Will Julio obtain a good education and escape manual labor?

A Dream Comes True is a sketch of Julio’s struggles to get a college degree in order to avoid working out in the fields. Because of his father’s death when he was seven, he was destined to quit school at the age of ten and get a job to help support his family. He worked in agriculture-related jobs, and later as a goat and pig herder for a year and a half. Later, his mother and two of his sisters moved to the U.S., leaving two of his siblings and him behind with his grandmother. A year later, the three of them moved to the U.S. to join the rest of his family. The idea was that he was to continue working as a field worker but Uncle Sam had other ideas. Because he was under 16, children’s labor laws did not allow him to work. Instead, he was forced to take up his education again. Thanks to Uncle Sam and his persistence, he was able to graduate from Brawley Union High School. Will he be able to get a higher education or will he ever set foot again in the fields as a manual laborer?

My name is Julian Lorenzana. I was born in Mexico in 1932 but moved to the United States in 1945. I went through the grades and graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Studies, a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education and a teacher’s credential that allowed me to work with elementary school children for 40 years before I was forced to retire in order to take care of my wife, whose battle with Parkinson’s Disease was taking the best of her. I have three daughters who followed me into the field of teaching and are happily married.