Who do you think you are?
How dare you have the audacity to have such huge dreams.
What makes you think you deserve a seat at this table?
Welcome to the voice in my head.
It’s a voice shaped by society and my 55 years of experience living in it. My name is Josephine Arroyo Coleman, and I’m just another Puerto Rican from the Bronx. My father came to New York City from Puerto Rico in the 1960s and met my mom, whose Puerto Rican family had arrived in Spanish Harlem 30 years before him.
When I was five, my parents realized their version of the American Dream. They left their Bronx apartment and bought a two-bedroom house on a tiny lot in Teaneck, New Jersey.
One of my core childhood memories is sitting on our kitchen table in my pajamas while my mom told me how lucky I was. Things were different for me than they had been for her, she said. I could be anything I wanted to be.
She suggested I become a lawyer because I liked to argue—and was annoyingly good at it. My nine-or ten-year-old self responded, “Yeah, but no one likes lawyers!”
Then she said, “How about an architect? You’re good at math and very creative.”
I didn’t know what an architect did, but based on her simple explanation—“They design buildings”—I knew right then that was what I would be.
I wouldn’t understand the gravity of that conversation until much later, when I learned that my mother, who became a secretary, had wanted to be a nurse. She had strong grades and qualified for the nursing program but was denied admission because she was “too fat.”
That story still sounds unbelievable to me. It also reminds me how privileged I was to grow up hearing from that same woman that the barriers placed in front of her did not have to become mine.
But having big dreams can be scary.
When I was applying to colleges, MIT represented the pinnacle of architecture schools to me. I dreamed of going there, but it was so expensive that I couldn’t bring myself to apply. Despite earning A’s and B’s in almost all honors classes, I feared I might actually get in and then have to face the reality that my family couldn’t afford to send me.
Instead, I commuted from Teaneck to Newark and attended NJIT School of Architecture. I graduated in 1994 and became one of the first college graduates in my family.
What came next can only be explained by my upbringing and culture.
You see, Puerto Ricans are very proud people. Not just in waving their flags and bragging about their superior cuisine —but that pride runs much deeper. It is determination to the core, fueled by resilience and an unapologetically stubborn belief that if I worked hard enough, anything was possible.
I earned my architecture license in 1999 and planted my professional roots at Studio 5 Partnership, where I became the first of many “firsts.”
I became the firm’s first CAD Manager, helped lead its transition to BIM, became its first Associate and first LEED AP, and, after six years of coaxing, mentoring and support from the firm’s leadership, became its first new Partner in 2016.
Eight years later, in 2024, I became Studio 5’s majority owner and Managing Partner.
Apparently, that little Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx did deserve a seat at the table after all.
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, I want to acknowledge something that took me years to fully understand: my Hispanic heritage was never something I needed to overcome. It is one of my greatest strengths—my built-in superpower and a foundation of my success.
For anyone else with that annoying voice asking, Who do you think you are?—don’t let it define your future.
Dream bigger anyway.
Find your strengths. Embrace where you came from. Work hard. Be audacious enough to walk into rooms where you aren’t sure you belong.
And when you finally earn your seat at the table, remember that finding success for yourself is a great achievement—but bringing others up behind you is the real flex.
I’m now looking for Studio 5’s next generation of leaders.
Because the greatest measure of success isn’t simply earning your own seat at the table.
It’s the legacy you create by making room for someone else.
Josie A. Coleman, AIA, LEED® AP, Managing Partner, Studio 5 Partnership Architects/ Planners
Under her leadership, Studio 5 Partnership expanded its credentials to include Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE), Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), and Small Business Enterprise (SBE) certifications