Worcester City Manager Eric Batista knows firsthand the challenges that many Latino students in the city face. Speaking in Fuller Theater at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Latino Education Institute on Sept. 30, Batista shared his personal story to illustrate the importance of bilingual education and the impact LEI has made in Worcester’s Latino population, which makes up 50% of the city.
Batista came to Worcester in 1990 at age 7 from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Hugo, a powerful storm that inflicted widespread damage across the Caribbean. He spoke no English and he and his family struggled to acclimate to their strange new surroundings. He attended Worcester Public Schools and benefited from bilingual education and community organizations like Centro Las Americas (now known as just Centro). Later, he worked at LEI to develop what has become the ENLACE (Encouraging Latinos to Achieve Excellence), a program for middle school Latino boys. Now in a position of leadership, Batista is drawing on his own experiences to improve services and expand opportunities for the city’s large Latino population.
“Where I came from, I was taking care of chickens and cows in the countryside of Puerto Rico, so it was a very different environment,” he said. “Our first apartment was at 40 Belmont Street, right across UMass Memorial (Hospital). And so, I came from a community of families in a countryside neighborhood to the front steps of UMass Memorial, just hearing cars whipping down Belmont Street. It was very, very different.”
The bilingual education in the Worcester Public School, Centro, and the community around it played a crucial role in supporting Batista and providing him with educational and other opportunities as he was growing up.
“I am a product of bilingual education,” he said. “My first language was not English. I only knew two words, mother and father. That was it. Everything else was in Spanish so trying to immerse myself into this community and into a new language was very difficult at the age of seven with young parents and not having family and people to really connect with here. That is the typical story of the people that we work with every single day right now in Worcester, that need help, that need the support, that need access to the education and to the resources that we provide as a community.”
After graduating from Worcester Public Schools, Batista went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MBA from Assumption College. He was hired at Worcester State by then LEI Director Mary Jo Marion (now associate vice president for University and Community Engagement).
“I remember sitting in her office and Mary Jo had this ambitious goal of creating a new program for young boys at Sullivan Middle School for students who were at the verge of dropping out, being expelled, just giving up,” Batista recalled. “We sat down and thought, ‘Okay, what do we call this program? What do we do and how do we build it?’ The program is called ENLACE, and it still functions today. So I had the opportunity to work with Mary Jo and the team there to build the (ENLACE) program and create something that was giving opportunities to the young boys in middle school.”
In December 2022, Batista was appointed city manager. He sees LEI as investing in the future leaders of the community, whether they become city councilors, teachers, business leaders, senators, mayors – or city managers.
“I want to thank all of you for being here because being here and showing up matters,” Batista said. “And so, let’s work together. Let’s figure out a way to make sure that we continue to not only celebrate, but also support our young people, our 50% of Latino population – 50%, that’s crazy. So we need to do something, and we need to do it now as a community, as a body, as administration” to continue providing opportunities and access to the Latino community.
Top photo: President Barry Maloney, LEI Director Maria Juncos-Gautier and City Manager Eric Batista at the LEI Celebration.
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LEI to celebrate 25 years of advancing academic success with Latine students and families
WORCESTER — The Latino Education Institute (LEI) of Worcester State University will celebrate its 25th anniversary on Monday, Sept. 30 with a special event highlighting its milestones in the . . .