Once drug-addicted and homeless, a student works toward a high school diploma and a new life
Little has come easy for Juan Sanchez.* Born in Mexico City in 1975, he came to the United States when he was 13 in search of opportunities not available in his native country. Following a deportation in 2018, Sanchez returned to California in 2024 but his problems were far from over.
“I lived on the street with mental health problems,” says Sanchez, now 50, of his return to the U.S. “Addiction due to the loss of the family, and my house, which I had lost due to the high mortgage payments. The experience of deportation to Mexico was unpleasant and tiring.”
Sanchez wasn’t ready to give up, however, and he knew that a high school diploma might provide another chance.
Following his deportation, Sanchez finally faced his addiction head-on, putting his life back together to the point where, with the help of his faith and loved ones, he was able to make good on the chance.
“School helps me to have a better vision of what I want to achieve or where I want to go.”
Juan Sanchez, Student, Allan Hancock College
“I had the opportunity to return to school and starting working on a high school diploma that has my name on it,” he says. “I made it personal with myself because within all those difficult situations that I went through, it seemed that God would recognize all the effort and everything that I had been through.”
For Sanchez, opportunity arrived in the form of a return to school via Allan Hancock College (AHC), which provided him with a much-needed sense of purpose. At AHC, Sanchez enrolled in English, communications, and computing classes. There, Sanchez says, he felt motivated by his instructors.
“They tell you what steps to follow or in what sequence you have to do things to be able to move forward,” he says. “I felt supported. I’ve had very good instructors and teachers.”
Sanchez adds that he appreciates how his instructors urged progress over perfection.
“They have shown me, little by little, that making mistakes is part of the learning process,” he says. “It is nice to remember all of them, and have listened to the advice that each one has given me to move forward since I arrived.”
Today, Sanchez has three grown children who are all doing well in their chosen fields, although he says he is always pushing them to further their education. A Sanchez’s experiences at AHC have also inspired him to want to eventually start his own business.
“School helps me to have a better vision of what I want to achieve or where I want to go,” he says. “School has given me the knowledge to be able to communicate and understand and be better prepared and reach new goals.”
*Not his real name; at the request of the source and the school a pseudonym has been used.
For more information on Allan Hancock College visit https://www.hancockcollege.edu
Written by Brett Callwood
| Regions | Classes & Topics |
|---|---|
| South Coast California | High School |
