Bernadette Jimenez was born in the Saint Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco on what was formerly known as Army Street (now Cesar Chavez). Both her parents are Puerto Rican, and Jimenez identifies as Boricua, a term that comes from the native Taíno name for Puerto Rico: Borikén.
“An interesting fact: Scientists and everyone thought that the Taínos were wiped out, [that] the DNA was over and it was done. But that's not true. It was discovered that people still have the Taíno blood, and of course I'm one of them. So to be native Taíno is in my mind super special and wonderful because I grew up thinking they were extinct.”
Jimenez’s roots with the Mission Bay area run deep: as a teenager she worked for Esprit, just a few blocks away from the current location of Mission Bay Campus, where she currently works as the Interim Executive Director of Transportation for Campus Life Services.
Jimenez fondly recalls growing up with a close-knit family in San Francisco, celebrating holidays like Three Kings Day, and eating traditional Puerto Rican foods.
“Everything in Puerto Rican food is based around green peppers, yellow onion and the platano, which is the plantain. Tostones are one of those things. It’s a labor of love, your kitchen gets all crazy and greasy, you fry them, and you re-fry them, and they're just delicious. It's like our French fry.”
Jimenez has visited Puerto Rico since she was a child and what has always stood out to her is the way Puerto Ricans respond to hardships like Hurricanes Maria and Irma, which caused devastating damage in 2017.
“The Puerto Rican people are super resilient and have been through so much. The one thing that we love to do is dance and have music. If you put music on, I can’t not dance.”
Someone who embodies this is Jimenez’s cousin, drummer and founding member of the band Santana, Michael Carabello, who was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York.
“That was one of the proudest moments, just to see him get that award and the pride of it all, and the people and the energy,” Jimenez said, “You see, if you are Puerto Rican, or if you know Puerto Ricans, this is what we do. We have our flag. We're always going to fly it proudly.”
For Jimenez, being Boricua is not just about her heritage, but how she views those around her and her commitment to being of service at UCSF.
“There's so much misery in the world, so if I can influence somebody who is having a bad day in any way I can, even if it's just like ‘I'm gonna get you a coffee’, just something simple, because it's the little things in life that are so beautiful.”