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<\/p>\nWhen Onelio Mencho-Aguilar was 13-years-old, he left his mother and siblings to embark on a treacherous journey through rural Guatemala to the U.S. alone. His hope? That he could find a job and send money to his struggling family.<\/p>\n
He spoke neither English nor Spanish, only Mam, a Mayan language used by just half a million people.<\/p>\n
But against the odds, he found a home here in Alexandria and with the support he found, he thrived. First as a student at T.C. Williams High School and now as a teacher at the International Academy where new arrivals to the U.S. are educated and supported.<\/p>\n
The soft-spoken 27-year-old uses his own incredible story to inspire and encourage his students.<\/p>\n
“I share my story with students every day, especially my new students. I share a lot of things in common with them. So every single day I try to cheer them up because I know that they’re going through a lot of hardships in life. Finding that common ground with them is really helpful because I want to be that person that they can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a child growing up in the hills of Quetzaltenango, he was all too aware of the struggle his single mother of four children faced to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
She scraped together a living by working in corn and potato fields and weaving huipiles, traditional Mayan dresses, to sell.<\/p>\n
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One day, when he told her he planned to leave and go to the U.S. to earn money, his mother understandably said no.<\/p>\n
But a few months later, facing unthinkable hardship, she reluctantly agreed to let her determined son take his chances.<\/p>\n
At first, he said, the journey was exciting, one big adventure to be traveling through cities and countries as a wide-eyed teen.<\/p>\n
Yet when he reached Mexico, things changed and the reality of what he had undertaken hit him.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I started taking the train out through Mexico, I realized that I had taken a really dangerous decision. I thought about going home several times,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It took him a month to reach the desert on the Mexico\/Arizona border where he paid a coyote<\/em> to lead him to the U.S.<\/p>\n “I walked in the desert for four days, and we didn’t have enough water and food and we were lost. So that was very, very dangerous and scary for a lot of us. I remember that there were a lot of young people with us as well. I got sick, I thought I was going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, one night he saw lights in the distance. A feeling of relief poured over him as his dream of America came into view.<\/p>\n From Arizona he traveled to Los Angeles and got a job on a construction site but when his age was discovered, he was fired.<\/p>\n With no money and nowhere to stay, he wandered the city for days, frightened and alone.<\/p>\n He was helped by a Mexican woman who saw him crying at a bus stop. She arranged for him to travel to Virginia, where he reunited with a father he hadn\u2019t seen for ten years.<\/p>\n Despite a difficult relationship, he credits his father with enrolling him at school, first in Arlington and then to Minnie Howard and later T.C. Williams.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember my first day going to school and we were taken to the library and I just fell in love with the books and the smell of books. I was just surprised by the number of books in the library, too, because where I came from, we didn’t have access to even a library and so seeing that here opened my eyes.”<\/p>\n \u201cI had a lot of amazing teachers, and I think that’s one of the many reasons why I succeeded was because of great teachers who really cared about me, cared about my learning, and also cared about my well-being. I had a teacher at T.C. who was the first person that noticed that I was in need and started reaching out to social workers who could help me.\u201d<\/p>\n To graduate on time, Mencho-Aguilar devoted himself to his studies, enrolling in summer school and night classes.<\/p>\n When his father returned to Guatemala, he ended up in foster care.<\/p>\n