Guatemalan 'Oliver Twist' thrives academically in Virginia
Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post
September 20, 2010

Guatemalan 'Oliver Twist' thrives academically in Virginia

By Michael Alison Chandler Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 20, 2010; B01

Onelio Mencho-Aguilar entered high school in Northern Virginia at 14 with a sixth-grade education and a grown man's burdens.

He had survived homelessness, hunger and depression in a torturous journey from the Guatemalan highlands, sneaking across the border in Arizona, roaming the streets of Los Angeles and landing in the Washington suburbs. There, he reunited with his father, whom he had not heard from in a decade -- only to be abandoned by him two years later, left to survive on his own.

Many students who face smaller troubles drop out of school.

But Mencho-Aguilar graduated in June from T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria with a 3.6 grade-point average and a faculty award for his fortitude and "strong desire to achieve." Now he is a full-time student with a $3,000 scholarship at Northern Virginia Community College.

"I compare him to Oliver Twist. He has been through some incredible obstacles," said Patricia Gordon, an English teacher for nonnative speakers at T.C. Williams. "He is the kind of student every teacher wishes they had a room full of."

Many teenagers struggle to feel motivated at school. For those who trail academically or don't speak fluent English, the challenges can be overwhelming. And for immigrants who are focused on survival, school seems like a luxury. Many are reluctant to ask for help.

Mencho-Aguilar, who came to the United States alone, was especially vulnerable. But rather than checking out, he knitted together a surrogate family of teachers, social workers and counselors.

"Maybe it was because I felt safe there," said Mencho-Aguilar, a lanky 18-year-old with a soft voice. School offered things he did not have "in real life," he said, including meals he did not have to pay for and adults he could count on. "I felt school was my home."

For many students at T.C. Williams, ties to the classroom are far more fragile: One in three Hispanic students and one in four African Americans do not graduate within four years. Those statistics fit the profile of many schools with high numbers of disadvantaged students.

T.C. Williams, with more than 2,900 students on two campuses, is one of Virginia's largest high schools. But this year, with help from a federal turnaround grant, administrators are working to

make it seem more intimate: reducing caseloads for guidance counselors, hiring more English and math teachers, and creating personalized academic plans for each student.

Experts say that even one personal connection -- to a teacher, a counselor, a janitor -- can help a student stay in school. Such ties proved to be crucial for Mencho-Aguilar.

The teenager's father left his family in a rural village outside the city of Quetzaltenango when the boy was 4. His mother struggled to raise four young children by working in corn and potato fields and weaving huipiles, traditional Mayan dresses, to sell.

At 12, he left school to help her. At 13, he made the month-long trek to the United States. In Los Angeles, he was hired on a construction crew. He pulled his baseball cap low each day to shade his face, but his youth eventually betrayed him. He lost his job.

For three days, he slept in parks and wandered the huge city, not knowing where to go. A Mexican woman saw him crying at a bus shelter. She took him in, helped him get in touch with a relative in Maryland and arranged a ride for him with an acquaintance who was driving a tractor-trailer across the country.

In Washington, he reconnected unexpectedly with his father. He moved in with him and looked for work in restaurants, but no one would hire him.

So instead, he became a freshman in 2006, first at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington County, where his father had rented an apartment, and later at T.C. Williams in Alexandria, where the two of them were living with his father's girlfriend.

At first, Mencho-Aguilar understood little of the language spoken around him. Even Spanish translations were confusing because he grew up speaking a Mayan language called Mam. He stayed after school for extra help and brought home children's books to practice reading.

In school, he was uninterested in making friends. The isolation proved helpful in some ways: He learned to shrug when classmates teased him for his earnest questions or the blue T-shirt he always wore. He wasn't distracted by alcohol or drugs. "I just wanted to study," he said.

As his English improved, he found a job at a sandwich shop in Tysons Corner. He made the hour-long commute on the bus after school, often not returning home until 1 a.m., then spending another hour or more finishing homework. He was tired but satisfied. "I felt independent," he said.

His father suggested that he leave school once he had a steady paycheck, but he resisted. He was earning praise from teachers and getting better grades than classmates who spoke better English.

The summer before his junior year, Mencho-Aguilar went to a hospital emergency room with intense stomach pains. His father, who had lost his construction job, spent the next few weeks taking care of him while he recovered from appendicitis. Then his father said goodbye and returned to Guatemala.

Still weak, Mencho-Aguilar could not work, and with only the $300 his father had left him, he could not pay for medication, food or rent in the apartment he shared with six people.

He went to school each day with a growing sense of panic. A teacher noticed his missing homework assignments and withdrawn expression and asked what was wrong. She sent him to talk to Guadalupe Silva-Krause, a Spanish-speaking parent liaison.

Eventually, Mencho-Aguilar opened up to Silva-Krause, and then to the school social worker and school nurse, describing a history of troubles in his home town, his journey from Guatemala, his father's abrupt departure. Those conversations were a turning point.

He was referred to a counselor and was prescribed antidepressants when he was feeling close to despair. He met with social workers from Alexandria and Fairfax County, who set about finding a more secure place for him to live.

A distant relative agreed to let him sleep for two weeks on the couch in a cramped apartment. Then he moved into an alternative house for at-risk teens in Fairfax County. Every day, his mind hummed with fears that he could be deported.

But a juvenile court judge ruled in fall 2008 that he should enter foster care. And the next summer, the judge decided he should remain in foster care because he had no safe home in the United States or Guatemala.

After a short stay with a family in Ashburn, he moved in with an older woman in Alexandria and became part of her extended family, complete with hugs and noisy Sunday dinners. "They called me 'son,' " he said.

With a stable home for the first time, he poured energy into school and went into his senior year determined to catch up on credits and graduate. New ambitions grew in the place of doubt and fear, and he started to think about a career in medicine, engineering or counseling. He took a hefty course load: biology, chemistry, advanced algebra, government, U.S. history and English. He also took English classes at night.

He applied to two colleges that fall. He also applied to become a permanent legal resident, and this month he received his green card.

He excelled with the support of teachers and staff. His social worker, Terry Wright, offered him steady advice from her years in foster care. School nurse Nancy Runton, or "Miss Nancy," made sure he had groceries and gifts to open on his birthday. Occasionally, a teacher or administrator would slip him a $20 bill before the weekend.

Since graduation, he has returned often to visit. He talks of how much he wants to repay those who helped him. Wright tells him that the best way to say thanks is to give back to his community, so he does. He teaches Sunday school and tutors younger students, and in August he translated for Spanish-speaking parents at a back-to-school night in Alexandria. When he meets students in stressful situations, he brings them to Wright.

"I have everything that I wasn't expecting to have," he said.