FORMER BROWNTOWN MIGRANT RENE ROSENBAUM NABS ST. EDWARD'S UNIVERSITY'S DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD

By Juan Montoya

When I transferred from Garden Park Elementary to Cromack I was in the fourth grade.
At the time, Garden Park, like Palm Grove, was considered the poor cousin of city schools. The rooms were old military barracks converted to classrooms. The bathrooms were serviced by a septic tank, a dark green spot of grass in the middle of the schoolyard.
At the new school I met some students that I would see on and off in the years to come. Brownsville was a little town then. However, a few names do stick in my mind. The school at the time had Mr. Benavides as principal and Mr. Alvarado as coach. As in any new classroom, you soon found out who the competition was. One of those was Rene Rosenbaum, a kid who lived across 30th street on Carolina St. Another was Tony Rocha Jr. (La Peca's son). Still others were Alfonso Gutierrez, Sergio De Leon, Raul Salinas, and Tommy Medina.
I can't even remember the girls because usually the guys can't compete against them.
But the reason I remember Rene and Tony was because after we reached the sixth grade we all expected to attend Faulk Middle School and looked forward to an adolescence filled with adventure and (we hoped) girlfriends.
However, as we were all migrant students, when we were supposed to go to the seventh grade we were placed in the BISD Migrant School, now Castañeda Elementary. The classrooms were barracks again, only this time they were fenced off from the outside by an eight-foot chain link fence topped off with three strands of barbed wire.
Ruben Gallegos Sr. was the first principal there, replaced later by Lee Garza Sr.
A sign with the school's name was decorated with a silhouette of a farmworker hauling a hamper of some crop on his left shoulder.
Just as we were segregated from the rest of the school district, our classes ran from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday to make up for our early departure during the school year and our late arrival in Brownsville in late October.
Why do I remember this? Because it would be difficult to think of a more inauspicious beginning for a scholar to emerge. We have been blessed. Tony Rocha Jr. went on to become a CPA and an accountant withe IRS. Rene, who was lethal in math, is now a PhD. in Economics and has sa teaching position at Michigan State University.
Today (Saturday), his alma mater, St. Edward's University, where he attended on a full ride, will honor him during their Homecoming Week during their 2011 Alumni Awards with a Distinguished Alumni Award.
René entered St. Edward’s in 1974 through the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP). Two-and-a-half years later, he graduated in 1976 with a BA in Economics.
He also earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Notre Dame in 1985.
He is is an Associate Professor in Community and Economic Development in the Department of Community Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies at Michigan State University (MSU). His teaching, research, and outreach interests are in labor economics, community economic development, farm labor markets, farm worker health and early childhood education studies, and Latino and other minority economic issues.
René teaches and lectures at the undergraduate and graduate levels on the theory and practice of community and economic development and on economic issues and the Latino community in the U.S.
In addition to publishing, he presents papers at state, regional, and national conferences and conducts outreach activities with public and nonprofit organizations and agencies, particularly those servicing the Hispanic and migrant and seasonal farmworker population in the state.
Rene currently serves as a reviewer of manuscripts and books submitted for publication to referred journals and publication houses, and he does consulting work with a number of federal agencies, including the Health Resources and Service Administration, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, and the Office of Head Start.
René is also a faculty program member in the MSU Chicano Latino Studies Program and the MSU Center for Latin and Caribbean Studies.
He is active in his local community through his work at St. Joseph Catholic Church, where he is a member of the Social Justice Group and serves as a Confirmation Mentor. He is married to Mary Beth Adams-Rosenbaum, from West Bend, Wis.
They live in St. Johns, Mich. with their two boys, Adam Rene Perez (age 16) and Alex Antonio (age 13).
Also to be recognized along with Rene will be the Most Reverend Wm. Michael Mulvey, STL, DD. Pope Benedict XVI named him the Bishop of the Diocese of Corpus Christi. He was installed as the eighth bishop in March 2010; Atif A. Abdulmalik, CEO of Arcapita Bank BSC, an international investment bank with offices in Manama, Atlanta, London and Singapore. He helped co-found the bank in 1996; Yasser Abdulrahman Al-Raee, director of Real Estate Investments for Arcapita Bank BSC, where he is responsible for overseeing the gulf-based real estate portfolio of investments; and Ellie Ghaznavi-Salama, who runs a Los Angeles-based company that markets and distributes seismic sensors which shut down gas and power systems during earthquakes in high-risk earthquake zones.
Rene is the kind of guys who doesn't forget his roots. When he visits Brownsville, he looks up old friends and touches base frequently.
His brother, Lucino, is a former county commissioner and his sister Yolanda operates the old family business Rosenbaum Flowers and Gifgts on Hortensia Blvd., in the heart of the Southmost barrio.
Way to go, Rene. Si se puede!