The drive to challenge himself has taken Spanish senior Zach Zambrano from caring for kangaroos and zebras to studying in East Africa to now leading the Spanish Club on campus.
He “juggles a lot of hats every day” moving between being a full-time student, Spanish tutor and an employee at Lucy’s Doggy Daycare and Spa.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” said Zach Zambrano, Spanish senior and president of the Spanish Club at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. “Take chances in life.”
Zambrano’s path to being the Spanish Club president wasn’t straightforward. He spent almost a decade in a very different environment, one working with animals, not language.
Born in Garden City and raised in Holcomb, Kansas, Zambrano experienced small-town life with his mother, father and younger brother. Carefree days as a child exploring old combines with friends is what he misses most.
“I will always consider Holcomb my home,” Zambrano said.
His family later moved to Burnsville, Minnesota where he finished high school before attending Kansas State University, where he received his degree in animal sciences.
While in college, Zambrano spent summers working at a vet clinic in Garden City, and at the University of Minnesota’s equine and large mammal hospital.
After his junior year at KSU, Zambrano had an internship at the behavior department at the Minnesota Zoo. He believed he wanted to be a vet at the time.
“When I was a junior at K State I knew that I wanted to study abroad,” Zambrano said. “But I didn’t know where.”
Later, he learned about a study abroad program in Tanzania, East Africa. This would be his first time leaving the country.
“When I was 19 I lost my best friend,” Zambrano said. “He had brain cancer.”
Zach made a vow to live every day and to take chances in life.
He described the trip as one that opened his mind and reminded him to not take life for granted because “you’re never guaranteed tomorrow.”
Zambrano spent the first semester of his senior year there.
This perspective is what further inspired Zambrano to learn more about his culture.
Although he did not grow up speaking Spanish, Zambrano began learning the language as a high school elective and continued studying it independently.
His father, Eddie, who is of Mexican descent, would speak occasional Spanglish but never taught him the language.
Zambrano also has roots in Scotland and Ireland, which come from his mother, Keely.
“Appearance-wise, I don’t always fit into Hispanic circles,” Zambrano said. “When I go to the highland games here in San Antonio, I don’t look Scottish either.”
He referred to The San Antonio Highland Games & Celtic Music Festival, which is an annual event celebrating Scottish culture.
However his dad would still bring some elements of the culture growing up. He would sometimes blast Tejano music like Little Joe and Ruben Ramos in his “little red Mazda.”
In Holcomb, Zambrano would also have tamales and carne asada occasionally through church friends. This would be one of the few times he could feel part of his culture.
“Dad would always tell us that we weren’t Mexican,” Zambrano said. “He was very adamant.”
Eddie would always mention that the Zambranos entered the “New World” through the Galveston area and then made their way to the Kennedy area.
This would lead to Eddie telling Zambrano that “the Zambranos were never in Mexico,” and so “they were not Mexican.”
Zambrano said he worried about losing touch with his cultural roots.
“We really didn’t get a lot of exposure,” Zambrano said. “I was almost out of high school by the time we were experiencing more of that kind of stuff.”
Zambrano compared his family’s experience to the pressures many Hispanics faced in early-20th century Texas.
“When you look at what people went through in Texas in the 1930s and ‘40s, they were
punished for speaking Spanish,” he said. “A lot of Tejanos had to try and Anglicize
themselves, to present themselves more European.”
An example is that his great-grandmother, Jesusa, gets called “Jesse” by his other family members. “We’re changing our names to fit into the dominant Anglo culture,” Zambrano said.
Learning Spanish started to be a priority for him during high school. It was a way to reclaim his cultural identity. Zambrano, 32, has known Spanish for 19 years now.
“I listened to a lot of Selena,” said Zambrano. “I’d be in my room, listening to ‘Amor Prohibido’ on my CD player while working on my Spanish homework.”
He would eventually start picking up words that Selena Quintanilla was saying, and understand the meaning behind her songs. Quintanilla is still a huge inspiration to Zambrano because like him, she also did not grow up speaking Spanish.
Lila Downs, a bicultural singer from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico is also an inspiration to Zambrano.
Zambrano started listening to her audiobook, “El árbol de la vida” where she talks about having to navigate the two different cultures that make her who she is. “She’s also bicultural,” Zambrano said. “Her dad is Scottish American.”
“She felt like she had to be more on the indigenous than on the Mexico side,” Zambrano said. “Or she had to be more on the Scottish American side.”
His paternal great-grandmother, Jesusa, who was from San Luis Potosí, Mexico, is among his inspirations.
“Having small means by ways of living, their grit, and wanting to make things better for the next generation,” Zambrano said. “Understanding that they themselves wouldn’t be able to benefit from that is so inspiring.”
Zambrano moved to San Antonio in late October 2016 to be closer to his dad’s side of the family, and to pursue his Spanish with a teaching certification degree.
The San Antonio Zoo was Zambrano’s first job in San Antonio. There he worked mostly with rhinos, zebras, giraffes, kangaroos, antelope and different pig species.
Zambrano is drawn to building trust with animals who are naturally fearful.
Zambrano was proud of working with zebras at the zoo. “I was very successful with that at the zoo,” Zambrano said. “Again, that comes back to taking chances and just doing it.”
Moving to San Antonio made Zambrano feel more connected with his culture and with his dad’s side of the family. He participated in a “tamalada”, which is the process of making tamales as a family. He said it “felt nice to be a part of something that has been a part of our family for generations.”
“In San Antonio, we’re proud of our heritage and who we are,” said Zambrano. “When I see Fiesta, I think of it as celebrating our Hispanidad or Latinidad.”
“He has found many ways to make more impact,” said Dr. Alexandria Rodriguez, lecturer of Spanish at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. “We didn’t have a Spanish club before him.”
Zambrano first became involved with the Spanish club when Dr. Elena Foulis, an associate professor of Spanish, hosted a conversational Spanish night. During the event, they discussed the idea of creating a club to hold those types of gatherings regularly.
When a tutoring position later opened, Zambrano joined as a Spanish tutor and eventually became the president of the club.
“There’s a lot of different hats I wear throughout my day,” said Zambrano. “I go from being a full-time student, Spanish tutor, Spanish club president, and having a job at Lucy’s.”
“Cuentame tu historia” is an event Zambrano is most proud of. Here he facilitated a panel where he coordinated with different Spanish speaking instructors, one from LLA, Science, Business, and Education.
Zambrano asked open-ended questions so the instructors could share their life stories, what went well for them, and what it was to navigate the educational system.
“The students begin to see themselves in the instructors,” Zambrano said, ”The two times that I’ve facilitated this panel, I’ve had my students tell me they didn’t feel like they were the only goes going though this”
The panels reflect Zambrano’s goal of creating a supportive community where students feel seen and heard.
“Zach is a perfect representation of what a president should be,” said Karina Silva, Spanish major and vice president of the Spanish Club “He advocates not only for students who already speak Spanish, but also those who do not.”
Zambrano is still finding new ways to explore his hispanic culture. After graduating in May 2027, Zambrano plans to teach high school Spanish and eventually pursue a master’s degree or Ph.D. in Spanish linguistics or education.
He is also working with professors on a study about language use and loss in Spanish and how it affects self-identification and cultural belonging.
During a Spanish club and Crafty Jaguars event in November, The club was making Guna textiles with construction paper, inspired from the layers of fabric art from the Guna people of Panama’s San Blas Islands.
Zambrano often switched between Spanish and English, making sure no one was left behind. Although this is a small thought, it greatly reflects how his relationship with language and culture continues to grow.
