Undocumented Immigrant With No Education to Software Engineer(Part 1)
Before I start, I want you to please bear with me on the way I write, I have very little general education and so I know beforehand that I will be making lots of grammatical errors, I will, however, try not to make too many, after all the whole purpose of an article is to read.
I have tried to write about my story for quite a while now and honestly, I’ve always been so worried (afraid) about what people might say about me, especially in the time we’re living in where racism and all that crap is all over the news, and of course, let's not forget that there are many out there wanting us back to where we came. I understand their position. I don’t feel entitled to be treated any differently after we broke the law, even though some of us didn't know or did not have a choice because someone else made the decision for us.
The reason why am writing this is that I hope that I can be an inspiration to some of you out there struggling to be a professional or whatever you want to be, lots of my friends have asked me to write about it and I’ve always refused for so many reasons, but here I am, trying to make sense of what has happened in my life, add a narrative to it and hoping to give you some hope and examples that, when you are committed and work hard you can become whoever you want to be regardless of where you come from or if you don’t have the necessary resources to achieve your goals.
This is me in the white shirt, black pants( women pants), and 2 sizes bigger shoes because you know, they have to last at least one year or two. Here I am with one of my older brothers in the only picture I have of those years. As I said, am wearing a pair of jeans that I got from one of my dad’s bosses daughter. Man, I loved those pants, they lasted about 3 years of constantly wearing them.
You might be asking why women pants? well where I come from a pair of new jeans were like $20, approximately a week worth of work or more. If you are lucky you get a pair of semi-used jeans every year, in this case I got so lucky that this guy donated us some clothing and these happened to fit me.
I grew up in the most rural areas of El Salvador, Sonsonate Nahulingo, you know, where there’s no electricity and you go to bed at 6:00-7:00pm because it gets really dark outside that you can’t even see your hands, and you use a Candil (a metal can full of gas and a cloth sticking out of the cap) to light up the house, of course this is if you have enough to buy the gas, otherwise, you need to go to bed as soon as it gets dark, I don’t remember at what time it starts to get dark but I would guess around 5:30pm.
When it comes to school, most of the kids start later in life, I started school at the age of ten because you usually skip pre-school and kindergarten due to the lack of money to buy the necessary school supplies and school uniforms.
Schooling and commuting is always a challenge, I would walk to school for about an hour everyday. In the winter you usually take your shoes off, roll up your pants and put your books in a plastic bag so that they don’t get wet, umbrellas don’t exist, unless you make your own with a leaf of a banana tree. If one of your books gets wet, oh boy you’re screwed, you need to let it dry and keep on using it even if the lines on the sheets disappear, theres no money to buy new books, not even for lunch, sometimes my dad would give me $0.25 to buy myself some lunch but most of the time I ate until I returned from school. School starts at 12:00pm and it ends at 5:15pm, you gotta make sure you eat something before you go because if you don’t, most likely you don’t eat until you’re back. Most of the people in the rural areas don’t know how to read or write, none of my parents have a degree, I think my dad only finished 1st grade while my mom learned to somewhat to read and write on her own by reading the Bible.
Anyways, that’s a little background of where I came from and some of the challenges I’ve faced growing up.
So how did I get the idea to become a software engineer?
Well, one day some random guys showed up at my house, I don’t know how they found us since there’s no address or even street names that indicates the way, in that area people usually don’t get mail or anything, if you happened to buy something by credit, theres a person who goes to your house to collect it every month or whatever date you agreed to pay, anyways, this dude insisted to my parents that one of their kids in school had won a ticket or prize (I don’t recall exactly what), and that this kid who won the ticket could go for a three month bootcamp to learn about computers. Oh gosh when I heard the word “Computers” I started begging my dad to please let me go, I’ve heard about this device called “computer” and that it was some sort of magical, mysterious device that you could play with and if you ask it a question it would respond back with the correct answer and it knows everything about the world. If I recall correctly I was in second grade, I already knew how to read and write (Spanish) at least to some extend, so at the end my dad said yes, I don’t remember how much they paid, of course it wasn’t a one time payment, most likely in installments.
So two of my older brothers end up going with me, now that I think about it these guys probably were scams and just used the prize winning as a way of getting people to buy the bootcamp, regardless of that, we started attending, it was a rapid fire where they try to teach you a year worth of material in three months, honestly the only thing I remember about that bootcamp is my brothers making fun of me because I kept on asking what the “Enter” key was, a MSDOS black screen and me punching some key strokes. But that was it, this bootcamp marked my life forever, after I finished it I decided I wanted to be a software engineer, (Yeah maybe I called it something else), but something that had to do with computers.
Coming To The US
I never intended to come to the US, neither I ever dreamed of leaving my home country but things didn’t turned out that way, and, I was forced to leave due to some conflicts with gangs and poverty, my parents send me out on my way to the US full of broken dreams, brokenhearted and only with 5th grade education.
The second day I arrived, I had already found a job, cleaning a pool and helping around the house for this old man from Argentina, he was a nice old man.
I had to work to pay rent and what not, in America you can’t be without a job, more so if you are an immigrant, no welfare, no nothing, again, I don’t expect government help, am just re-iterating what it is to be here as an immigrant, like any other coming from Central America, I did every job there was for me, I worked as a landscaper, as a dishwasher, as a constructor, and any other labor work. The only thing I did not do was beg for money in the streets.
Reviving A Dead Dream
As you might recall, I stopped attending school at 5th grade from El Salvador, where the education system is not like the one in America, so no English ,no high school, no college, no nothing. How could I possibly be a software engineer? if I didn’t even finish high school, not even middle school to be precise, I had zero chances.
One day returning from work I spotted a computer our neighbor had put up for free on his driveway, at first I though that it was just garbage and probably wouldn’t work, anyways, I went home, left my stuff and came back to check it out, I started wondering where the CPU tower was because the only thing I could see was the monitor, still I really wanted one so I decided to take the “Monitor” and thinking to myself that someday I could buy the other piece “CPU Tower” but it turns out it was an iMac, of course not the fancy ones but those old ones (iMac G3) wikipedia link. It definitely turned on without asking for a password, it was kinda hard to play around with since the MacOS was weird and it felt out of place. but still, I used it for a while to play some pre-install games like Poker.
Some time later there was a fair happening in the San Jose Pavilion, where there’s a bunch of people selling all sort of things, I don’t know what they call it or if those events take place nowadays, anyways, I had saved up $200 dollars and I was able to buy a used Toshiba laptop, I was super happy with it, this computer was the one where I re-discovered my passion for computers. After a little while I was able to use the internet, a dial up internet provider called PeoplePC Online ( I think now acquired by Earthlink).
On A Journey To Succeed
I started researching about how computers worked and how the heck I was able to see objects on the screen. I was determined to find out how to be a programmer, after months of searching I found very little information, most it was in English, a language I did not know at that time, after no much success on my search I stumble upon a series of books in Spanish named “The books of hack and crack”(Spanish: Los Cuadernos del Hack y Crack) link(https://hackxcrack.net/foro/cuadernos_antiguos/)
I started reading them, I would spend nights without sleep trying to make sense of what these books were teaching, although the books were in Spanish I lacked the necessary background to understand the content, still, I read them all, some content was outdated but I was more focus on trying to understand the whole programming concept.
I would read anything that had to do with programming or computers in general. One day I went to a saver store in 875 Main St Redwood City, where I found book in C, C programming language is one of the most popular languages and most of the current languages are built upon C, of course it was in English, so to read it I would use a dictionary to translate each word. Honestly it was so frustrating and sometimes I was not able to fully understand once I formed a sentence. Again, I read it, well, I think only couple of chapters because it was very difficult to understand it.
The Challenges
After struggling with English I was giving up the idea of becoming a software engineer. It was so difficult to make sense of the whole programming thing, I lacked so much, my math skills were barely enough to multiply, my English skills were zero. I don’t remember how many times I cried out of frustration. I wished with all my heart of having the opportunity to go to school and fulfill my dream. I would get jealous seeing kids my age pass by with their school backpack, while I was full of mud digging a trench for a garden. Challenges were real, many times I realized how unlikely I was to succeed, with no education, no school, and the most challenging one, no English and education. I stoped many times, Yes, I gave up many times. I think giving up for a little while is not a bad thing, as long as you comeback to it, taking a break help you clear your mind, but don’t forget what your goals are. I never forgot that I was going to be become an engineer, even if it looked far away.
After realizing that the whole thing of using a dictionary to translate each word so I could understand the topics of the articles or books was not working, I needed to learn English first before attempting to learn how to program. Catching up the language was a challenge on its own, since I wasn’t able to attend a school. So I set my goal to learn English first and then come back to programming.
It took me quite a while to grasp the language, picking up a language without help from a tutor or going to school for is truly a hard thing to do, but I was able to understand the basics of it by watching TV, trying to read anything I could spot but most importantly, practicing a new word everyday.
And so I moved into actually learning to program but there was always the dance of going back and forth on things I did not understand. When math was required on a topic I was reading about, I had to stop, go find out what an Equation was and than come back and re-read it.
There are so many people that become software engineers without formally going to school for it, in fact, most of the great engineers either drop out or learn on their own, and theres usually a pattern, drop outs or switching careers. Im none of those. I had to learn from actual zero. I barely knew how to read and write. So learning how to program was 10x harder than the usual challenge of learning it. You might have heard how hard programming is, lots of students struggle with it and some switch majors to something else. Math plays an important role in programming, specially if you want to optimize your algorithms, but even if you just want to program, interviewing for a software engineer role requires that you know your Big O notation quite well, and of course a lot more..
Anyhow, It took me about 7–8 years to learn. Yes 7–8 years.
First job as an iOS developer.
After building small iOS apps and websites I was ready to test the waters. I formed a LLC with my wife and started applying for contracting jobs around the Silicon Valley area, I finally landed an interview at this new startup that had barely formed, I was giving an interesting challenge, to create a carousel menu, lots of math and animations was required as it needed to be a half circle and rotate with selectable items. I remember spending the whole day and night on it to present it the next day, of course it wasn’t perfect but I built most of the functionally and animations. It was the most satisfying feeling ever, even if I wasn’t accepted I realized how far I’ve come but thankfully they accepted me. I can’t express the feeling and emotions I had going through my head after they handed me a contract to sign. There I was sitting on a desk, going through the codebase and thinking to myself how much those years full of frustration, tears and struggles had paid off.
