Interview with Doris Ruiz, September 2005

Ms. Doris Osiris Ruiz (b. March 7, 1958), President of the Latino Civic Association, Staten Island and Spanish Regents teacher at Monsignor Farrell High School, is of Cuban descent. Her mother and father left a family farm in Cuba to immigrate to the United States in 1957 to pursue economic opportunities. They settled with other Cuban families in the Western part of Newark, New Jersey and both worked in factories. This first-half of the interview chronicles the upbringing of Doris, her education in Puerto Rico, her marriage to Mr. Martinez (of Spanish descent), her move to Staten Island in 1978 (first Dongon Hills, then Huguenot) and her work for the Board of Education and subsequently Monsignor Farrell High School. The second half of the interview explores her activism since 1994 in the Latino Civic Association which represents 65,000 documented and 12,000 undocumented Latinos on Staten Island, with 1,000 members drawn from 22 cultures. Doris discusses the promotion of the art, theater and music of Hispanic Heritage, Spanish-speaking religious groups (including the International Christian Center) and her association’s interactions with needy children, politicians and the police. She graphically describes the consequences of the influx in 1998 of a large population of Mexican Immigrant Day laborers, not least the need for more low-cost housing. The interview concludes by reflecting on her relationship to her parents and relatives still in Cuba, her son’s activism in the Cuban Association in Cornell University and the similarities and differences between being Cuban in New York, New Jersey and Miami.