00:00:04
i started off
00:00:06
working on the land a land that wasn't
00:00:10
mine
00:00:10
i worked for other farmers picking
00:00:14
just about any any uh fruit and
00:00:17
vegetable that grows here in the valley
00:00:19
you name it if they grow it here we
00:00:21
picked it
00:00:23
including grapes jose hernandez spent
00:00:25
his entire
00:00:26
childhood working alongside his parents
00:00:28
in these california
00:00:30
fields picking strawberries cherries
00:00:32
onions and cucumbers
00:00:34
cucumber grows low so you're always on
00:00:36
your back picking
00:00:37
and your bucket filling your bucket and
00:00:39
then you got to go and empty it and get
00:00:40
your little
00:00:42
chip that you then turn in for payment
00:00:45
and uh it's hard work but you know by
00:00:48
about 11 o'clock in the morning you're
00:00:50
done
00:00:51
and you know if you did very well you
00:00:54
could make
00:00:54
50 60 bucks but this is his land
00:00:58
now and it represents to me it
00:01:00
represents life
00:01:03
every year his family would travel from
00:01:04
mexico to california spending months at
00:01:07
a time
00:01:08
doing hard labor it's the only life we
00:01:10
knew and
00:01:11
to me it was normal it wasn't it wasn't
00:01:14
a tough life that's why
00:01:16
i think my work ethic came from
00:01:19
still learning english jose excelled in
00:01:21
math and science and by 10 years old
00:01:24
he knew that he wanted to be an
00:01:26
astronaut
00:01:27
after watching the last apollo mission
00:01:29
on tv it was 1972
00:01:32
and he told his dad about his dream i
00:01:35
think what he saw was the determination
00:01:37
of a 10 year old boy that
00:01:41
he did two things that changed the
00:01:43
course
00:01:44
of my life i think first thing is
00:01:47
he validated the dream he empowered me
00:01:50
to believe i can do it he said
00:01:52
because the first thing that he said is
00:01:53
i think you can do it
00:01:55
i mean that is powerful from a parent to
00:01:58
a 10 year old
00:01:59
when he empowered me i believed them
00:02:02
i'm working very hard so so i can
00:02:06
have all my children to be somebody and
00:02:09
it looks like
00:02:10
they everyone has been professional now
00:02:14
all four of them yeah i'm really really
00:02:17
really proud of the whole
00:02:18
all of them the youngest of four kids he
00:02:20
graduated high school in 1980
00:02:22
then earning a degree in electrical
00:02:24
engineering from the university of the
00:02:26
pacific
00:02:26
two years later completing his master's
00:02:28
degree he began working at the lawrence
00:02:31
livermore national laboratory
00:02:33
where he was instrumental in the
00:02:34
invention of the mobile mammogram
00:02:36
machine
00:02:37
during his time there he began applying
00:02:39
to nasa a process that would take him
00:02:41
12 years he was rejected 11
00:02:44
times and so i reached this final 100
00:02:48
not once not twice but three times
00:02:52
and made it that far three three times i
00:02:54
was in the final 100 so you could almost
00:02:57
taste it
00:02:58
in a sea of more than twelve thousand
00:02:59
candidates he was finally selected in
00:03:01
two thousand four
00:03:02
so don't be so quick to give up on your
00:03:05
dreams if you failed once or twice
00:03:07
sure failure doesn't feel good sure
00:03:09
rejection doesn't feel good
00:03:11
but if you prepare yourself you come
00:03:13
back stronger
00:03:14
and eventually you'll get there two
00:03:16
years later he got his wings and in 2009
00:03:19
he was the flight engineer on the sts
00:03:22
mission on spatial discoveries
00:03:24
flying a 14-day mission to the
00:03:26
international space station
00:03:28
he became the first first generation
00:03:31
mexican
00:03:32
american astronaut and he also sent the
00:03:34
first tweet from space
00:03:36
in spanish i tweeted uh for all the
00:03:39
countries especially the u.s mexico
00:03:42
and the latin american countries good
00:03:44
luck in the upcoming
00:03:46
qualifying rounds for the world cup and
00:03:49
see you at the world cup
00:03:50
at the end of his 14-day mission weather
00:03:52
changed their flight path
00:03:53
forcing them to land in california
00:03:56
instead of florida
00:03:57
on the landing site of edwards air force
00:04:00
base i always call it poetic
00:04:02
justice why because it's about 80 miles
00:04:06
from where i used to pick strawberries
00:04:07
in the ontario
00:04:08
chino area main gear touchdown
00:04:12
were there people on your way up that
00:04:15
doubted you
00:04:17
because of your background i guess the
00:04:19
answer the short answer is yes
00:04:22
you perceived that it wasn't very
00:04:24
blatant
00:04:25
but you perceived it but i also
00:04:29
i think it also had to do a lot with
00:04:31
having an imposter syndrome
00:04:33
sometimes you can't help and you say hey
00:04:36
do i really belong here
00:04:37
[Applause]
00:04:40
a husband and father of five jose left
00:04:42
nasa in 2011
00:04:44
moving back to stockton running his
00:04:46
consulting business
00:04:47
investing his time in the community and
00:04:49
buying
00:04:50
his own land tending to the vines
00:04:54
near where his entire family worked for
00:04:56
years
00:04:58
we were out here because we had to be
00:05:00
here you know it was a matter of
00:05:02
survival
00:05:03
now we're here because we enjoy it
00:05:06
bottling
00:05:06
the first vintage of tierra luna wines
00:05:09
in march
00:05:10
it has a double meaning tara luna my
00:05:13
wife thought of the name for her
00:05:14
restaurant because it meant
00:05:16
earth moon grill but it also has a
00:05:19
double meaning because tira in spanish
00:05:21
not only means earth
00:05:23
it also means third and while his life
00:05:26
remains
00:05:27
on this planet for now he's again
00:05:30
inspired
00:05:31
by the latest mission to mars do you
00:05:34
feel like
00:05:35
i mean i knew it was the hardest
00:05:36
decision of your life but but ultimately
00:05:38
the right one for you to leave
00:05:41
but when you watch stuff like this you
00:05:43
miss it a little bit oh yeah i
00:05:45
miss it a lot i miss it a lot and uh
00:05:48
you know i i understand you know once
00:05:50
you leave nasa as an astronaut
00:05:52
uh you're never gonna go back i
00:05:53
understand that part
00:05:55
but you never know i mean you got spacex
00:05:58
you got virgin galactic you got blue
00:06:01
origin
00:06:02
all these companies have their own
00:06:03
vehicles and may want to have
00:06:06
experienced
00:06:07
astronauts lead some of the missions
00:06:11
whether they're for tourism or for other
00:06:14
efforts that they're trying to do and so
00:06:17
you know so you're leaving the door open
00:06:18
yeah exactly the phone may ring one
00:06:20
yeah i'm still kind of i'm still in
00:06:21
pretty good shape so uh
00:06:23
so i'm i'm hoping you know one day the
00:06:25
phone rings and says hey jose you know
00:06:27
if we got an opportunity for you i'll
00:06:28
say hey um put me in coach
00:06:36
now his inspiring life story is being
00:06:39
made
00:06:40
into a movie netflix plans on shooting
00:06:43
uh early summer or spring diane love
00:06:46
that
00:06:46
kadena and canon when you were talking
00:06:50
to him meeting him
00:06:51
hanging out with him in person what did
00:06:52
you feel stood out to you
00:06:54
the most when you heard his story from
00:06:56
him
00:07:00
you know diane it's the story of his
00:07:01
second grade teacher honestly
00:07:03
she changed the course of his life
00:07:06
dramatically because when he was in
00:07:07
second grade his parents told him you
00:07:08
know go get your three months of
00:07:09
homework
00:07:10
we're hitting the road for work again
00:07:12
and his second grade teacher
00:07:13
came to their home and said
00:07:16
that education needs to be a priority
00:07:18
you need to consider the future for your
00:07:20
children
00:07:21
and right then and there everything
00:07:23
changed and they stayed in stockton
00:07:25
and look at what happened and of course
00:07:27
his kids are going on
00:07:29
to be successes as well diane he has one
00:07:31
child getting his phd right now so
00:07:33
it's just an incredibly inspiring story
00:07:35
all around and for
00:07:37
all generations it really is and it was
00:07:39
interesting to hear him say
00:07:41
that he suffered from imposter syndrome
00:07:43
always questioning do i really belong
00:07:45
here you know what do you what do you
00:07:48
take away from that when you think about
00:07:50
all the doubt that he had
00:07:51
and yet what he ended up accomplishing
00:07:55
you know diane that struck me too and my
00:07:57
producer lisette as well
00:07:59
we were both struck by the fact that he
00:08:02
felt this imposter syndrome
00:08:03
despite the fact that he had all of
00:08:05
these degrees and he had all these
00:08:07
successes in his life
00:08:08
he still sometimes questioned because he
00:08:11
hadn't really seen anybody else do it
00:08:13
before
00:08:14
do i really belong here and i think that
00:08:16
that's something that we see
00:08:17
a lot of times diane in these
00:08:19
trailblazers people that are doing
00:08:21
something for the very first time
00:08:23
and obviously the answer is that yes you
00:08:26
absolutely belong here and we are a
00:08:27
better country for it
00:08:29
well he made that clear kainen whitworth
00:08:30
thanks for that story that was great
00:08:32
hi everyone george stephanopoulos here
00:08:34
thanks for checking out the abc news
00:08:35
youtube channel
00:08:36
if you'd like to get more videos show
00:08:38
highlights and watch live event coverage
00:08:40
click on the right over here to
00:08:42
subscribe to our channel and don't
00:08:43
forget to download the abc news app for
00:08:45
breaking news alerts thanks for watching