It’s not every day you get to meet an astronaut — let alone one with a feature film made about his incredible life.
For students at Animo Legacy Charter Middle School in South Los Angeles, they had the opportunity Wednesday to meet and listen to Dr. Jose Hernandez, the farm worker turned NASA astronaut whose story is an inspiration to many.
“I told the kids when I first walked in, I said, 'I see a lot of me in them,' you know? When I was their age,” Hernandez said.
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Hernandez gifted copies of his autobiography, "From Farmworker to Astronaut," to dozens of students, courtesy of Gordon Philanthropies. The book tells his true-life story of growing up as the son of migrant farmworkers, who spent nine months of the year picking crops across California and living three months in Mexico. He, himself, also worked in the fields as a young boy.
While watching the final Apollo Moon mission, Hernandez realized he wanted to grow up to become an astronaut. It was a dream that seemed unlikely for the Stockton native, but one that his parents always pushed him to achieve.
“I was holding the bunny ears to improve reception, watching the astronaut walk on the moon when I said, 'That’s what I wanna be. I wanna be an astronaut,'” he said.
After studying at the University of Pacific and the University of California Santa Barbara, Hernandez began his career at NASA. Initially, he was rejected from the astronaut program no less than 11 times but he was tenacious and continued to apply. Eventually, the California native earned a spot on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2009, making a nearly 14-day trip to the International Space Station.
While in orbit, he sent the first Spanish tweet from space and was part of the first-ever crew that featured two Latinos. While he admits his favorite part of traveling to space was living in zero gravity, he said seeing the Earth from the outside gave him great perspective.
“What struck me as so beautiful, so you couldn't tell where one country ended and another began. And I said, 'My gosh, I had to go out of this world to realize that borders are human-made concepts designed to separate us,'” he said. “We're just one race -- the human race -- and I wish world leaders would get this moment of reflection because I guarantee you, our world wouldn’t be having the problems we have today.”
Today, Hernandez works on a farm once again, although this time around, he’s the owner.
“There’s a saying, 'You can take the kid out of the farm, but not the farm out of the kid,'” he said. “I still pick grapes, but they’re my grapes.”
And he wants students of all backgrounds to live out their wildest dreams, no matter how out of reach they may seem.
“You know, whatever they want to become,” Hernandez said. “It doesn't have to be an astronaut, but they need to shoot for the stars and shoot high.”
