Jose Hernandez with ISTA student Nieves Yolanda Urbina

MAES

NASA

HENAAC

Raytheon Helps ISTA student Meet Role-Model

When the first Latino, Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz, was named by NASA as a member of the Astronaut corps, a young man by the name of Jose Hernandez heard it on his radio as he was picking vegetables, and at that moment knew he had his role-model. On May 6th, 2004, while working on a school project on the internet, in her technology class in South-Central Los Angeles, Nieves Yolanda Urbina, read about NASA's newest Mexican American astronaut, and she knew she had hers.

Immediately she researched everything she could find on Hernandez. "The more I read his story, the more I saw the obstacles we have had in common growing up, and I knew I wanted to be just like him," said Yolanda. "I read everything that MAES, NASA and HENAAC had on their web-sites. My teacher, Mr. Santos, even gave me a copy of the first article written about him by Technica Magazine in which he was on the cover."

Jack Otero, Director of Diversity for Raytheon, had met with Yolanda on May 5th at a festivity held at Raytheon to kick off the Saturday tutoring program with ISTA. On Tuesday, June 1st, Mr. Otero called Mr. Santos and asked him if he would be willing to take his student to a MAES Board Members dinner to meet Jose Hernandez. Mr. Santos agreed and went to Cal State University Los Angeles to inform Yolanda of the opportunity. "I remember Mr. Santos walked up to me in the technology lab at Cal State," she said, "he asked me if I would mind having dinner with my role-model on Saturday. Mr. Santos likes to play jokes with us at times, so I did not know whether to take him seriously, but the smile gave it away and I remember screaming with excitement."

On Saturday, June 5th Yolanda had the opportunity to meet with her role-model and discuss some of the obstacles he had faced in his quest to become an astronaut. "I was extremely nervous," said Yolanda, "Mr. Hernandez waited a very long time to meet his role-model, and here I was one month after reading about him, I was actually meeting him. When I got the chance to talk to him I had so many questions, but all he wanted to know about was what I was doing to reach my dream, and if I had any doubts to email him. It was quite an experience, one I will always treasure"

Yolanda continued, "In Mr. Santos' classroom there are two pictures, one is of Joe Kapp, the first Latino NFL quarterback who played for the Vikings and John Olivas, an astronuat, who tried many times before he was accepted by NASA. Mr. Santos has those pictures up there because he says that they are people who never quit believing in themselves, even though others doubted them, and he shares their stories with us. I was able to get Mr. Santos a third picture for his wall; that of Jose Hernendez.

"I find it odd that when you tell people you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, people tend to go along with the idea, but if you tell them you want to be an astronaut, people tend to laugh at you,or tell you, you can't. When I told Mr. Santos I wanted to be an astronaut, he looked me in the eyes and told me to go for it, and if I truly believed I could I would. Since then I have had plenty of support from my mentors and tutors at Warner Bros., Raytheon and Boeing. My mentors Pablo and Mina Martinez from Boeing have been extremely supportive, so has my mentor from Warner Bros. Erika Callahan, as well as my tutors from Raytheon who are at my school every Saturday to help me with my homework." "My family and friends used to laugh at me when I talked about wanting to be an astronaut, now I think they are starting to believe there is a chance I can."

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