30 Minutes Bay Area

Sharon Chin
(CBS 5) In this land of opportunity, children are encouraged to reach for the sky. But poverty or lack of education keep many rooted to the ground.

So how did the son of migrant farm workers become America's newest astronaut?

Jose Hernandez says the journey began in a hot car ride home from the fields of San Joaquin county. He was six-years-old when he started working beside his family, up before dawn to pick cucumbers, strawberries, or whatever was ripe.

"It's backbreaking," Jose recalls. "Because you're standing up and bent down picking cucumbers."

They followed the harvest from Mexico to California's central valley and back again.

"As the day ended, we were all dusty, sweaty, crusty from mud that dried on us."

It was a cycle his parents repeated year after year—a life Jose knew probably lay before him too.

"The kids would be packed in the back seat and my dad would always turn around and look at us and basically say, 'This is your future if you don't go to school.'"

His father Salvador and mother Julia never got past the third grade. So when Jose was seven, his parents took a chance and settled in Stockton, working extra jobs to make ends meet. "And they gave us a chance to really grasp the concepts we were learning in school and move forward," says Jose, who still spent weekends and summers working the fields. But his parents' sacrifice freed him to imagine a different future.

"I remember vividly seeing images of astronauts walking on the moon. And that's what really got me hooked."

He worked as hard as he had in the fields but now in the classroom, graduating from high school, from college, and earning a masters degree in engineering.

He was 41 when NASA accepted him in the astronaut training program. As America's newest astronaut, Jose is now taking his place among the nation's top scientists and explorers. He's working ground support for this next shuttle mission, but eventually—"I'll be able to fly at the tail end of the shuttle era, and then be able to bring in the new vehicle, crew exploration vehicle, and perhaps be able to go to the moon."

Last month Jose accepted an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, University of the Pacific, alongside jazz great Dave Brubeck and legendary actor Clint Eastwood.

And the only people more proud are his father and mother. "He always tried to be an astronaut. We never believed him until now!" laughs Salvador Hernandez. "We are very very very very proud."

Jose credits his parents with giving him the chance at the American Dream, by securing green cards so the family could stop traveling and focus on education. But the process left him acutely aware of the debate over border control.

"We need to have comprehensive immigration reform," he says, "because anytime you have 12 million people in a country illegally, and you have companies willing to emply them, then there's a serious problem."

But he also believes immigration can help make America stronger. "We've benefited a lot from immigration. I mean, that's what has made this country so beautiful. It's a land of opportunity."

And now it's an opportunity he's working to extend to children back in Stockton, where a new elementary school will soon be named for him. And so many years after his days in the fields, Jose is still planting seeds, funding scholarships to help more children launch their dreams.

"It's okay to dream the impossible," says Jose, "because if you work hard enough, and get a good education, you can actually attain the impossible."

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