Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am very honored to have been asked to come to this symbolic site of American history to briefly convey to you my personal experience in this great country. I must say that the immigrant spirit runs deep within my family, and, the promise of a better life and the realization of our dreams has been fueled over three generations by the American society.
My family has roots in China, Spain and the Americas. My paternal grandfather immigrated to Costa Rica from China at the turn of the century in search of a better life. At roughly the same time, my maternal grandfather had immigrated from Costa Rica to the United States for the same purpose. He lived in and learned from America for eleven years before returning to Costa Rica. His deep admiration for President Franklin D. Roosevelt led him to choose the name I bear today. He always spoke highly of this nation and would often tell me that my future would someday take me to this country.
I was born in Costa Rica in the year of 1950 and later my family moved to Venezuela. It was there in the year of 1957 that I learned from my mother of a wonderful event which would change the world: the launching of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. She would tell me that a new star had been placed in the heavens and it was made by humans. Someday, we would build spaceships that would carry us to explore the heavens. Thus began my fascination with space. I had decided that I would become a space explorer.
We eventually moved back to Costa Rica, where I continued my studies. I was a normal boy, living a normal life. I can not say I was a model student, but from an early age I was intrigued by experimental science. More important, I did have a set of parents who believed in me. Their optimistic and positive attitude carried me through the difficult years of adolescence. In the end, I believe the greatest gift my parents gave me was a belief in myself.
The human excitement of space exploration became real with the first human spaceflights in the sixties. I followed every bit of news on these great adventures. I was intrigued by the rockets that carried these brave men and soon decided that my future career would be as a scientist and a space explorer. I learned they called them astronauts. I wanted to be one. I would go to the United States and become an astronaut.
The reaction of my friends and relatives was unanimous: You are crazy. I must say, even my understanding parents had a difficult time with such an idea. Nevertheless, in 1967 I wrote several letters to NASA, including one to Dr. Werner Von Braun. This one was answered with a form letter which I have kept, and which advised me to pursue a career in science or engineering. The content of the response was not all that important. However, as I held this piece of paper in my hand, I knew I had made contact!
In August of 1968, I left Costa Rica for the United States of America. I had worked as a bank teller for nine months and I had carefully saved $50. My father was able to finance my airplane ticket and a family of relatives in the city of Hartford, Connecticut had opened the doors of their home for me to live with them while I found my way in this new land. As I boarded the plane for the United States, my father shook my hand and repeated his favorite slogan: "A thousand mile journey begins with the first step." I was leaving on the day of his birthday.
The awesome pace of American life came to me as a shock the moment I got off the airplane at Bradley Field in Hartford. I did not speak English and the sense of helplessness was overpowering. I am forever thankful to my relatives, the Zúñiga family, for providing that oasis of familiarity that became so important in order to set things in motion in this new land. I have always believed that no one gets anywhere without someone else’s help.
While I had graduated from High School in Costa Rica, I had to learn English. This was my top priority. I also needed to find a way to go to the University. My $50 could not carry me very far. I had to spend the first $35 of those on a winter coat. I lived for several months with the help and charity of new friends and my U.S. relatives, as well as a part-time job which I was able to obtain at the public library. It is amazing how much one can do without.
I was enrolled in the English Orientation Program at Hartford Public High School. However, I soon realized that the pace was slow, as most of the students in this program spoke Spanish. Very little English was heard in class. I was able to convince the school officials to put me in the regular senior class, with a full load of courses leading to graduation the following May. While this "total immersion" approach produced failing grades in the first two quarters, the third and final quarter demonstrated a very rapid improvement, leading to an excellent course performance by the end of the year.
My good grades and probably also my good luck, landed me a full scholarship to study at the University of Connecticut the following year. It was a bitter sweet moment when I arrived at the University to find that a mistake had been made. My national origin, "Costa Rican," had been confused with "Puerto Rican." The scholarship which I had earned was only available to citizens of the United States. I was not.
The events that unfolded after this realization have left in me the most profound feelings of respect and admiration for the American society. The University officials, recognizing their error, notified the Connecticut State Legislature, which, in turn decided to correct it with a dispensation from the citizenship requirement and, for this case only, grant the scholarship anyway. I had weathered the first storm and I now had a fighting chance to make the next step.
I entered the University of Connecticut as an engineering student in the Summer of 1969. That same year I watched the Apollo 11 astronauts land on the surface of the moon. It seemed, however, that my astronaut career was further away then than when I was in Costa Rica. There were events unfolding around me which gave me a view of America I did not have. The civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, the energy crisis. After the Moon landing, the mighty space program was being systematically dismantled before my very eyes. Thousands of aerospace engineers, my intended career goal, were being laid off, and were making ends meet as taxi cab drivers or gas station attendants.
The dimming of the space program had an interesting effect on me. I was able to nurture my other passion in life: Scientific research. As an engineering student at the University, I landed a good job as an undergraduate research assistant in the Department of Physics. I became involved in the fascinating world of atomic and nuclear physics and learned the experimental method. I became interested in nuclear power and its promise for society in a world of scarce energy. I also became fascinated by the concept of controlled thermonuclear fusion, the power of the Sun, as a long-term solution to the world’s energy needs.
During my sophomore year at the University I married and my life became a stable environment for serious study. I was able to continue working in the Physics Department and earn and borrow enough money to pay for my education. After graduation, I decided to pursue graduate studies. I applied and was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a student of Plasma Physics and Nuclear Engineering. Although the promise of space exploration lie dormant, I had followed with avid interest the launching of the voyager spacecraft to the outer planets and the Viking landings on the surface of Mars. I had begun to entertain the use of nuclear power as a necessity for long-range space exploration and I had become convinced that plasma physics would play a key role in future rocket technology.
I received my Ph.D. in Applied Plasma Physics and Fusion Technology in 1977. Several things happened in rapid succession. In that same year, I became eligible to become a United States citizen, something I had waited years for. Also, the Space Shuttle Enterprise made its first atmospheric flight and, most important of all, after many years, NASA announced that it would select a new group of astronaut candidates for the Space Shuttle Program. All of a sudden the space program was so close, I felt I could touch it.
I submitted my application to the astronaut program in 1977; however, my rejection letter came a few months later. I surmised that my citizenship papers had not come through in time for the review, but I probably will never know. Two years later, a second group of space shuttle astronauts was being selected. Having been sworn in as a citizen of the U.S., this time, my application went in with all the right check marks.
Months later, after having been called for an in-depth interview and evaluation in Houston, I knew I had made the initial cut. A few months later, while discussing my plasma rocket engine concepts with Dr. Eugene Covert of MIT, I received a call in his office from NASA in Houston. I had been selected as an astronaut.
My new life began in Houston in the summer of 1980. It has been 17 years of excitement and five missions in space. I feel the deepest gratitude and love to the United States of America, my adoptive country. I feel there are so many stories similar to mine, to be told by tens of thousands of immigrants to this great nation. I feel the greatest mistake we can make as a society is to close this human fountain of renewal that bathes our land. It is the new blood that keeps us new and young as a nation.
Last updated 8/11/97 by Julie Meredith