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Juan Santos
Moving to Boston from Puerto Rico at age 5, Juan Santos first arrived
at the Computer Clubhouse in 1996 on his 16th birthday. “I was shy
but I took the risk. It was free.” At the time, he was a junior
at Charlestown High School, living in what he described as a Dorchester
ghetto. “I’d never seen so much violence,” he says.
“I thought the Clubhouse kids were weird because they were happy
and laughed a lot.”
Although
he’d been drawing since age three, Santos had never used a computer
for art. 
At
the Clubhouse, he discovered how to scan one of his cartoons and experiment
with coloring it. He soon discovered that the Clubhouse was not only a
place to explore computers, but a social space where his dreams could
find a home. Clubhouse staff were “a big inspiration. They didn’t
tell me what to do but set me up so I could explore for myself.”
Gradually, he mastered Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia FreeHand. He also
began to help other youths “because the Clubhouse gave me something
and I wanted to give back.”
His expertise with these sophisticated technologies enables him to “do things I only dreamed of as a kid.” When his work was profiled on the Clubhouse website, he wrote, “At the Clubhouse, I can expand my imagination. I don’t like being like everyone else. Being as original as I can helps me create something new and cherishable.” In 2000, he earned an associate’s degree from Newbury College, Brookline, MA, in graphic design, interning at Intel’s Hudson, MA, facility. His dream is to create and direct a TV cartoon series.
Now, inspired by his own Clubhouse experience, Santos, 24, is Clubhouse Coordinator of the Framingham, MA, Boys and Girls Club, serving a mainly Latino population. He works with 30 to 40 kids a day. He says many of the Puerto Rican youths “hang together. The family may be on welfare or the father figure may not be there. The kids are shy and quiet at first. But other Clubhouse kids start talking to them about their work and the Clubhouse atmosphere brings them back. I try to help them expand their goals. I tell them, ‘You don’t have to be a teen parent or on welfare.’ The most important thing is positive and professional feedback.” Santos believes that “the Clubhouse philosophy is to help people come out of their shell and build up their natural talent.”