{"id":43160,"date":"2025-11-18T01:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T01:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43160\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T01:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T01:39:09","slug":"beyond-his-wildest-dreams-brooklyn-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43160\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond His Wildest Dreams | Brooklyn College"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luis Lucero-Tacuri \u201922 first thought he was in trouble when an administrator emailed him early in the semester asking to talk. The school counseling<\/a> student and newly installed president of the Graduate Student Organization<\/a> (GSO) figured he must have run afoul of some rule or other in the position he was still getting acquainted with.<\/p>\n

Then came the ask: Will you give the opening remarks at an upcoming rally that Sen. Bernie Sanders was hosting on campus?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart left my body,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI didn\u2019t say yes immediately; I called my mom. She said, \u2018Do it. You worked your whole life for opportunities like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Lucero-Tacuri had never dreamed of a moment like this.<\/p>\n

He was born and raised in Brooklyn on the edge of Borough Park. His parents sold Ecuadorian food out of a truck, and because they couldn\u2019t afford child care, Lucero-Tacuri and his older sister spent afternoons and nights with them doing homework in the food cart, translating, and taking small orders.<\/p>\n

The experience taught him about hard work and kept him connected to a culture he didn\u2019t see reflected at his school. It also sometimes led to friction with his teachers, many of whom never fathomed that the sleepy kid in class was up late because his parents didn\u2019t have other options.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo constantly get yelled at for being tired just made me feel embarrassed and ashamed,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody thought to ask what was going on at home. Looking back, I think that\u2019s a big part of what pushed me to work in education. I want to be the person who gets to know the whole child.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Counselor He Never Had<\/p>\n

Lucero-Tacuri ended up following his older sister, now a teacher, to Brooklyn College and studied childhood education<\/a> as an undergraduate. But during student teaching, something didn\u2019t fit. He watched a student\u2014one of the only Black students in the classroom\u2014constantly get scolded for missing homework. It took him back to his own childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized I cared most about the social-emotional piece,\u201d he said. \u201cThe why, the barriers at home, the resources students need.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added psychology<\/a> as a second major and pivoted to school counseling for his graduate studies. He\u2019s currently interning at both an elementary and a high school and frequently uses his Spanish to connect with students and families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be the counselor I didn\u2019t have\u2014the adult who asks, \u2018Are you okay? What do you need?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cStudents aren\u2019t checklists. They\u2019re whole people with families and stories, and sometimes they\u2019re carrying more than we can see. I want to meet them there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Work Ethic, Family First, Resilience<\/p>\n

\u00a0His college years have been full of new and exciting experiences: Presenting at a conference in Poland with three of his school counseling peers; working as a social media assistant at CUNY TV; participating in the NYC Men Teach<\/a> program; being elected to lead the GSO, a perch that made him\u2014the child of immigrants with an American dream story to tell\u2014a great choice to introduce the political giant.<\/p>\n

He wove his story into his remarks. On the ride to campus, he and his sister reflected on how far they were from those food truck days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept reminding myself: you\u2019re not terrified; you\u2019re excited. When I finally spoke, it felt like a blur,\u201d he said. \u201cI never imagined that one day I\u2019d be introducing a sitting U.S. Senator in front of a huge crowd. It was a dream I didn\u2019t know I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

His parents had always told him and his siblings that if they wanted a better life, education was key. \u201cThey would tell me, \u2018study hard so you don\u2019t end up like us,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI thought about that a lot recently. The thing is, I want to be just like them: Strong work ethic, family first, resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a realization that taught him that success isn\u2019t just about titles and academic or career accomplishments. It\u2019s about values. That\u2019s a lesson he hopes to impart to the students he works with.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation is about\u2026preparing the next generation to lead with knowledge, integrity, and compassion,\u201d he said from the stage that night. \u201cEducation doesn\u2019t just open doors, it transforms lives, families, and futures.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luis Lucero-Tacuri \u201922 first thought he was in trouble when an administrator emailed him early in the semester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5057,98,100,99,24805,24806,9,24,63,24807,24808],"class_list":["post-43160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-childhood-education-teacher-1-6-b-a","tag-graduate-student-organization","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-men-teach","tag-school-counseling-m-s-in-ed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}