Ruben was born in Jalisco, and grew up in Tijuana Mexico in an extended family where no one had gone beyond a first or second-grade education. As a boy teaching an uncle to read, he first learned the power of education and a responsibility to help others — a lesson that has guided him ever since. He immigrated to the United States as a teenager, graduated from Escondido High School, and with loans and scholarship assistance went on to earn a B.A. from Occidental College and an M.A. in Education from Stanford University.

 In 1979, Ruben and his teenage brother moved to East Palo Alto, and he quickly became part of the Incorporation movement. He was elected to the Advisory Municipal Council in 1982 and, when East Palo Alto officially incorporated on July 1, 1983, he was elected to serve on its very first City Council — a seat he held through 1988. In those foundational years, he helped establish the city's own police department and coordinated the campaign that passed East Palo Alto's Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction Law in 1984, a tenant protection law still in place today. The year before, he had co-founded the East Palo Alto Council of Tenants (EPACT) to organize residents around housing affordability and tenant protections, issues that continue to shape the city today.  During the 80’s he also served on the Board of the Midpeninsula Citizens for Fair Housing

Ruben's commitment to the community never wavered. In the 1990s, he served on the Ravenswood Elementary School District Board of Trustees, where he championed "Academic Excellence Through Multilingual Education," a policy bringing bilingual and biliteracy education — and equity — to language-minority students. These efforts also offered opportunities for English only students to learn Spanish.  In 2006, he made history as East Palo Alto's first Latino Mayor, a role he has since returned to multiple times, and that year he convened a Community Health Roundtable bringing together more than 30 local organizations, work that helped shape the City's "Creating a Healthy and Safe Community" initiative.

He co-founded Comité Latino in 1981, which has organized the community's Cinco de Mayo Festival since 1985 and led "Know Your Rights" trainings for decades, and he helped found the Ravenswood AYSO Soccer League and Centro Bilingüe.  Today he continues that work as a member of the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, the Institute for Local Government's Public Engagement and Equity Advisory Committee, and San Mateo County's Social Determinants of Health Working Group, and serves on the boards of the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula and Herban Health. He has also previously served on the Boards of JobTrain and the East Palo Alto YMCA.

A retired instructor from De Anza Community College, where he taught in the Intercultural/International Studies Division with a joint appointment in Spanish and Latino/a Studies, Ruben has spent his career — in the classroom and in City Hall — as, in his own words, a community educator: someone whose life's work has been in service to others.