I came to know our school paletero through small gestures: shy smiles, taps on pictures of frozen treats and a jingle of bells when I neared his cart. I noticed the way he stayed after lunch to pick up trash, how he brushed the ice off each encrusted package and gave students free popsicles, trusting they’d pay him back at a later date. We did not speak the same language, but kindness needs no translation.
I first approached Gregorio on an assignment for my Journalism One class. With the help of a Spanish-speaking friend, our paletero — Gregorio — told me about the best way to make tamales, his struggles as an immigrant living in a van and his four children waiting worlds away for their father.
In return, I spoke of my sister, whom I’d missed every day since she left for college. While our lives seemed in total contrast, I knew the ache in his heart mirrored mine.
While students talked to him almost every day, no one knew his name. After interviewing him on several occasions, we were on a first-name basis.
What a privilege it is to sit with another human being and feel trusted to tell their life story. This is the power of journalism: through our willingness to acknowledge a stranger’s humanity, they become less “strange.”
Gregorio’s feature (my first ever article) started a long friendship, which will be one of my hardest goodbyes. Sometime during freshman year, I started a GoFundMe for an eye surgery that prevented Gregorio from going blind. Gregorio has made a point to repay me for this — going out of his way to buy me gifts, share fatherly wisdom and treat my friends to free popsicles. It was always hard for me to express in Spanish why a “thank you” was unnecessary: of course, friends help each other. The best I could muster in response (also the first word I looked up on Spanish dictionary) was por supuesto.
I joined Talon sophomore year and quickly found a family. Transitioning from “Daggers” (a nickname I earned in J1 for debating with Moul) to “Tilly,” we lived off of a communal hunger for storytelling and truthseeking. During extreme burnout, the newsroom continues to invigorate me.
At the end of sophmore year leading into junior year, I spent three months investigating on-campus sexual assault and harrassment.
In my short career as a journalist I have only once questioned why I do what I do. Sitting on a picnic bench outside of 409 after delaying the publication of our investigation, I told Moul I wasn’t sure the change I envisioned on campus was possible. Sifting through 15 pages of alleged rape, sexual coersion and routine harrassment, it was hard to be.
A few weeks after “Breaking Our Silence” was published, I visited Gregorio. He asked me about my sister, and I asked about his daughters. We exchanged our usual goodbyes:
Gracias por todo, mija.
Por supuesto, Gregorio.
In the familiar face of a friend — and the source of my first article — I found my certainty. If for nothing else, we write stories to commemorate the endurance of the human spirit, with the possibility of moving one empathic heart.
I started Los Altos High School knowing a grand total of two people. I leave behind future bridesmaids, Ms. Honey’s (shoutout Moul, Matthew Chaffee, Christine An and Christina Tovrea) and a popsicle salesman. After 38 latenights, three Iron-chef’s, and a million choco-chip cookies (thanks mom) I am proud to say I am a culmination of every box that appears with my byline on The Talon website.
Powerful, world-changing stories will always need to be told. Talon has made me into the person who wants to write them.
