If you need an inspiring story or morale boost, or know someone in need of either, here's a doozy. The 9 August issue of New England Journal of Medicine tells the story of Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, assistant professor of neurosurgery and oncology and director of the brain-tumor stem-cell laboratory at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. Quiñones-Hinojosa came to the United States in the mid-1980s as a 19-year old illegal immigrant, and went to work harvesting produce in the California farm fields.
From the fields, he took jobs as a janitor and welder, and eventually got admitted to a community college, where he learned English. Quiñones-Hinojosa also got a few breaks -- good mentors (see our article this week on that subject) and scholarships -- to go along with his deepening interests in math and science that led to University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Medical School. At Harvard, he discovered neurosurgery, his eventual forte, but along the way he also developed a sense of responsibility to the larger community. It is quite a story; read the whole thing.
And while you're reading about Quiñones-Hinojosa, think about a bill now being considered by the Virginia legislature to prohibit public colleges and universities from enrolling illegal immigrants, even if they attended public high schools and came to the United States at an early age (Quiñones-Hinojosa did neither). Virginia state legislators supporting this bill should take a day trip from Richmond to Baltimore -- it's a short drive on I-95 -- to explain their position to Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, and then try and explain to the rest of us how their bill benefits Virginia and the nation.
Hat tip: Freakonomics blog on the New York Times.
Comments
Post a comment