Star Reyes-Gonzalez
Credit: Phil Soto
Advisory Board Member
Star Reyes-Gonzalez knows a thing or two about riding the bus, having taken her first ride in her home town at about age 7. Not only was she born and raised in South Phoenix, and attended its neighborhood schools, she’s a product of the city’s transit system.
“My teenaged sisters and I used to take the bus to Christown Mall to go to the movies, and we strategically sat in the center of the articulated buses because we wanted to be in the middle of the accordion,” she said. “It was the weirdest feeling to know that the bus is going this way, but it’s kind of going that way, too.”
Riding the bus was an education, too, for Reyes-Gonzalez who learned from other bus riders. Including a man who once struck up a conversation and asked her name.
“Star Diamond Reyes, this is my name, and he’s, like, ‘Wow, Star!’ By the time I got off the bus, he said, ‘You know what? There’s something about you, and one day I’m going to hear a lot of good things about you.’ I don’t know who this stranger was, but his words stuck with me throughout my life.”
Call it kismet, perhaps, that Reyes-Gonzalez would be chosen three decades later to join the South Central Collaborative (S.CC), a nonprofit formed to ensure residents and small businesses were connected during the planning, design and construction of a 5.5-mile light-rail extension along Central Avenue in South Phoenix.
She wanted to make sure the community — her community — were heard, every step of the way.
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Growing up, Reyes-Gonzalez said, her neighborhood wasn’t the best. But her parents allowed her to ride the bus to Peter Piper Pizza on South Central Avenue, to the Ocotillo Public Library on Southern Avenue to do homework, and to the then- Alta Vista Community Center to swim and have fun. The area was her “playground.”
“From elementary to high school, my time was spent between 19th Avenue to 7th Street, so when I say ‘playground,’ it was literally wherever the bus could take me on that little mile of Southern Avenue up to 7th Street, then around to Roeser and Broadway and back home to 19th Avenue.”
In grade school, Reyes-Gonzalez participated in a CEO shadowing day, and she met Tommy Espinoza, founding president and former CEO of Raza Development Fund (RDF). They stayed in touch as she moved through school and later, she joined the RDF team.
At South Mountain High, she enrolled in the Law-Related Studies program, thinking she might someday become an attorney. But her family upbringing pointed her in another direction.
Reyes-Gonzalez was raised by her aunt and uncle, Maria and Blas Gallegos, who adopted her at a young age. She was influenced by their faith in God and remarkable kindness toward others.
“We would be driving down the street and my father would see someone less fortunate, and he would literally pull over and give them what they needed,” she said. “The phone was always ringing and my mom was there to help anyone, take care of their children or help them with food.”
Reyes-Gonzalez was drawn to a career in community development, the starting point being a summer internship in Washington, D.C., after her high school graduation in 1999. She worked with Espinoza who at the time was working at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), now UnidosUS.
“That’s really where I got my foot in the door of understanding what community development meant,” she said.
Reyes-Gonzalez’s internship gave her insight into the work NCLR affiliates were doing in education, housing, social services and other aspects of community development. She learned about advocacy and policy development, too.
But Reyes-Gonzalez missed her family, and she returned to Phoenix to help support them and her dad, who was ill. He has since passed away.
Meanwhile, Espinoza returned to Phoenix, and founded RDF, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI)r that invests capital and creates financial solutions to build generational wealth for Latino and underserved families across the country. The largest Latino-focused national CDFI, it has directly invested over $1 billion dollars in 38 states, leveraging over $6 billion in education, affordable housing, healthcare, social services and social entrepreneurship. It also is a founding partner of the S.CC.
Reyes-Gonzalez started working at RDF as an officer administrator for its small team based in a high-rise in downtown Phoenix. One day, she looked south to her hometown from a 20th-floor conference room, and reflected on her roots.
“I always tell this analogy of ‘The Lion King,’ when Simba and Mufasa are on the mountain, and Mufasa says, ‘See that shadowy figure down there? We don't go there,’” Reyes-Gonzalez said. “That’s what some said about South Phoenix. But I say, we do go there because that’s where the community is, that’s where all the beauty is.”
It was a validation that she was in the right place, doing the work of servant leadership that her parents had modeled. “Tommy said, ‘How can we say we’re serving the community if we’re not in the community?’” she said.
In 2021, RDF bought the old Dollar General store on 4th Street and Southern Avenue, gutted and renovated the building, and moved its national headquarters to South Phoenix.
“I was over the moon,” she said. “And they put me on the project so I became a developer, overseeing the construction, and using all local people, artists for our murals, and a local welding company to come up with a beautiful security gate out front.”
Reyes-Gonzalez worked her way up and currently is RDF’s senior manager of collaborative community solutions, where she helped oversee RDF’s COVID-19 Hope Fund for small businesses struggling during the pandemic. RDF had created a trusted, collaborative model that paved the way for the S.CC, she said, and the turmoil that would result from rail construction.
“I’m just proud of the community, the people who live there, to have seen the beauty within our community, regardless of what was going on around us,” she said.
There’s pride, too, about S.CC’s fierce representation of the community as the City of Phoenix worked with the community to create the South Central Transit Oriented Development Community plan for the corridor..
As a former board member of The Sagrado, a South Phoenix community arts organization and art gallery that nurtures the community’s cultural identity, she’s proud of its role in the process. Largely due to The Sagrado’s efforts, the city was persuaded for the first time to require that a majority of pieces along the rail were created by local artists.
Reyes-Gonzalez also is a member of the SoPho Convening, which informs South Phoenix residents and visitors about the people and businesses that make it a vibrant community.
But while there have been great successes over the years of the project, there's a long way to go, she said.
“I’ll be honest, it's been hard to see the progress when you see the businesses that have been affected, or are no longer there,” she said. “But you also see, slowly but surely, a glimmer of hope, the art coming up, the construction barriers coming down. I'm proud that our community is resilient and that they continue being patient.”
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Invited to fast-forward 20 years and reveal her hopes for South Phoenix, Reyes-Gonzalez returns to “The Lion King” analogy.
“I want people to say they can’t wait to go to South Phoenix, that there's so much to do there. And I want more diverse cultures rising up,” she said.
“But I also think there’s a fine line between gentrification and displacement, and saying, ‘OK, now we have this fanciness going on. I don’t want people to say, ‘We’re bringing this culture here,’ because it’s already here. We’re just elevating it.”
Safe access to the light rail to neighborhoods that are blocks away, improved streets throughout the area, and shady streetscapes are important to Reyes-Gonzalez, as is affordable housing and help with upgrades for the longtime residents and the new ones, too.
“You know what I do envision, is that we see all these workers from downtown Phoenix, the suits and the lawyers are coming down to eat lunch in our direction. For once, you know. Wouldn’t that be cool to see?”
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The light rail is due to open this summer. You can be sure Reyes-Gonzalez will be among the first to ride.