At the moment I’m writing this, Aldo is a senior ready to graduate, but he was once a little kid living in Mexico, where he was happy with his family and living a normal life. He was very charismatic since he was a child because in his interview he said: “ When I was in Mexico, I always liked to be happy and make the most out of my days by playing with my friends and biking everywhere”. As I said, he is from a Latino background, and all of his family came from different places in Mexico, like Jalisco and Durango. Some important experiences he passed through were adapting to a new environment and having to learn a new language, which was essential for him to communicate with people. He immigrated from Mexico to South El Monte, and since

then, he has been adapting to this new culture and experiences that have shaped who he is today. He was also very disciplined in learning a new language so that he could succeed in his new journey and be able to express himself freely.

During his high school years, he was able to grow as a person and find his passions. Academically, he was always focused on getting good grades and driven towards knowledge and success. During his interview, he talked about some of his accomplishments during high school, and he said: “ I was able to get student of the month 2 times during my freshman and junior year of high school”. He was also part of the soccer, tennis, and cross country teams, which are some sports

that have become his passions. He is also a first generation latino that was accepted into UC Santa Barbara to pursue a higher education and get a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Accounting. These achievements were not a mistake; he worked hard, and the outcome of all this perseverance and dedication was success. Now he has bigger dreams, and he will get his degree in Accounting, where he will be able to work in big firms and maybe in the future have his own company. The

message this story conveys is that with hard work, perseverance, and “ganas,” you can achieve big things in your life.