In honor of Alisal’s 60th Anniversary, this is the 18th in an ongoing series of staff/alumni profiles.

Many people want to follow in their parents or siblings footsteps, and Juan Torres-Lopez was no exception.

He was born in Mexico, and came to the United States as a teenager. He wanted to pursue a career in finance, similar to what his older brother had pursued; however, life had different plans for him when he became a student at Alisal High. 

Torres-Lopez came to the United States for his sophomore year of high school. Due to missing credits from Mexico, he had to retake his freshman year at Alisal. Luckily, when he went back to Mexico for his brother’s wedding, he was able to get the credits for his freshman year. However, Torres was already in his junior year when he got his credits back. “My counselor said, ‘you know what you’re just going to graduate from 11th grade,’ ” Torres said.  

He took ESL (English as a Second Language), which is now known as ELD, to learn English better, as he was an English learner. During his three years in high school, Torres joined the cross country team through the encouragement of his P.E. teacher “I did do cross country, thanks to Mr. Flores,” Torres-Lopez said. “He was my P.E. teacher and XC coach. He was the one who invited me to join.” 

Throughout his years at Alisal, Torres-Lopez found comfort in his Spanish teacher’s classroom, Patricia Calderon, who is now Mrs. Cardona. Her classroom became a place where he was able to ask questions, participate, present, and feel comfortable speaking. Being in her class made him feel at home and helped encourage him to think about pursuing a career in teaching. “When I was in her classroom I think maybe because of the language I felt comfortable asking questions and presenting,” he said. “It kind of felt like home.”

When it came to thinking about his future, Torres-Lopez kept thinking about becoming a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) like his older brother. However, during his college years, he realized that he did not want to study math or become an accountant. He saw how many of his teachers, in both high school and college, always went above and beyond for all their students. The change his teachers made in their students’ lives was the type of change that Torres wanted to create as well. “Some teachers had an impact on me wanting to become a teacher, but especially Mrs. Cardona,” he said. 

He graduated from Alisal in 2004 and went to Hartnell College and then transferred to CSUMB for his bachelor’s in Spanish and credentials for teaching. Then he went to Grand Canyon University to get his master’s in education. Getting his teaching credentials and becoming a teacher became a different experience than he originally thought it was going to be. 

When going into his credential program, he was originally going to be working as a student-teacher under his “master” teacher, Mr. Santos. As a student-teacher, Torres would be at Salinas High and watch how Santos would teach and gain more and more responsibilities as time went by. However, when Santos asked him to go to a training session for a new Spanish book that the district was implementing, Torres met up with his former Spanish teacher Mrs. Cardona. 

In the training session, Cardona explained to Torres how she was going to leave her job as a Spanish teacher to work full time as a TSA (Teacher on Special Assignment). This meant that there was a position open as a Spanish teacher, and Cardona heavily encouraged Torres to apply for the position. “I got home, I applied for it and said, ‘We’ll see what happens,’ ” he said. “I think administration talked to her and she kind of put in a good word for me and I got the job.”

Torres-Lopez came back to Alisal in August of 2013 working and going to school at the same time. His first year of being on the job was a nightmare for him since he had to create all his lesson plans from scratch and still go to school.

He went to school at 6:30 am each day and then commuted to CSUMB to get to his classes that ended at 9:00 pm. Toress was also married at the time, so he had to balance work, school, and his personal life. “My mother raised me and my brothers, quitting has never been an option,” he said. “It never crossed my mind to quit.”

 During his time at Alisal, Torres-Lopez felt that a few things stayed the same and some things changed. “When I was here you could see a lot of gangs and gang members,” he said. “You could see in the way they dressed or the dress code wasn’t fully enforced and that’s the big thing I noticed when I came back, no more red, no more blue.” 

Not only that, but he also felt that there was more encouragement in sports and help to go to college, especially with the college and career readiness center. “Today students have a lot of support, a lot of guidance and that was not the case back then,” he said. 

Torres-Lopez continues to enjoy being at Alisal for its environment, the students, and especially for his family, since he lives in Salinas. “It’s a little bit of everything that keeps me in the job,” he said. “My daughter, she’s my student here now.” 

His daughter, Angela Ramos, is one of his students in his AP Spanish Lit class, and she has been enjoying her time as an Alisal student, as well as her father’s student. It was awkward at first for both Torres and Ramos to be in a class together, but as they got used to being together, the class became more fun. “It can get boring because of a lot of reading but overall he’s a great teacher,” Ramos said. “He does the best for his students and I feel lucky to be his student.”

For the years that Torres-Lopez has been teaching at Alisal, he keeps working hard to become a teacher who inspires his students to pursue their dreams and help his community. “I want to be a teacher that has made a difference more than the cool teacher, someone that helped create change,” he said. 

Updated 4/27 @ 2:17 pm