s how they had it at UTEP. So that’s why I went into electrical engineering with the idea of going into this computer option. At first I thought I was going to be fixing computers which it Turns out I was not going to be fixing just computers. It was electrical engineering. It’s a lot of electronics, devices that you could design and work with, right? So I went and started my school. Like I said, I already had the funding that way to go to school. After, my parents were so glad, you know, they were also happy because it was, I’m the oldest going to university, something that probably they never thought one of the kids would be doing. Actually my dad took out a new car and told me, here, this is for you so you can go to school. So I was happy with that, of course. Now I had transportation. So I started my journey going to school as an electrical engineer. The first year that I go into university, here comes the news that I’m going to be a father. So people believe that going to university, it’s hard. Try going to university as a father and working two part-times. And there was one year that I had a full-time and two part-times working in university and going full-time to the university. Of course, that year it was terrible. Too much stress. So I just dropped, I had to drop one of the part-times because if not I was gonna probably not do great on my schools, on my classes and probably lose my Pell grant, my funding for it to continue going to school, which following semesters I did. I was about to lose it, but unfortunately I was able to stick around, do better in my classes and continue getting that support from Pell grants. Later on, after three years of being in electrical engineering, towards my last year, actually because of my load, electrical engineering, the curriculum, is designed such that you go four years. But those four years you’re talking 18, 20 hours credits. So that’s like four or five classes every semester. That was too much. So I took it down to 12, 14, which is still full-time instead of the 18, 20 hours. So because I took that strategy, actually my career was gonna be five years instead of four. So in my last year I started taking some programming classes. Microcomputer. Yeah, microcomputer, which basically I started doing some - I forgot this - assembler language and then I did some C language, which now these classes were targeted towards my computer option degree. [inaudible] that I usually say is I didn’t hate electrical engineering, I liked electrical engineering. But you know when you have those labs and you go and you start doing this RC resistance capacitor circuits and other amplifying circuits and everything, I would get bored in those laboratories. I would get bored. I would go into the lab, start building the circuit. It’s not that I wouldn’t do the work. I would do it. I would still- But for some reason it was like, aw, shoot, it’s just half hour, still have to go, stay here for another two hours. So what am I gonna be doing? And you know, I would continue working circuit. For some reason I got bored. On the contrary, when I took those programming classes, C language, assembler, it was totally different. I could be there, start programming, whatever the lab was. And to me it seemed like I was there for half an hour. Look, I’ve been here for two hours. So, you know, that’s when someone asked me why the career? It’s like what career should I choose, where should I go? It’s gonna all fall on what you love doing. Same thing with your work. If you want to do something because of money and you don’t like it, you’re going to suffer. If you do it because you like it, you enjoy it. Time’s gonna fly. So where I’m going is after those classes I changed careers. I went from electrical engineering to computer science and that caused, you know, delay graduating because now they revalidated of course all the basics were covered and maybe a couple classes that I had taken like the microcontrollers and the C class, which is a C language course, a couple of them were considered by the computer science department. But still I was about two years short of other classes. So instead of graduating in four or five years, I graduated like in six, seven years, down the road. So I ended up graduating in computer science. And I was fortunate enough that my last year when I was working on my senior project, about to graduate. You know, you make friends. I was really good friends with this girl named Flor, and she was already working with a company named Stoneridge Electronics in Mexico. She was a co-op. Turns out that last year she had gotten married. Her husband was being relocated to, I believe, Dallas, Texas. So, she was leaving that opening as a co-op and they asked her, is there someone you can recommend? So she looked to me and that’s how I got my first job as engineer. Actually, she was doing a co-op as electrical engineer. Since I had the background in electrical engineering. He said, she asked me, do you want me to recommend you? I go, yes, of course. So that’s how that was my transition to my first job as engineer with Stoneridge Electronics. Thanks to her as well.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:26:58] Good. If I might ask, you mentioned that baseball was key to your high school. Were you able to also play baseball in college or it was something just for high school?
Rey Esparza [00:27:12] I asked UTEP. I researched to see if they offered a baseball, if they had a baseball team. They didn’t. But I didn’t stop there. Actually, in college, the university, I didn’t play baseball, but I was playing racquetball. I started playing racquetball and I got to a point that I was playing B level and I started going to tournaments. After I graduated from, from, got my degree and graduated from UTEP, I actually went back and I was playing in a team in Mexico, in Juárez. The reason is going back to Stoneridge because once I graduated, I was already working as a co-op there, and they gave me the opportunity to continue working there. And actually to that story is they knew by the time I graduated, they knew that I was not getting a degree in electrical engineering, that I’m doing computer science. And even year before that they asked me they needed support, the software department needed support and doing validating software, testing the product. So since I’m a co-op, you know, they move you around to different places. They asked me, would you help us? So I started, actually, I started my software career doing some testing on software, on products. So by the time I graduated, they really liked how I worked with, you know, testing. And the opportunity gave me at the software department, the software department wanted me was trying to pull me into their department and, again, the manager from the electrical department, he was really good, I guess he called me into the office and he told me, you know what? We’re gonna have two openings in the engineering department. We’re going to have one as a junior engineer in the electrical department. And we’re going to have one in the software department. And he asked me if you want to go to the software department, that’s fine. I would’t put any hurdles. I won’t try to retain you. It’s your choice. But I do want to say you’ve been doing a good job here in the electrical department. We would like to have you stay here in the electrical department, but it’s up to you. If you want to move to the software department, that’s your choice. So, I ended up choosing for the software department. So, in that company, after I was really working there for probably two years, in Mexico, in the maquiladoras, there’s an association. That association does some activities. They do intramural activities and they have teams competing with other maquiladoras, factories in Mexico. So Stoneridge had a baseball team. Yeah, they had a baseball team, and I started playing with them. And the guy who was in charge of the baseball team within the company, he put me, you know, at first, like the new kid, “Okay, you’re gonna go play left field.” Right? So I started playing left field. And then once he saw that I could throw from the field all the way to home, it’s like, “Have you pitched before?” And I go, “Yes, I have.” “You want to try it?” “You know, it’s been a while since I pitched, so I’ll need to warm up really good and give it a try a couple times.” Goes, “Okay, yeah, no problem.” So since then, I started pitching with them. But then he was also had a team outside the maquiladora. It wasn’t like the top teams, but it was a team that would go out to compete with other cities across Chihuahua. One of the teams that we, that I got to go play against was in Parral, Chihuahua, which I was the opening pitcher. And actually we won that game. So. So, yes, I continued my journey as baseball. Later on in El Paso, I couldn’t get into a baseball team, but I saw my dad once. He had his company, he was invited to or he invited me to a picnic with his fellow workers. And they were gonna get together and they were re gonna play slow pitch fastball. And he invited me and I’m like, of course, slow pitch, I can hit that ball easy. If I can hit 80, 90 mile-per-hour baseball, why not a slow pitch? I’m like, I’ll give it a try. So I went with him. My first experience batting as slow pitch, I strike out. It’s a different strategy, you know, patience and the, I guess eye and hand movement, they need to be synchronized in order to hit that ball forward. But, again, what they liked about me was my arm because even I was playing outfield. Again, from outfield, even softball, I could make a nice, nice line throw to home plate and to second base, and I stopped many people from stealing second base, you know. So the guy who was organizing the picnic, he had a team, a softball team. And they played Thursdays. Yeah, I think it was Thursdays and Sundays. And he invited me to play on Sundays. Since then, I played with them. There was another guy who saw me play or was in the team, and he made his own team and he invited me to play. And for years I played travel, which we played in tournaments in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Slow pitch. And we won a couple championships. So.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:33:34] Congratulations. If I might ask, how do you end up living in Cleveland?
Rey Esparza [00:33:39] Okay, so going back to that. So in 2008, 2009, if you recall, violence in Ciudad Juárez rose tremendously, right? My city started becoming a ghost town. Many businesses were moving to El Paso, Texas. Many restaurants were closing in Juárez, but they were opening in the U.S. There was a big demand for housing in El Paso. Many, many businesses were closing down in Juárez and opening across the border. By then, funny thing is, also, I was working in Ciudad Juárez. I would cross the border every day back to Juárez to work with Stoneridge Electronics, which sometimes I see it as a funny story or the irony of life. Why? Because my dad, when he started working, he would cross the border from Juárez to El Paso every single day to go to work. Now, me, with a degree as an engineer, I had to cross the border the other way around. I had to cross from El Paso to Juárez every single day to get to work. So sometimes I reflect, and then I’m like, what an irony, you know? So when that happened, that was not the only reason but at that time, I was- There was also a recession. They froze salaries in the company that I was working for. There were, several people were laid off. So there was tension. So after that recession, when things started to be back to normal, so like I said, the company had frozen salaries. So I’m like, okay, we’re out of the hole, maybe, so next evaluation, whoa, we might get a good raise. To my surprise, we didn’t. It was just normal or even not so good of a raise. So that’s when I said, you know what? I’m gonna start looking. So I worked on updating my résumé, put it out there. A couple months later, nothing. Nothing came up. During that time, I also asked for a raise. Of course, no, nothing. So I’m like, what’s going on with my résumé? You know, I have this experience. I’ve already been working with this company ten years. So I went online and I searched for my position, and I searched for résumés of people who might be applying for my position, and I got some hits. I started looking at some of the résumés. I’m like, okay, I know how to do that. I know how to do that. And I would look at my résumé. It’s not here. Those words, what, what they describe, I have it here. But I didn’t have the same words. So the key there was words I was not using, the keywords that usually even at that point, you know, they get filtered by automatic programs that they look at résumés. So I didn’t have the keywords in my résumé that others had. So at that point I updated my résumé, added some of those keywords, changed phrases, added some of the other things that I saw here that I didn’t have on mine. Boom. After that, a week later, a call, an email, a call, an email. I was flooded with emails, I was flooded with calls. I got interviews, like three, four interviews every week, like for about a month from there on. After a month I got second interviews with about six companies from there. The next week I received four invitations to come on site to for an in-person interview. So one of them was Bendix Commercial Ecosystems, Continental in Detroit, and the other one was, the one that I confirmed, was another company in Fargo, North Dakota. This one was not a company- I think it was more of a software solutions company that, you know, they offer their services to other companies. I don’t remember the name of that one. The reason is that I, on the same week I planned it, and my colleagues in Stoneridge don’t know, but I set up vacation, three days of vacation. I set up my interview in Detroit with Continental on a Monday. So I flew out Sunday, went to interview on Monday, went back home that evening, next day, Tuesday, fly to Cleveland and then interviewed on Wednesday, then Wednesday fly back home. Thursday I’m back at work. So my interview with Continental went awesome. They were looking for a computer embedded software engineer that would do what we call the application level. So I got interviewed by them. During the interview they asked me different questions. Basically what we have, the other layer is low-level software development. Which I also had the experience. So it turns out during that interview they called the manager of the department that does the low-level software and both of them interviewed me. At the end of that interview, basically I was told we have two positions. Which one would you select? So my answer was, well, you’ve seen and you heard my experience. As you know, I can work in either, either of the two departments. Either of the two software levels. Where do you need the most help? That’s where I can, I can work for you. So as I was coming out from that interview, I already knew I was gonna get an offer. I came into Bendix and I was interviewed the whole day. I was in an interview with the manager of the software department and some of the other colleagues from the ADAS department. So from that one I wasn’t so sure as I left the company if I was going to get an offer. But I was, as I was driving to the airport to drop off the vehicle, I got a call from the software manager, Ron Stahl and he’s like, “Hey, I forgot to ask you something. Do you mind if I make that question now?” I go, “Yeah, that’s fine, go ahead.” And he’s like, “Are you allowed to work in the United States? Are you legal? Are you a citizen able to work in the United States?” And I go, “Yes, I’m a U.S. citizen.” By then I was already a U.S. citizen. So he’s like, “Okay, that’s all I needed to know.” after he hanged up, I’m like, I’m gonna get an offer from them. So yes, then that the following week I was gonna interview in Fargo, North Dakota. But since I already had, I was pretty sure I was gonna get those two offers. I just called the third company, told them, besides, it’s cold over there too snowy. More than here. So I was like, you know what? I called them and I told them the situation. And you know, I’m going to probably accept one of those offers. So I don’t want to waste your time with the in-person interview. Waste some of that money that- Because they pay for everything. So I’m just not gonna go to your in-person interview. So that’s how I ended up at the end, I accepted Bendix because I saw it’s a smaller company. And my idea was that, you know, Continental is such a huge company, you’re more, more- Not that most companies, you know, they treat you as a number, but since Continental, it’s a bigger company, it’s more like a number. And since we’re coming out of a recession, I’m like, what if this happens again? I’m probably gonna be one of the first ones to go at Continental. Bendix was smaller. It was, I don’t know, it gave me the impression that it was more, more company willing to work with its employees. So that’s why that was one of the reasons why I chose Bendix and moved over here to Cleveland. That’s how I ended up in Cleveland.
Matías Martínez Abeijón [00:42:51] Thank you very much. Besides your work as an engineer with Bendix, it is my understanding that you have opened and been involved with many business in the community over time. Like with Fruti, La Estrellita Hispana, Revy Fair Trade. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to get into this business? How do you do the transition from engineering to
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