Francisco Rojas wears many hats in the Longview community. Embracing his Ecuadorian roots, Rojas gives back to local Hispanics by keeping them connected with their community.
Born and raised in Florida, Rojas was in the United States until he was 10 years old then he moved to Ecuador, his origin country and where his family lived.
Although Rojas is an American citizen, Rojas considers himself as an immigrant since he was living in Ecuador for almost two decades which allowed him to learn Spanish as his primary language but also shaped him to what he is today.
“In Ecuador, that’s when my life changed completely, I had a different perspective of life. A lot of who I am today, I owe it to the people that taught me a lot in Ecuador and experiences that I had in Ecuador that made me want to start having a mindset of serving others and helping others,” he said. “Before I went to Ecuador, I didn’t have that mindset.”
During his time in Ecuador, Rojas went to school and earned a marketing degree, then pursued a job, also in Ecuador, as a teacher at an IB school where he had his first deep connection with education.
Due to how much he enjoyed the experience, Rojas returned to the U.S. and made it his objective to work in education at a school district.
While being in Ecuador, Rojas also found ways to help the community. At an early age, he helped young people with tutoring, mentoring, counseling, and also provided food through food drives that assisted poor neighborhoods in the surrounding area of the capital in Ecuador, he said.
Working in the nonprofit, Rojas found a passion for giving back and was led to start a journey in serving for others within the church. He and his wife initiated helping more young people in a church in Ecuador, but escalated to the need of wanting to help more through his and his wife’s calling in ministry, he said.
Wanting more and to fulfill a bigger purpose, Rojas and his wife made the move to the United States in 2016. Based on areas that had friends, they made the move to Colorado at first but then after a year they were recommended to try Longview as a new home.
With $500 in his pocket, in 2017 Rojas and his wife moved to East Texas with goals and dreams to find opportunities to help people. During the journey of being brand new to the city, Rojas struggled to find a job despite his education and his experience.
It took him several months, and he recalls it as a hard time for him and his wife.
“It was very, very hard … My wife and I were basically homeless for about six or seven months. We didn’t have a place of our own, and even if it was, a small room or an apartment. We always had to go from one person’s house to another, and we were dragging our bags from one place to another,” Rojas said.
Throughout the search of wanting a better future and also with a mission to serve, Rojas maintained faith in God and knew things were going to get better, especially with the big move to the U.S, he said.
“We just knew that God had bigger plans for us over here and that’s the beauty of this country. I always try to say to every single person that the best thing that you can do is to feel proud of your roots, your country of origin, and to find ways on how you can serve the country that has opened the doors to you here because this country is unique,” he said. “It gives us immigrants the opportunity to actually become who we want to become who we dream of becoming.”
Rojas also added that during his search he jumped into the continued ministry service, and started helping with a local Spanish speaking church in Longview called Nueva Vida.
Eventually Rojas found a job with Community Health Corps within a few months, he said. Then with time, he sealed a position with Longview ISD as a family engagement coordinator, but things went for a turn due to the pandemic affecting his main role of face-to-face interaction among parents.
Finding ways to balance the position but wanting to be useful for the district during the pandemic, Rojas pitched in to help the community relations program with filling the gap and assisting with the language barrier among families.
Rojas started helping around with translations and assisting with communication among LISD parents. Eventually a spot opened up in 2020, and he went from an extra pair of hands to an employee by the department where he became the LISD spokesperson.
During his role in the school district, Rojas has managed to make an impact among parents and students, such initiating the first and only educational Spanish radio program in the country, starting a radio show to broadcast soccer games in Spanish, paving the way for scholarship opportunities for LISD Hispanic students, and most importantly filling a gap to communicate with the Hispanic parents.
“To come to a school district and to an area where the majority of our parents are Spanish speakers, but there are not enough avenues of communication in Spanish, and to be able to fulfill that need to be able to close the gap to be an instrument for the school district to close the gap…It means the world to me, I really do believe I have a passion towards this,” he said.
Rojas hosts the radio show, Lobo Radio, two times a week, and believes it has made a difference with families, especially those with a language barrier.
In the radio show Rojas speaks in Spanish about information, from news regarding school board district decisions, school events and updates, and community events and resources that help Hispanic families.
With online research, he also touches base on topics to assist families with their kids and their households, he said.
Local businesses have also reached out in order to support the program, which have sponsored prizes for listeners and with student scholarships.
Another opportunity given by the show has been the ability to assist other public relations staff among school districts with Rojas presenting at national and state conferences to train and teach others on how to close the gap within Hispanic families.
Although Rojas serves in the education field, he can also be found assisting other organizations such as the city of Longview, which has reached to Rojas at times of emergency in order to communicate with the Hispanic community.
To be Hispanic means a lot to Rojas. He considers it a way to embrace his identity and roots, he said.
“I love being Hispanic, I love being bilingual. I love walking around knowing what my identity is, knowing that I have values that were passed on to me from my family, and knowing that I have a culture that identifies me. It means a lot to me that I can represent my country of origin and the Hispanic community through the work that I do and I believe that there are even better leaders and Hispanic people out there that are leaving the name of their country very high as well through the work that they’re doing.
“The regular common immigrant that comes from Latin America, with a bag full of dreams just looking for a better future for their kids is a hero to me. That’s what they are, I just cannot see a better expression of love than that to leave your who you were over there to leave your family, your food, everything that you loved, just to give your kids a better life. So to be a part of that group is amazing to me,” he said.
Another role of Rojas is serving as pastor for a virtual Spanish speaking church in the states, which has allowed the development of relationships among members in different countries of Latin America and has allowed him to continue serving.
Rojas said with the virtual church, he’s received the opportunity to start other churches in Ecuador which allows him to give back to his home country.
“Through those churches and the leadership that we have over there, we’ve been able to build homes for those in need; we’ve been able to do food drives, offer school supplies for children that do not go to the public school system because they have to buy uniforms,” Rojas said. He said the families are in poverty and can’t afford the uniforms and supplies, so many just don’t go to school. Part of Rojas’ work is to try and provide that opportunity to families in need.
Rojas mentioned gratitude toward the church leadership team in Ecuador but also New Beginnings Interdenominational Christian Center in Marshall that has been a blessing to Rojas’ church and supporting the mission in Ecuador.
“We work as a team to make sure that people in Ecuador and kids in Ecuador have the opportunity to eat, to go to school, and to live in a decent home,” he said.
He said giving back to Ecuador is a way to keep his identity, traditions and culture alive.
“I believe that when we forget that (culture and traditions) we’re forgetting our identity. I’m very proud to be an American but I’m also proud to have Ecuadorian roots,” Rojas said.
When asked on how he manages his time and his roles, Rojas said the driving force behind it all has been his wife who pushes him and motivates him. He also mentioned gratitude toward the Longview ISD team and gives credit to his passion that drives him for wanting to serve the community at all times.