| After seeing Jose J. Madera on stage at Dane Dances as one of the lead singers of MadiSalsa performing with ease, it might surprise people that Madera was a studious -- almost nerdy -- child when he was growing up in Santa Isabel on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Madera, assistant dean of UW-Madison's Academic Advancement Program, grew up in Puerto Rico with a love of the sciences and a commitment to do something about the airborne environmental hazards that floated over his city when they dusted the nearby crops with pesticides./Madera was hooked on science and an internship opportunity at the Argonne National Laboratories during his senior year at the University of Puerto Rico-Cayey led Madera to the streets -- and cold -- of Chicago. "I left Puerto Rico in 85-90 degree weather on January 15 and I landed in Chicago and it was 10 degrees," Madera said. "There was already plenty of snow on the ground and there was a killer wind chill. I said "Why not?" Madera enjoyed his stay and work in Chicago and began to search for graduate schools to attend. "I went back home and I applied to several universities," Madera said. "UW-Madison was one of the first ones to reply positively, so I committed to it. Back then, my godfather -- he is now a retired Lutheran pastor -- was finishing his divinity doctoral studies at the McCormick Theological Seminary. He and his wife picked me up at the airport. I stayed with them for three days. They drove me to Madison. Basically I had a 2-3- year plan to stay here in Madison in 1989. Since then, it's been one thing after another and I kept postponing my return to the island or basically avoiding returning to the island for whatever reason. Now almost 18 years later, I'm still around." Madison proved to be the right fit for Madera in terms of his personal and professional growth. Surprisingly, Madera had not explored his musical abilities before setting foot on the Madison campus. "I met the coordinator of the Puerto Rican students union," Madera said about his first days in Madison. "He wanted me to stay at his place for a few nights until I found an apartment. He said 'Hey, let's go up to the Memorial Union because there is a group of Boricuas who are trying to put together a musical group. You can come and meet them.' He didn't know much about me. He wanted me to meet other Boricuas. We met in the Rosemont Room on the second floor of the Memorial Union. There were congas, bongos, guitars, a bass and a lot of noise makers and a guiro. They asked me if I knew how to play the guiro and I said 'Yeah I've played the guiro a few times before.' They handed me the guiro and after a song or two, they asked me if I wanted to be a part of the group. That's how I started. I wasn't looking into being part of a group. I wasn't looking from the get go to get involved. But actually, what this group did for me is it became my immediate environmental support on campus. I was already connected. But this was a loosely organized group that was real and had a purpose." Madera also focused on his studies an attained a Master's degree in water resource management and then set his sights on a doctorate. "I was performing research actually with pesticides, finally, that are widely used in the central sands, the potato growing region of Wisconsin near Stevens Point and Westfield," Madera said. "It was an area that was very dear to me because of what I knew and back then, what I could do to make a difference. But then again, when you are a graduate student, funding is very limited at times. Sometimes you get funded and sometimes you don't. Although I was the recipient of several fellowships, eventually the money dried up." Madera had gotten married by then and had a family so he started working as a graduate assistant and eventually as a campus administrator. "Eventually, I had to make a decision, which one I was going to be giving priority to," Madera said. "There are some personal circumstances that demanded my financial contribution. So working in the lab wasn't exactly going to provide for my family. So I had to look out for some other opportunities within the university to avoid failure and not being able to work on my research. So I kept working on my research while performing other administrative duties not specifically related to my lab for as long as I could." Eventually, Madera got stalled at the ABD -- All But Dissertation -- stage of his academic career. Next: Personal growth in Madison. |
| Immigrant Success Stories Two years and counting ... By Jonathan Gramling Part 2 of 3 |
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| Jose Madera |