CEC co-workers remember Ernesto Santana(2)

CEC, Part 2.

Ernesto started his job in 1998 at the main campus, with the Disabled Students Programs and Services office. A few years later he was transferred to work a few miles northeast at the CEC , under the supervision of Hamman, who employed him between eight and 20 hours a week with a salary of $10 to $11 an hour.

“He did tutoring. He tutored students in whatever help they needed it, including how to set passwords, start and work computers, etc. Sometimes if the students needed another services we didn’t provide, he got them to administration or counseling,” Hamman said. “Those are the core areas he worked in.”

Hamman said despite Ernesto’s physical difficulties, he was good at his job and was treated like any regular employee. He worked along Sue, with whom he established a linguistic relationship based on her student’s needs to translate math concepts to Spanish.

“He was very good and popular. Students came back and asked for him. He was always happy and very cheerful. He was very resourceful, and had a personality people enjoyed,” Hamman said. He added between 150 and 250 students attend the CEC a week, with about a quarter of them from local high schools.

The CEC’s student population is composed of mostly immigrant students from Asia and Latin America, from Middle East countries and Africa. Hamman said half get there with little or no linguistic abilities in English or in their native tongue, in extreme comparison to others who have earned master’s and doctoral degrees before they enroll at the college. Ernesto worked with both, Hamman said.

“Between 20 to 22% have master’s and Ph.Ds,” Hamman said. “Ernesto was helpful to anybody, and he worked with them too and befriended them.”   

Lucy Gutierrez, a student whom Ernesto tutored, thanked him for "helping me with my English class. You were so patient with me."

For her part, Sue Tang said she will continue to help students earn their high school diploma and improve their math skills the way Ernesto encourage her to do the two years they were co-workers.

“I love my job, and Ernesto helped me to get better at it. I still pray for him, because I feel a lot of things he wanted to do aren’t done,” Tang said. ”Now I feel he is in a better place, but I follow my kids’ saying:  We do as Ernesto, we have no reason to say we can’t.