Becoming Dr. Q. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa

up in the sky. The agent said,

      “You! Where are you from?”

      “Fresno,” I answered, mimicking Fausto and Ronnie’s tone and pronunciation. My knowledge of the English language in this era was close to nada.

      “And how long you lived in Fresno, son?” the border agent asked.

      “Fresno,” I nodded and smiled, clueless.

      The agent then asked for documentation and, of course, I didn’t have any.

      Within seconds, a group of agents surrounded the truck. After much discussion, they allowed Fausto and Ronnie to go but detained me. A full two hours of interrogation followed, during which I repeatedly insisted that I had simply forgotten my passport and meant no harm or crime. I knew that I couldn’t give them my name, however, because they would then suspend my passport for good. I also couldn’t tell them what I did or where I was from. But I couldn’t lie.

      A Spanish speaker, the border agent who stopped us wanted blood. He could see I had nothing on me, as I was wearing only lightweight shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. He began to threaten harm to my loved ones, even though he obviously didn’t know who they were. Not getting anywhere, he locked me in a freezing cold room, as close to a cell as I would ever inhabit. Curling up in a fetal position in a futile attempt to get warm, I cried myself to sleep, certain that my life was ruined.

      Before dawn, another agent came to unlock the door and found me on the floor. A compassionate man, he was clearly upset with the other agents for holding me in such conditions so long without food and water. The agent apologized, handed me money for breakfast, and sent me on my way.

      Lesson learned. My better judgment had clearly been clouded. The idea that I didn’t have a plan in case I was stopped was bad enough. But in thinking that I could deceive the border patrol agent who first approached the car, I stepped over the fine line between confidence and arrogance. With due remorse, I resolved never again to travel without my passport.

      After that ordeal, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to travel again. But extenuating circumstances changed my attitude. Much to my shock, as soon as I graduated from college, I learned that, because of the political situation in Mexico, my academic credentials hadn’t helped me get the assignment I’d wanted. Instead, I was to start work right away in a very remote, rural area. The better jobs in cities near universities had all gone to students from wealthier and politically connected families. How could the fight be so blatantly rigged? What about merit? What about talent and hard work? What about justice and equality?

      Without realizing it, I was already applying what I’d learned of the American dream from my two visits to the San Joaquin Valley, first at age eleven and then at age fourteen. I wanted to believe that I could travel to Faraway in my own country and have adventures, meeting opportunity and success along the way. I wanted to believe that I could be like my hero, Benito Juárez, and come from nowhere to make important contributions to my country. I most wanted to believe that poor and politically ignored people like me were not powerless. For a decade, during which economic troubles exacerbated poverty and suffering, the once-thriving middle class had been left in the dust. Now I was finding out that the promise that had sustained me—that people like me who had sunk to the bottom could eventually alter our own circumstances—was nothing but a fairy tale.

      My future was suddenly in question. Did I even want to be an elementary school teacher? Had I really excelled, or had learning just come easily to me? As I relived the recent years of my education, I realized that I’d felt little passion for my subject matter and now, more than ever, resented this system that had lured me in with promises it couldn’t keep. Had I chosen my path because becoming a teacher was practical, because someone else had done it and had left me a trail? Had I given up on the dreams that had roused my fighting spirit from the time I was a little boy?

      Everything at this point appeared more difficult than before, and at times my situation seemed hopeless. At moments, I even wondered whether my life was worth living, whether anyone would miss me if I died. Yes, I had a family that loved me and a girlfriend who thought I had something to offer. But perhaps they were mistaken. Maybe everyone would be better off without me.

      No one was able to explain to me that I was probably suffering from an overdue bout of depression or that my disillusionment was probably age-appropriate. No one was there to mention that this dark period would help me in years ahead—allowing me to empathize with patients and to understand their struggles.

      One image kept me from losing all hope: the memory of my mother’s jubilant face when I returned from Mendota and handed her my earnings. That hard-earned cash proved that people like me were not helpless or powerless. That was worth something, I had to admit. And I also took some comfort from a dream that had come to me during this time of near despair. In it, a shadowy stranger assured me that better days lay ahead and that I could be the architect of my destiny, although I would have to leave all that was familiar to do so. I asked the stranger how I would know that I was on the right path. He told me that a woman would appear to accompany me at the right stage of the journey; she would be fair-haired and have green eyes.

      The dream gave me few other specifics. However, clinging to the image of my mother’s face when I’d returned home from working the fields the last time, I decided I could still become a teacher if I made a few adjustments in my plan. If I returned temporarily to Mendota, I could earn enough money to buy a car and also put aside some of my earnings to supplement my meager income when I returned to Mexico to begin my community service job. Uncle Fausto kindly agreed to put me back to work at the ranch, where I enjoyed my reclaimed status as Dr. Pacheco. Before long, I accumulated seven hundred dollars of earnings and this time needed no persuading to buy myself a wreck of an old Thunderbird at a local used-car dealership.

      My dream of fixing up the car’s interior like a Las Vegas attraction—with photos of movie stars, a pair of dice, some religious iconography, and a cassette player for blaring the heavy rock I now loved—would have to wait. But in the meantime, that wreck of a Thunderbird traveled much farther and back again than its makers probably ever imagined.

      Toward the end of 1986, as I approached my nineteenth birthday, I felt my life’s journey was nearing a crossroads. While I fought the idea of leaving Mexico for longer than a stint here and there and refused to give up wholly on finding a teaching position that would pay me a small salary, deep down I knew that it was only a matter of time before I migrated north.

      I thought of my girlfriend, of course, and the possibilities of building a life together. But what could I offer? Then I recalled all my nights on the roof watching those fast-moving, action-seeking little stars—all going somewhere exciting, beyond the limits of my imagination. There was my answer, as certain as the fixed planets that I now knew hovered in the night sky.

      Again, the opportunity to continue working at the ranch in Mendota was central to my thinking. The idea was to go there for a couple of years, returning periodically, like Uncle Jose, with money and help for the family. I hoped I could soon rise to Uncle Fausto’s level, which would enable me to put aside enough money to come back to Mexico and study at the university. I wouldn’t need political connections because I would be a man of means unto myself.

      With that plan in mind, though I hadn’t made a final decision or revealed my thoughts to anyone other than Gabriel, he and I decided to go up to Mendota for a few weeks before Christmas to earn some money for the holidays. We would then bring Fausto and Oscar back with us just before New Year’s to enjoy the local festivities. After that, I would drive my cousins back home and either drop them off (as Oscar was finishing high school and Fausto was in his first year at Fresno State) and return home or stay at least until the following summer.

      True to the plan, we worked in Mendota over the holiday, and then a few days before New Year’s Eve, I rounded up my cousins and Gabriel, and the four of us hopped into my Thunderbird to make the now-familiar drive through central California toward San Diego and then east to Calexico to cross the border for home. After my earlier ordeal, I made sure to carry my passport wherever I