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  • The Crucible of High School

    High school was not fun for me. I was in a new state and town, and I didn’t know anyone. Plus, I had to adjust to public school – I came from 9 years of Catholic School. Thus, fitting in and making friends, while also trying to be cool, was exhausting. The styles were so different than what I was accustomed to. Everyone seemed to know each other and were already in cliques. They seemed to have a great sense of style and were cool.  I feel for kids that must move at such a pivotal time in their lives. Adolescence is already difficult; this makes it worse.  

    However, my home life at this point was not great either. We were in a new state and did not have any extended family nearby. To make it worse, there were constant conflicts between my mom, sister, and myself. My mom got a new job as a gas station cashier – something she never did. However, her English wasn’t great, and she never worked in retail, so it was extremely difficult. She must have had multiple nervous breakdowns, but she did it. My sister was pregnant, and her delinquent boyfriend came with us. There was so much fuel for the fire. Fights and shouting matches were constantly occurring. Plus, we were always on the brink of being homeless.  

    Nevertheless, my mom worked 60 hours a week and would take as much overtime as they would allow her to work. I also started working almost immediately at the gas station and would put in 16 hours every weekend. That didn’t give me much time for anything else. For example, the first Christmas in the new state was so depressing since we didn’t have a tree, and I had to work the night shift, with my sister, the night before (the 24th). At the time I didn’t think life would get any better. 

    My sister never contributed to household finances. Sometimes she would leave after a brutal fight with my mom. My mom always would take her back despite my objections. This will be a reoccurring pattern for the next 20 years. My sister could never get her life together, and my mom was always there to pick up the pieces.

    The only thing I had was a dream for something better. It was this dream that made me want to get up in the morning. School was the only way to realize that dream. I did not want to spend the rest of my life working in a gas station. 

    Inner city schools are very different than what you see in movies, which are suburban and predominately white. There were the thugs – Latino, Black, and Asian! It was the first time I was exposed to gangs. Up until this point I only saw them in the movies. I was not the thug type, so I stayed away from them. For me nerdy topics like science were much more attractive. Reading and learning new things brought me joy.

    Luckily, the school had an electronics program. It has always been my dream to make microchips. I used to love taking apart TVs, VCRs, and other electronic devices to see what they were made of. I would memorize all the component manufacturers. Sony made all their own chips and components. But Hitachi was the big dawg (in the 80s). I found most of their components in everything from VCRs, radios, and toasters. They even made the components for other manufacturers.  

    I imagined a future where I would have a company that made its own chips. Naturally, this type of thinking did not make me popular. I don’t know many girls that want to date electronic geeks. It seemed to me that the better you did in class, the least you were liked. One silver lining is that unlike predominantly white schools, inner city schools don’t have any bullies. The thugs stick to themselves. When there were fights, there were many, they were amongst each other. It was mostly over turf or drugs or even girls.  

    I was a Nerd but a total slacker. I never studied or did homework but did well on tests and classes. Some of my teachers called me out for the lack of homework! My reasoning was “why do it if I can get good grades on the test”. This kind of thinking would come and haunt me later. I did not have good study habits and that is a bad thing. Natural ability can only take you so far. Sometimes you must learn the hard way. 

    Nevertheless, I really enjoyed science and technology. I loved learning about circuits and electricity. Electronics was the only class where I would do homework. I really wanted to impress the teacher. I built speakers and remote-control cars. We had to test and solder all the components before assembling. This was my jam. 

    This leads to higher education and college. Many of my teachers wanted me to go. My electronics teacher thought I was a shoe-in. I loved the idea but feared the thought of trying and failing. What if I’m not as smart as I thought? What if it’s too hard? There is a constant internal struggle for self-identity we all face. This part was difficult for me since I was not surrounded by college educated people. Finding my identity is part of my journey.  

    I had another problem attending college – my class rank wasn’t that great, and we had no money and no car. I couldn’t live there or commute. This was exacerbated by the fact that I had to help my mom with the bills by working all weekend. How could I go to college? The Army recruiters would frequently come to our school and make a wonderful case to join. I must admit I felt this was my only way out. I felt stuck.

    On the one hand, I had my mom that wanted the best for me and wanted me to stay to help with my little brother and work with her. On the other hand, she was also very smothering and was afraid of me doing anything. Plus, I had very little friends. Thus, the Army was a no brainer.  It was an escape.

    The main takeaway here is that we should stay true to ourselves. I never tried to be a thug or pretended to be a gangster to get ‘cred’ or girls. I always knew what I wanted to become, even if it wasn’t popular.  

  • Growing Up Slow in a Fast World: What I Learned on the Long Road Here

    My journey hasn’t been a straight path, but every detour taught me something valuable: it’s okay to be a late bloomer – though that’s not what the world tells you. In today’s hustle culture all you hear is how quickly somebody became a CEO and got ‘Billionaire’ status. It’s true: some people grew up in the right place at the right time with access to key resources. They had wealthy parents – or at least parents that had the wherewithal to provide the right kind of support and stimulation.  

    I did not have that type of luck. My parents immigrated to the US in the late 60s, early 70s. They came from El Salvador and were happy just to have work and find a better life. They were dreamers and took big risks. Personally, I wouldn’t move to a foreign country where I didn’t know the language, had no support, and did not have a job lined up! The thought turns my stomach into knots. But my parents did it. I thank them for that. I guess that alone makes me luckier than most in this world. I feel very privileged to be born in this country. 

    However, luck tends to be a finnicky mistress since we were not rich by any means. I grew up in a rough neighborhood with not-so-great living conditions.  My father’s mason contracting business notwithstanding, we didn’t live the picturesque American life. He made a good living for the 80’s, but we were not the typical “middle class” family. My mom, like most women from El Salvador, cleaned houses for a living. She has limited post high-school education and was not a reader. This was very typical for Hispanic immigrants, construction and cleaning. 

    I longed to live in the neighborhoods that I saw in all my favorite movies of the era. Beautiful, large houses with manicured lawns and treehouses in the backyard. Where kids rode around on bikes and played worry free. That was the big dream. But not reality. My reality was living in a 3-family house. We were a family of 5 living in a 1000 square foot 2-bedroom apartment – with 1 bathroom. At night you could see drug dealers on the corner and drug addicts running around. When we would go out and play my mom would worry. I guess that’s why I loved movies so much. Fiction was so much nicer, cleaner, and much more organized.  

    I could become anything I wanted in movies. I could be the nerdy kid that beat the bully and got the girl. I could be the scientist, that no one listened to, that finds the solution and saves the day. Everyone had access to computers and could create cool things that were not possible with 80s technology. The most technology we had were old TVs that were always breaking. I wanted to be in the movie universe. That was not going to happen.  

    My first language was Spanish and that made it difficult to transition into school. I remember starting school and not knowing what my name was. My father’s name was Jose, so they called me Chepe as a nick name (common in El Salvador). To me, that was my name. When kids at school called me Jose, I did not respond. I learned quickly, however. 

    Learning to read was harder since up until Kindergarten I was not read to by my parents. That put me behind the other kids. By first grade I was struggling, so I was kept behind and put in a remedial reading program. That made all the difference. By fourth grade, I was at the highest reading level. Part of me always wished I did not get held back. I always felt ashamed of it somehow. Now I realize some people need a little extra time to reach certain milestones – especially when they start with a disadvantage.  

    My parents made ends meet well. However, there was always tension between my parents. They never seemed to see eye-to-eye. With the struggles of work and kids, it made it very difficult to keep everything together when you don’t have good examples. They both came from difficult childhoods. Eventually, it all fell apart, and my parents split up. 

    It wasn’t even a divorce – my dad stopped paying the mortgage, and my mom just left the state. I think she was running from her shame. We left everyone we knew because she didn’t want them to see how far she had fallen. That feeling has stayed with me for all these years. This kind of thinking can be inherited, but I am doing my best to break the cycle.  

    Looking back, I think I see better now what my parents were going through and why they made the decisions they made. It gives me a blueprint of what NOT to do. However, I still struggle to make the right decisions. Don’t we all? They say hindsight is 20/20, but maybe late bloomers are just learning to see clearly, one lesson at a time. 

    I think the moral of this part of my life is that we do not have to become our parents. We can learn from their mistakes and improve upon them. It doesn’t have to be perfect, all we need is some improvement, so our children have it a little better.