‘We transform lives.’ Former UnidosNow leader reflects on career empowering Latino families

If you ask Luz Corcuera why she’s so drawn to helping people, her explanation is quite simple.

“It’s just in my DNA I think,” the recently retired director of Southwest Florida nonprofit UnidosNow says.

It’s a common thread that’s woven through Corcuera’s career and a life spent immersed in the cultures of three diverse countries.

From her coming of age and education in Peru to practicing as a psychotherapist in Toronto, where she counseled patients working through childhood trauma, Corcuera found a life’s calling in helping people overcome barriers, see the value in themselves and reach their full potential.

It was a mindset that came with her when she and her husband moved to Florida in 2000. Here, she found a role at the Healthy Start Coalition of Manatee County providing services to new mothers and newborns. She later worked as community health director for the Department of Health in Manatee County.

All of Corcuera’s talents were put to the test in the final chapter of her career at UnidosNow, where she was selected as executive director in 2016.

Redefining UnidosNow

With a small handpicked team, Corcuera found success growing the Sarasota-Bradenton nonprofit from a run-of-the-mill summer school program into an intergenerational education empowerment engine; it even became a role model for other communities around the country.

Today, the organization’s mission is to “elevate the quality of life of the growing Hispanic/Latino community in the Manatee and Sarasota region through education, integration and civic engagement.”

Corcuera puts it another way.

“We transform lives all the time,” she says.

Corcuera and team’s new approach went beyond offering supplemental services to getting Hispanic and Latino kids and their families excited about education from a young age. Once the seed was planted, the passion often stuck through middle school, high school and on to higher education, Corcuera says. The program has also inspired many parents to go back to school themselves.

By the numbers, the organization has served over 3,000 families and helped students secure over $14 million in scholarships and grants.

Corcuera retired at end of 2022 to spend time with family and enjoy some much-needed leisure after decades spent in public service. Associate executive director Cintia Elenstar was promoted from within the organization to lead it onward.

Ahead of her retirement, Corcuera spoke with the Bradenton Herald about life and lessons learned. Here’s what she had to say.

How did you wind up in Florida?

I left Peru in the early ’80s because of the political unrest. My husband and I, and our daughter who was 4 and a half years old, immigrated to Canada. We lived in Toronto for about 16 years. Canada is an amazing place. It’s a beautiful country.

My husband was offered a transfer to Sarasota. I didn’t even know that Sarasota existed. I said, “I think you got it wrong, it’s Saratoga in New York.” And he said, “No it’s Sarasota in Florida.”

So we came with him for his job interview, and we fell in love with the weather and the beaches and everything.

It’s been 22 years that I’ve been in Sarasota-Manatee.

On the culture shock of moving to the United States:

Being here was a completely different experience.

Canada is a multicultural country. You don’t really realize that you speak English with an accent, because almost everybody does.

Nobody asks you where you’re from or anything like that. There is a ministry of multiculturalism in Canada. And in Toronto, the kids have a choice to go to weekend school to learn their mother tongue. So my kids went to Spanish school on Saturdays.

July 28 is Peruvian Independence Day. One year, a group of us went to the city hall, and they raised the Canadian flag and the Peruvian flag together and we had a celebration.

So it was very different approach to diversity, to multiculturalism. So when I moved here it was a culture shock, in so many ways.

I’ve been very fortunate. In the 20 years that I’ve been in this community, I’ve made amazing friends, I’ve been surrounded by generous people. People that really value what I do and never ask me the stereotypical questions.

On facing stereotypes and bias:

In the beginning, it was really hard to be asked questions like “Oh, I hear an accent. Where are you from?” That was very strange.

Or when my oldest daughter transferred when she was a junior from a private school in Toronto to public school at Lakewood Ranch High School.

She was the first graduating class at Lakewood Ranch High School.

And the college counselor only spoke to her, never to my husband and I.

So one day I asked, “Is there any reason that don’t you talk to us? Are we hard to understand?”

And she said, “Oh no I’m so sorry, I’m so used to the Mexican parents that don’t speak English.”

She was telling my daughter that all the advanced classes she was taking were going to be suicidal for her. That it was too much work.

But the truth is that the education was good in Canada. My daughter had taken all the classes, so the only thing that was left for her was to take all of these AP and advanced classes.

So I said, “Why don’t you let her choose and try. And if she needs help, we’ll ask for it.”

Or when my younger daughter came home from elementary school one day and had won a geography competition at the school.

And some of the kids had said, “How come you’re so smart? You’re a Mexican.”

She came home and said, “Mom, am I Mexican?” And I said, “No, where did you get this from?”

So it was really different having to deal with these things.

But in my life I’ve always made a point to ignore the noise. Ignore what’s not relevant, and just do the things that I love. I concentrated on my work.

In the beginning, I was working in maternal child health. And I just focused on my work and loved to work with moms and babies. And then I moved to community health. And then I moved to UnidosNow. It was my passion.

And I continued ignoring all the noise and the comments and national narrative about immigrants and Latinos. I said, “Let’s just do what is important today, which is empowering our next generation of leaders.”

And making sure that parents understand that investing in our kids is the best investment in our world.

So that’s how I live my life.

What excited you about the opportunity to lead UnidosNow?

One of the reasons I was attracted to say yes to UnidosNow is seeing how these kids when they come to our doors, they don’t realize how great they are.

They don’t believe they have a bright future because their parents have told them, “Well, no one in our family went to school. If you manage to graduate from high school that’s a huge accomplishment.”

And then when they start seeing their potential and they start blossoming in front of their own eyes, and they go to places that they never imagined.

That’s exactly why I joined this organization.

But also seeing the work of my own children. Seeing that they took every opportunity and they put in hard work and they really fulfilled their goals — going to undergrad and graduate school on full scholarships.

I want what my kids had for all the kids in this community.

I do believe that we all have the power to really build our life and to aspire to the highest of our dreams.

What are some of your proudest achievements with UnidosNow?

I took the leadership of UnidosNow in January 2016. Prior to that I talked to the board of directors, and one goal was to increase the size and diversity of the board and really reflect the community. At the time it was mostly men.

The second thing that I’m really proud of is my vision for UnidosNow to go beyond working with high school students.

At the time, it was mostly a standard program for high school students and college prep.

When I took the leadership of UnidosNow, it became a multi-generational program. It was important to me to honor one of the most important values in the Latino culture, which is family. We wanted to have parents and all the family members involved in the process so they can understand how vital the support of the family is.

In the beginning, we had parents who were very hesitant to support their students going far away to college.

There was one parent who said “Why would I support my kid going to Syracuse? We don’t know anything about this place, it’s cold in the winter and far away from home.”

So it requires making parents understand the value of supporting their children’s choices.

Because its a prestigious school, it offers the career that their child wants, and the scholarship was 100 times better than any local scholarship. So it was important for me to have a multi-generational approach to all of our programs.

So we could not just stay with the high school program. And it could not just be a summer program, it had to be a year-round program.

But of course UnidosNow was limited by financial resources and staff.

So my focus was on getting those resources in place. So I brought many grants, and I brought many financial resources to ensure that we could hire talented and passionate people and build a team.

Alone, I wasn’t going to accomplish what we have accomplished.

I also felt that we needed to go deeper. So that’s why we started the programs from elementary school, middle school, high school.

I’m really proud that the board supported my vision for UnidosNow. That the community embraced our vision. The more the community learned about what we were doing, the more they supported us.

When people ask me, what’s the secret sauce?

I say it’s our multi-generational component. Just working with the kids alone is not going to do it.

Other people say, “Can you explain UnidosNow in two words?” And I say, “Transform lives.” We transform lives all the time.

And the beauty today is that you see parents that are really inspired by their kids.

When a parent goes on a college tour and they see everything that happens and they get to talk to other parents who have kids in college, they start to think about their own possibilities.

They think, I’m still young, I need to go back to college. Some of the parents have become entrepreneurs. Some of the parents have switched jobs and they have gone through programs to get a nursing degree or health care training, even air conditioning. Things they never thought they could do.

So for me that is the success of our intergenerational program.

On the importance of having a mentor:

I think we all need someone in our life, an adult, who can say: “You are worth it. You can do it. You are good. You have the tools. You just to learn some of the skills that you don’t have right now.”

And that’s where the mentors play an important role in the students’ lives. Because it is the mentor who has been in this role before. They are living in a different chapter in their lives now, and they have the wisdom to do that. And they are not a parent who is nagging them. It’s an adult who inspires them and says make sure you meet all your deadlines. Because if you don’t, you dreams will be short-lived.

We all need that person in our lives that one day says: “Yes, you can do it. You should go after this.”

I think its important to have that kind of an influence on the younger generations.

Has UnidosNow inspired other programs or communities?

We’ve been invited to several conferences, and we’ve had a lot of interest from organizations that wanted to replicate our program.

This year we went to Atlanta and gave a presentation at the National College Attainment Network conference and talked about our innovative model of using our alumni as college coaches. So people are interested.

As the organization grows, my hope is that we will be able to provide those kind of consulting services for organizations that want to replicate our model. There are several already and we haven’t charged anything. Links2Success in Arcadia. We shared all of secrets with them.

It would mean that we would have to increase the size of our staff. It’s something that could happen in the future.

On what’s next for UnidosNow:

We’ve worked on our succession plan for the past year-and-a-half. The board has been very wise in promoting from within. The leadership is going to be in great hands.

But at the same time, it’s no one person. It is the entire team, the board and the staff that are going to continue to do great work. I’m very confident that UnidosNow is going to just go to new heights. I’m very happy about that. It’s a good time for me to exit and give opportunities to the next generations.

What’s exciting in our team is that we have our alumni who went through our Future Leaders Academy program. And now a couple of them are working with us, which is very important. We also have some of the college coaches that are still in college who are working with a small cohort of students. So that’s very positive, because they know the experience of being first-generation, low-income Latinos. Having to go through the maze of applying to college, adjusting to a new life, and doing really well.

For them to be able to mentor and advise these students is really key.

I think these next generations that we’ve built are just going to be awesome for the future and for UnidosNow. I’m excited about the transition.

On the divisive political climate in the U.S.:

I think if we want to be successful as a state and as a nation, this is the time to move towards reconciliation. This is not the time to foster any more division. We’ve been through enough. We’ve seen that so many lives have been lost in the process. So many people have lost their integrity, their hopes.

This is the time to recognize each other as human beings — to put our best foot forward and build the nation that we all deserve, the United States that we all learned to love.

As a kid, my first exposure to people from the U.S. was in Peru when the Peace Corps volunteers would come. Beautiful people, who took the time to spend time with us, teaching us sports and English and all kinds of things.

So my idea of the U.S. was always a group of generous, mindful, kind, gentle people. And those values have not left me. I still have hope.

And I think anybody who wants a nation that we can all be proud of needs to be in an environment where we can all work together — hold hands really tightly. And use our best talents to continue building hope for the future.

Just leave behind all this divisiveness.

Why do you think you are drawn to helping people?

I am an optimist by nature. I always had the ability to see the positives in everything. Both my parents have always been very community-oriented. I learned from them the value of giving back to the community.

I’m naturally drawn to people. To people who are willing to do the hard work. To people that can leave their fears and insecurities behind and learn that they can do as much as anybody.

For me it is natural to be in an environment where I get together with people who are like-minded. Who believe in the dignity of human beings. Who believe in the power of building hope together. And not focusing on just the negativity and the problems. Being part of the solution.

Being in a nonprofit is not a glamorous job. Sometimes you have to make the hard choices. You know that you will never be rich, but you’ll have a lot of satisfaction in your life.

It’s just in my DNA I think.

What’s next for you?

I invested so much for the past seven years in UnidosNow. It became the center of my life in so many ways. So now I’m happy to take a step back and just focus on myself, my family, my husband, my children and grandchildren. That’s all I want right now.

First, I’m going to rest. I’m going to sleep in. I won’t have my alarm set. I will just enjoy going for walks. I’m going to read all the books that I haven’t been able to read all these years. And I’m going to play with my husband, and we are going to travel together. So that’s what’s next.

People are already contacting me to serve on boards. I say no, I am not doing any volunteer work right now. It’s “me time.”

What are some things people might not know about you?

Maybe they don’t know that I love traveling. I feel that the best experiences in my life have been learned during travel.

People may not know that I’m a foodie. I love cooking. I love Pho Cali on Main Street in Sarasota. It’s a place that my husband and I like to go very often. And Vietnam is on my list to visit, that’s for sure.

Something that made a big impact was my time in Canada. I tried all of this multicultural food. It was amazing. So my husband and I always try different things and new things now, because we love eating.

Discovering that Peru is one of the best cuisines in the world was exciting. The new generation of chefs are using the indigenous element. When I go to Peru, I really value those ingredients that are not available elsewhere that I’ve never seen in my life.

I think Peru is a place that everybody needs to visit once in their lifetime.

Any final thoughts?

I am so grateful to every single person that has embraced me as a member of this community for the past 22 years. I am grateful to the UnidosNow board and the outstanding team we have. The friends and financial supporters who believe in our mission.

I always have the hope that we will continue working together to make sure that the most vulnerable in the community are given an opportunity.

This story was originally published February 15, 2023 at 7:00 AM.