Military veteran Lozano strives to revitalize Southwest Detroit

Alumnus Ray Lozano’s dream is to make the Mexicantown Community Development Corporation in the City of Detroit an arts, business, and cultural destination.

“It is Mexicantown CDC’s mission to become the destination in Southwest Detroit for residents and visitors. Recently, we hosted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra where they played Venezuelan-inspired music, and 230 people attended. The Mexican Consulate will also hold its Mexican Independence Day celebration on September 16 for the third straight year in our plaza. We want to showcase all the different cultures and music styles, and we have a strong basis for doing this for the community,” explained Lozano.

Since 2016, Lozano has been the Executive Director of the Mexicantown CDC, an organization that has successfully preserved and brought in Latino culture, history, and art to Southwest Detroit’s Mexicantown. Founded in 1989, the Mexicantown CDC strives to be the Latino cultural touchstone in the Metro Detroit area. It has been a leader in the revitalization of Southwest Detroit. In 2007, it developed the $17.5 million Mexicantown Plaza del Norte Welcome Center and Mercado.

“I grew up in this community,” said Lozano. “I was working for the Michigan Veterans Foundation at the time when the Mexicantown CDC Board of Directors asked if I’d consider working for them. I’m fortunate to be able to do this.”

Drafted to go to Vietnam while attending HFC

The youngest of five in an immigrant family, Lozano – who speaks fluent English and Spanish – is a lifelong Detroiter. He is married to Christine, with whom he has one daughter and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Holy Redeemer High School (now Detroit Cristo Rey High School) in Detroit and attended HFC (then Henry Ford Community College) in the mid-1960s.

“I wasn’t a particularly good student. My parents only had a grade school education. My brother went to Wayne State University and eventually got a Ph.D. My sister went back to school after raising her children to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I knew I needed an education, but I didn’t have the grades and money. I was feeling my way at the College, taking different subjects to see what direction I would go. It prepared me for Wayne State,” recalled Lozano.

In 1967, the U.S. Army drafted Lozano, who served a total of six years including active duty and reserve service. He was stationed at Fort Knox in Kentucky for basic training and went on to Fort Polk (now Fort Johnson) in Louisiana for advanced training. He then served a year in Vietnam with the 1st Air Cavalry Unit and subsequently with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, where he was assigned to a helicopter landing zone.

“None of us received any accolades when we returned from Vietnam. We quietly slipped back into daily civilian life,” he said. “Now whenever I see a veteran, I gladly thank them for their service. We didn’t get any of that when I served.”

Groundbreaking lawsuit leads to better service to bilingual students

Upon leaving active duty with the military, Lozano returned to Detroit and transferred to Wayne State under the G.I. Bill. In 1974, he earned his bachelor’s degree in special education, which would play a key role in his life of community service. He worked as a teacher for three years and a paraprofessional for two years in the Wayne County Intermediate School District.

Lozano began volunteering at the Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development (LA SED) with children in the developmental disability’s unit in Detroit. LA SED pursued two lawsuits that successfully challenged the educational practice of that time, which improperly funneled Spanish-speaking children into special education pathways, thus effectively denying them mainstream classroom instruction. Lozano and his board chair, social worker Margarita Sotomayor-Roxbury hired attorney Gabe Kamewitz and filed a lawsuit against the Detroit Board of Education. Lozano served as the plaintiff in “Lozano vs. Detroit Board of Education” to focus on a demand for bilingual psychologists and bilingual educators.

The result? Detroit history was changed.

“We filed that lawsuit because students were misdiagnosed as handicapped. We needed to be able to assess what these Spanish-speaking students were capable of. The fact that they didn’t speak English didn’t mean they had special needs. The lawsuit mandated that these children would be evaluated by bilingual psychologists and placed in appropriate classroom settings. Subsequently, schools changed their patterns and hired bilingual psychologists with more and more students appropriately placed in the right classroom settings. I feel really good about that,” he explained.

Playing a key role in Detroit’s comeback

Throughout his long career, Lozano has worked in a wide range of businesses and nonprofit organizations. From 1978-80, he served as the Executive Director of LA SED. Under his leadership, Lozano secured LA SED’s first Detroit Area on Agency grant for their senior citizens program on West Vernor across from Clark Park (now the Mexicantown Bakery).

After leaving LA SED in 1980, Lozano worked at Michigan Consolidated Gas as the Manager of Statewide Community Relations and Local Government Affairs, which oversaw western and southern Wayne County. He spent 21 years at MichCon and four years at Detroit Edison as Manager of Ethnic Marketing. (MichCon and Detroit Edison merged to become DTE Energy in 2001).

His career took several turns before he joined Mexicantown CDC.

“Mexicantown CDC has played a vital role in Detroit’s renaissance,” said Lozano. “We started entrepreneurial training programs to become an incubator to help residents learn how to run businesses. We began repopulating vacant buildings and have been able to get additional tenants. Recently, Rord Motor Co. purchased Michigan Central Station. This area is pretty vibrant!”

“To me, it all goes back to the people”

When asked what keeps him going, Lozano laughed.

“I ask myself that a lot," said Lozano. "I enjoy what I’m doing. I’m fortunate to be in good health. I’ll be around until people want me to leave. I’d like to make sure things are stable enough with adequate resources.”

He continued: “I would like to get to the point to have people with enough resources carry on its mission long after I’m gone. When I reflect on any job I had, it’s not so much the work as the people. It’s the people who allowed me to work in this community that I love."