URBANA — In celebration of Latine Heritage Month, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s La Casa Cultural Latina welcomed former NASA astronaut José Hernández to speak with students, staff and community members at the Illini Union Oct. 2.
“We were really excited to land on José Hernández and share those stories of resilience and empowerment,” said Stephanie Cardoza-Cruz, La Casa’s interim director.
Hernández is, as his memoir puts it, a “migrant farmworker turned astronaut.” Though he was born in California, he spent his early years traveling back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico.
Then, he saw the Apollo 17 moon landing on live TV in 1972. “That’s when the dream was conceived,” he said. “I said, I want to be that guy. I want to be an astronaut.”
Hernández was determined to go to space. He became a first-generation college student, studying engineering. He said he almost went to the U of I for graduate school, but the University of California Santa Barbara “was closer to home, and the temperature variation was a lot nicer.”
After becoming an engineer, Hernández applied for NASA’s astronaut training program. He was rejected 11 times.
Somewhere in the midst of those rejection letters, he said his wife, Adela Hernández, asked him what the accepted astronauts had that he didn’t.
“That’s it,” he recalled. “I need to compare myself with the people I want to be like and ask myself, what else do I need?”
So, Hernández said he pushed himself to earn more skills that the accepted astronauts had, like piloting and scuba diving. On his 12th attempt, he was accepted into the program.
“His story, to me, is one that is so capturing of the immigrant child experience,” Cardoza-Cruz said. “As a proud daughter of immigrants myself, I really resonate with those who consistently fight for their opportunities.”
In 2009, Hernández made it to space. He spent nearly two weeks aboard the International Space Station as a mission specialist.
Hernández called the mission’s ending poetic, as bad weather in Florida made them land in southern California, “some eight miles from where I used to pick strawberries as a kid.”
David Olaya, a U of I junior majoring in agricultural and consumer economics, was inspired by Hernández facing the challenge of getting to space and resonated with the struggles of being an immigrant in the U.S.
“I’m an immigrant myself,” Olaya said. “I was born and raised in Columbia. I came at the age of 15 to the U.S. … My dream as a kid was to be an astronaut as well.”
Olaya said that’s no longer the case, but he’s still interested in astronomy and reminisces on that time in his life.
“It’s okay to dream big,” Hernández said. “So long as you’re willing to put the work in converting that dream to reality.”