Spring 2011 Issue - Lehman College

There’s No Place Like Home:
Angel Hernandez ‘09
Helps Keep Bronx History Alive
It was homesickness that first sparked Angel Hernandez’s (B.A.,
‘09) interest in the history of the Bronx, and that interest quickly
grew into a passion that has never left him. As the education
coordinator for the Bronx Historical Society, he is now helping to
introduce others to the little-known history of the borough.
Hernandez’s family moved from the Bronx to San Diego when he
was a child, but he missed his hometown so much that he spent
hours in the local library, reading about the Bronx. From Jordan
L. Mott’s (Mott Haven) invention of the modern stove to Leonard
Jerome’s (Jerome Avenue) status as the grandfather of Winston
Churchill, Hernandez was obsessed with learning more and more
about the borough’s history.
“These were some of the facts I learned as a kid that made me go
‘wow’,” says Hernandez, whose family moved back to the borough
when he was twelve, settling in the Soundview section.
When Hernandez enrolled in Lehman, his interest in the study of
people and data drew him to sociology, but a course with Bronx
Historian Lloyd Ultan on the history of the Bronx set him on his
current career path. “Not only is Angel intelligent, but he has the
passion,” says Professor Ultan. “And because he has the passion,
he has the impulse to find out information on his own, rather than
just taking received material.”
First appointed as Bronx Historian in
1996, Professor Ultan has authored
nine books and thousands of articles
on the history of the borough—his most
recent book is The Northern Borough:
The History of the Bronx (Bronx County
Historical Society, 2009). He was happy
to take Hernandez under his wing, and
the two quickly developed a strong
rapport.
Hernandez offered to help his professor
with his research and eventually
Angel Hernandez
began volunteering at the Bronx Historical Society a few
days a week. There, he worked on atlases, moved books, and
performed any task needed of him. Professor Ultan suggested
that Hernandez apply for the Society’s Peer Educator program,
which he did. When the position opened up, Hernandez was
thrilled that he was selected. As an educator, he leads walking
and historic house tours, maintains the Society’s website, and
oversees some marketing efforts.
His most recent project is the Bronx Latino History project.
“The mission is to highlight all Bronx Latinos who lived in
the borough or made Bronx history, going back as far as the
late eighteenth century,” Hernandez explains. The project will
include exhibitions, publications, walking tours, and talks.
Lehman Opened up a Whole New Career for
María Caba ‘95 as a College Professor
Professor María Caba owes her career to Lehman College, literally.
She arrived in the Bronx from her native Dominican Republic in
1989 and enrolled at Lehman two years later. She had a simple
goal in mind: improving her English. “I could read and write a little,
so I thought I’d take some English courses,” she says.
But after taking a few classes, she was encouraged by her professors
to think about getting her undergraduate degree, which she
did, earning a B.A. in languages and literatures, specializing in
Spanish, in 1995. In particular, she cites Professor Xavier Totti,
who directed Lehman’s bilingual program at the time—he’s now a
faculty member in the Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies
Department—for pushing her to dream big. “I remember he asked
me, ‘When are you going to go to grad school?’ I had never even
thought of it,” she recalls.
Professor Caba told her teachers that she did not have the funds
to pursue a graduate degree. “It was Professor [Gary] Schwartz
who told me that I could apply to grad school, and they offer you
money,” she says.
30 Lehman Today/Spring 2011
Which is exactly what happened, helping her to
eventually earn her M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton
University in Spanish literature. She is currently
an assistant professor of Spanish in the Languages
and Literatures Department at Pfeiffer
University in North Carolina.
María Caba
“I always look back at my time at Lehman and
remember that I went there to get more comfortable with the
English language, and I ended up getting a whole new career,” she
says. “I’ve had the opportunity to have a whole new life.”
Now, she is in the midst of pursuing a second career: fiction writer.
She recently published a short story, “Sortilegio” (which translates
to “spell” or “charm”), in a Spanish-language journal and returned
to Lehman this spring to give a reading of her new short work of
fiction: “RD or How Grey Hair is Not Always a Sign of Wisdom.”
“I’ve always written,” she says, “but now I think I’d like to pursue it
more. It’s a lot of fun.”