After a year of training at a military academy in Mexico, Francisco Reinosa decided to leave behind his country, the military and his mother to pursue a degree in psychology in the U.S.
It was a hard decision, but one he said he felt he had to make to give more purpose to his life.
Reinosa, a 24-year-old psychology student from Mexico City, will start working toward his degree at UCLA this fall as a third-year transfer student. By studying psychology, he hopes to give back to the Latino community by offering counseling.
After his father moved to the U.S. to seek job opportunities when he was 13 years old, Reinosa was raised by his mother, Doña Rocío Segovia.
“With what I made and (what my husband) gave us, (the children) were able to move forward,” Segovia said in Spanish.
After failing the entrance exam for the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, a public university, and unable to pay for private school, Reinosa decided to join the military. It was a way to give back to his country, pay for his education and avoid having to pursue his studies outside of Mexico, he said.
Segovia said she was worried when Reinosa joined the army because of the risks he would face fighting cartels. But Reinosa wanted to give back to the people around him through military service.
“I didn’t want to leave Mexico at first,” Reinosa said. “I joined the military to give back to my country by fighting the cartels.”
After a year of training at Heroico Colegio Militar, a military college located in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Reinosa became disillusioned with his prospects for higher education through his military service.
Reinosa said he often thought the academic curriculum at the military academy did not challenge him, and that he wasn’t learning much.
“The level of education was really bad. I was learning things I’d learned in elementary school – the names of states, the capitals,” Reinosa said.
Reinosa’s exposure to a military lifestyle that required absolute discipline and compliance with authority made him start questioning the mental processes that made his fellow cadets behave like “robots.”
“After the military, I had to do psychology,” Reinosa said. “I wanted to know what made these people think like robots, following orders and doing exactly what they were told.”
Although Segovia didn’t want her son to leave home for the U.S., she was worried about his safety in the military. She said she is proud of her son and is glad he is pursuing a career in psychology.
“I wanted him to go so that he could seize the opportunity,” she said.
Reinosa arrived in the U.S. in 2009, after his father, who was a former employee of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, obtained a Green Card for him.
When Reinosa arrived in California, he spent four years studying at Mount San Antonio College a community college in southern Los Angeles County.
During that time, he also took his first job in the U.S. as a janitor at Southern California University of Health Sciences.
“It was cleaning a school. Kind of ironic. I used to do the same kind of work in the military but what I was doing there was way better,” Reinosa said. “No one was around to tell me what to do (I appreciated) … the freedom.”
At UCLA, Reinosa said he wants to research the effects of new cultural environments on immigrants within the Latino population in Los Angeles. He plans to use this knowledge when he counsels members of the Latino community.
The large Latino population of Los Angeles is one of the main reasons Reinosa said he decided to come to UCLA. He said the large Latino community has allowed him to hold onto his heritage while studying outside of Mexico.
Dr. Richard Fierro, Reinosa’s uncle and a clinical psychologist who earned his master’s degree in social work from UCLA in 1976, is Reinosa’s primary motivation for deciding to come to UCLA.
“I am his legacy,” Reinosa said.
Fierro said he thinks some students from minority backgrounds work to earn their academic degrees for the empowerment and greater good of their communities.
“I think this includes my nephew,” Fierro said. “We want to get our degrees to give back to the community.”
Fierro, who has a private practice in Montebello in Los Angeles County, is a firm believer in the value of civic engagement, especially when it comes to the largely Latino population he serves. Fierro said he tries to make his counseling more accessible to the Latino community by charging his patients based on what they can reasonably afford.
Attracted to UCLA for its world-renowned psychology department, Reinosa said he plans to blend his American education with his Mexican roots.
“In a way, I feel like this is giving back to Mexico – helping people with therapy, counseling Latinos,” Reinosa said.