Yesterday, I read this inspiring article about NASA Astronaut Jose Hernandez, a former migrant farm worker, who is headed into space next week with the Shuttle Discovery. Coincidentally, he will be in space with another hermano, Danny Olivas from El Paso, Texas.
Hernandez’s story is particularly compelling because he worked the harvest and travelled as a migrant farm worker when he was a child, yet managed to master math and science subject matter. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering and was selected as an astronaut after 12 years of trying. His persistence has certainly paid off.
You can follow Jose Hernandez’s journey into space this week from his Twitter account, where he tweets in English and Spanish. NASA sees the value in his bilingual tweeting with Shuttle Commander Rick Sturckow saying that Hernandez is “attracting a new audience to NASA that we might not normally reach otherwise.”
Good luck to our astronauts this week!
Photo Credit: John Raoux / AP, you can see more pictures of this great role model here.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Wise Latino // Aug 22, 2009 at 5:16 pm
It truly is amazing what “english and education” will do for you in the United States.
2 Mexitli // Aug 23, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Nice post. I’ll pass it on to my daughters
3 Jaango // Aug 23, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Congrats to Olivas and Hernandez.
And congrats to the blog managers for posting this story. And with your expected permission, I have went one step further and given a “shout out” and which can be found over at the Cactus Juice Commentaries of the Chicano Veterans Organization. Keep up the good work!
Jaango
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