Becoming Dr. Q. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa

the greatest personal reward that I could have received.

      I had been back from Mendota for nearly a year when my mother finally persuaded me to buy a pair of used boxing gloves so that I could realize my dream of working out at a gym in Mexicali. By then, I’d gained back the weight I’d lost, and before long, I was working my way up to lightweight status at 130 pounds. Part of my motivation, I confess, was that I was tired of having my butt kicked, being a target, and having to surround myself with bigger guys for protection. A part of me also entertained the idea of getting revenge against a particular punk who had embarrassed me many years earlier. Later, to my shame, I used my boxing skills outside the ring to call him out on the street and beat him badly—a wrong that would be on my conscience for years. I would then learn the truth of the Kaliman philosophy “Revenge is a poor counselor.”

      But when I was pummeling the punching bag, all I knew was that life had been beating us down and I had to find a new way to respond. My stint as a boxer taught me that I could do more than bob and weave defensively in the face of a challenge; my training helped me fight back, even to be the aggressor when necessary. The first two of my three fights in the ring—which I won—easily confirmed this conclusion. But in the third and last fight, in which I faced a physically overpowering opponent who left me to taste my own blood, I wasn’t so sure—especially when he knocked me to my knees just before the bell in the last round. Still, I had a choice—to quit or to stand up and finish the fight, even in defeat. By choosing the latter option, I learned an essential lesson: it’s not defeat I should fear; more important than whether I won or lost was how I responded to being knocked down and thrown off balance.

      Though this was my last official fight, boxing had given me what I needed at the time—an opportunity to hit back. I also discovered that, like those corner breaks that allowed me to recharge during fights, there were ways to recharge my batteries in other pursuits. Eye-opening! But I still had plenty of anger, as there was a need for a surrogate to blame for the misfortunes that had gone on for too long. Rather than taking my fight to the ring, however, I started reserving my anger and rebellion for the forces, institutions, and authorities that most controlled my life. At this time, the major injustice that ate at me was the ongoing bifurcation of the social classes in my country that devalued human beings in the bottom economic strata, as if only those at the top with political connections, wealth, and means were worthy of respect and opportunity. Part of my fight was not to allow those values to get to me.

      Always, my grandparents provided a guiding light for how to respond productively to hardship. Now they were getting up in years and both battling serious illnesses. Though I understood in theory that they wouldn’t be around forever, Tata Juan and Nana Maria had always been so much larger than life that I couldn’t imagine their being taken from this world.

      Yet on a day like any other day, one of my cousins arrived at the director’s office of my school to request that I be released from class, explaining that my grandfather—afflicted by metastatic lung cancer—was dying and had asked for me. We sped to my grandparents’ home, and as I rushed into Tata’s room, I thought I was too late. He seemed to be staring off into space, already gone in spirit. When I approached him, however, I saw that his eyes were shut.

      “Tata,” I said softly in his ear, leaning in close, one hand on his shoulder and the other on the weathered skin of his cheek. “It’s me, Alfredo.”

      “Oh, yes,” he replied with effort. “Alfredo.”

      My tears began to fall helplessly. In recent months, with cancer slowly and painfully killing him, I had visited often but rarely gotten him to talk much. Though I had seen him declining, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye.

      In the otherwise silent room, the sound of his breathing and the ticking of a small clock near his bedside were unforgettable. Then my grandfather slowly opened his eyes and asked softly, “Do you remember when we would go to the Rumorosa Mountains?”

      “Yes, I do. Always.”

      “Me too. You used to call ‘Tataaaahhhh! Tataaaahhhh!’ ”

      “I remember.”

      “You know,” he said, just before he closed his eyes and offered a final smile, “I really enjoyed those times.”

      Tata’s dying message assured me that I should not be afraid to climb mountains, no matter how treacherous, and that I could even take joy in doing so. He wasn’t telling me how to do that but wanted me to know that I could continue to call on him whenever I felt lost.

      After Nana Maria passed away two years later, I felt her presence with me too—though her message was to be careful and to look out for pitfalls. I hope she forgave me for not being at her side more when she was dying. After a lifetime as a healer, helping to bring hundreds of lives into the world, Nana went to the grave knowing that no one had ever died in her care. But I was surprised to learn from my father that until the end, she was afraid of death and especially the loneliness of not knowing what was on the other side. My father also told me that in spite of her fear, when her time came she was ready. Nana discovered what many of us will never know until we are there—that no matter how many times we defy the odds, we all reach the moment where the only way out is surrender. Until then? Give it everything!

      Christmas 1985 was eventful for a few reasons. At the age of seventeen, almost eighteen, I was on my way to becoming one of the youngest students ever to graduate from the training program at the teaching college that was my stepping-stone to the future. With excellent grades and teachers’ recommendations, once I graduated I would wait to see where I would be assigned in Mexico to begin my journey as an elementary school teacher. I also had a wonderful girlfriend at the time, a beautiful, bright young lady from a well-to-do, respected family. Our courtship was new, but we were both serious enough about our futures to enter into a meaningful relationship.

      After many difficulties, I was confident that brighter days were around the corner, as I told my cousin Fausto and his friend Ronnie when they drove down in Fausto’s truck from Mendota for the Christmas holiday. My hope, I explained to them, was that I’d land a plum assignment for my first teaching post, ideally in one of the bigger cities close to home. The government sometimes sent newer teachers without the right family connections to out-of-the-way locations where there was little money to be made and few options for pursuing further education. But given my excellent academic record, I was sure to be rewarded with the right job—or so I expected.

      In the best of moods, we decided to drive into Mexicali to join some of my friends for holiday parties. With Fausto’s truck, we had wheels and could make the scene in style—a big plus for me, given that I usually had to ride the bus to such destinations and then walk an additional three miles or more in extreme heat or cold. We were so mobile, in fact, that not long after arriving at the party in Mexicali, Fausto and Ronnie suggested we continue on to other parties across the border in Calexico, California.

      Small problem. I wasn’t carrying my passport. Since I hadn’t planned to cross the border, I’d left it at home. Fausto offered to drive us back to my house for it, but I didn’t see a reason to drive two hours just for a little piece of paper. By the time we did that, the parties would be over. “Never mind,” I told Fausto, “I won’t need it. They hardly ever stop us.”

      We approached the checkpoint at the border crossing. The agent, seemingly in a cheery holiday mood, started to wave us through when something appeared to catch his attention and he gestured for us to stop.

      Standing at the driver’s side, the American agent asked Fausto, in English, where he was headed. Fausto, without an accent, explained that he was from Fresno but was visiting family for the holidays and was just going across the border for a party.

      The agent nodded. Then he asked Ronnie, “Where are you from?”

      Ronnie answered, “Fresno.” The agent took him at his word.

      Hoping to avoid more questions,