I just talked to a former student, we’ll call him Jorge, who is entering his first year at the University of California. He came in after school today, dressed a little older than I remember him, with slick sunglasses and slicker hair. He had a swagger I hadn’t seen in high school. He is heading to college tomorrow. For twenty minutes we had one of those conversations you go into teaching for. It was awesome.

I am very familiar with the UC he is attending, so we had a lot to talk about. I gave him some advice about dorm food, fraternities, and intramural sports. I told him to get a job at the Deli on the quad, and drop my name if the manager is still there. Jorge then told me what dorm he is staying in. It is a beautiful brand new facility, and he is going to be living in the section reserved for Honors students. Jorge is double-majoring in neuroscience and something else equally as impressive. I don’t remember because my brain couldn’t get past neuroscience.

He then mentioned some initial problems he had with grants and scholarships. They almost took away $7,000 because of his status in this country, but he got it sorted out. Jorge is basically getting a full ride. That was when I remembered the stories Jorge wrote in my class.

I taught Jorge for two years (three, actually, I also taught him in 8th grade when I was student teaching) in a program designed to help under-represented students get into college. Jorge was a perfect candidate, and worked his butt off for 4 years while the vast majority of students at our school tried not to punch each other in the face (unsuccessfully, I might add). Jorge took advantage of every opportunity he got, and wanted to follow in the footsteps of his sister who graduated from Cal. I might add he was successful at this.

Anyways, when Jorge was in my 9th and 10th grade classes, he did a lot of writing. He had to, because I made him. I made all of them. Often times this writing had to do with his culture, his family, and his identity as a Mexican-American. Like always, Jorge excelled even my most ambitious dreams for these assignments. One vignette went as follows:

He began with the cold breath coming out of his nose as he scanned the quiet Arizona desert just before the sun was about to rise. His mother, his sister, and himself had been walking for almost a week, the last three days without food and very little water. They were coming across the border from Mexico. A Coyote had helped them along the way, but had disappeared at the same time as the food and water. Jorge remembered scanning the desert for signs of life- a sign that they were close to civilization, to America. He remembered being very weak. He also remembered being scared. He was seven years old.

Every time I think of Jorge I think of that story. It has affected me in more ways than I’ve realized. For me, Jorge puts a face on the immigration issue. For me, when I hear of people coming across the border, I think of Jorge coming here as a little boy, escaping a devastated country where getting into college would have been impossible for his family.

Really, I see these people just like I see my own ancestors coming over from Portugal. They came for the same reasons. My great-grandmother and grandfather, the ones who arrived in Boston, died in their early thirties because they were working in a cotton factory where the working conditions were so bad it killed you in under a decade. Their lungs stopped working, and my grandfather was a shoe-shine boy out of a Horatio Alger novel at the same age Jorge was crossing our desert.

I don’t see any difference between the plight of my ancestors from Europe and the plight of Latinos from Mexico, and I am always saddened when I hear the angry voices who would never dream of saying the same thing about their grandparents. They say these things because they don’t know anyone like Jorge. They’ve never read anything that describes the brisk morning cold of an Arizona desert from the memory of a child.

Jorge earned the scholarships he got. Jorge worked harder than almost everyone at my high school, which includes 2,300 American citizens. Most of them don’t apply for college. On our football team this year (the most American sport there is), we have one student eligible for college. One.

The thing is, Jorge embodies more of the American dream than many of the citizens of this country. He took advantage of what our capitalist society preaches. The cream rises to the top. Hard work pays off. He dedicated his life to what we value in this country, and is now applying to be a part of it. Jorge tells me the process is going to take another 4-5 years, but he is hopeful to one day be an American citizen.

To me, Jorge already is, and I am proud to be part of a country that gave him that chance. If you don’t see that, you need to meet Jorge. You need to hear his story. Even better, just meet one person like Jorge, and hear their story. It might change your mind about some of things going on in the news today.

It also might remind you of the long journey your own family took, which was from much further away, across an ocean where the mornings were just as brisk as an Arizona desert.