Alejandro Espinosa first visited the City College campus as a five-year-old learning to ride a bike with his uncle. Little did he know that he would later become a Climate Policy Fellow in the Colin Powell School and be featured on the Today Show reflecting about General Powell’s impact on students like him. As a child and adolescent, Espinosa faced the challenge of being on the autism spectrum. As the child of Mexican immigrants, he also needed ESL support. Unsupportive primary and middle schools nearly derailed his education, but he persisted with staunch support from his mother and family. He is now preparing to graduate from CCNY with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
Please tell me a little about your background. What brought you to City College?
I come from a family of Mexican immigrants, and I grew up in New York City. I have known about CCNY’s presence since I was five years old. My uncle used to live next to the firehouse on West 139th Street and he and I would often visit City College to learn how to ride bikes. I would often visit him and notice a nice campus right across from Amsterdam Ave and thought that it would be a dream to attend here. I learned afterward about what it meant to work to reach the milestones that were to come. My mom thought at first that City College was a mansion where rich people live, given its unique architecture. In Mexico, she is always used to walls dividing rich and poor residents in the same neighborhood.
You mentioned that you have learned what it means to struggle to achieve milestones. Tell me more about that.
I have faced and overcome several hurdles in my life, starting very early on. My main hurdle was different than the major hurdles that people often face based on immigration status and racial barriers. It involved suffering from autism in the first years of my life, where time and time again until middle school, the leader of the school would come up to my mother and ask her to take me to an institution where it was just for people with mental problems, because the school couldn’t handle it. My mom, with an immigrant background, didn’t know how the system worked but thought for a bit until someone went to her and said, Your son is extremely intelligent and will do great things. Be with him to ensure that he will develop just fine.” This statement saved my life. Who knows what would have happened to me thereafter.
Another hurdle was when the middle school assistant principal told my mother I needed to go to another Middle School because I needed ESL services. As my mom successfully lobbied to keep me in my middle school”
