Late Father’s Word to Wise Helped Son Pass Life’s Tests

The last thing Leonel Arellano’s father said to him before he was shot and killed was, “Be someone in life.”

Arellano took the advice to heart.

Ten years after his father’s murder on the streets of Mexico City, the 17-year-old Santa Ana High School senior is ranked in the top 6% of his class. On Thursday, the same day he graduated, Arellano was awarded a $3,500 college scholarship from the Stanley Behrens Foundation, a Costa-Mesa based organization that offers grants every year to financially needy high school students who finish school in the upper 25% of their class.

For Arellano, who will attend UC Irvine this fall, success has come only after great personal strife. He still has difficulty talking about the circumstances of the violent death of his father on the gang-infested streets of Mexico City, a place that he describes as “very similar to Los Angeles, only a lot worse.”

But through all the adversity, a three-year separation from his mother, the hard work, he never forgot his father, or the parting words before his death.

“Be someone . . . “ he can still hear his father say.

At the time of the shooting, Arellano’s mother, Faustina Ochoa, was in her 20s and could not find work. Like many Mexicans, she looked north and eventually, but reluctantly, left her four children and came to the United States to make enough money to support her family. Arellano, his brother and two sisters remained behind with grandparents.

“She didn’t have enough money, so first she had to come here and save up some money so she could bring us over,” Arellano said. “But when she visited us once in 1985 and saw the conditions in which we were living, she decided to bring us anyway.”

From then on, it was a constant struggle.

Arellano was only 12 at the time but he was eldest of the children, and he took on the responsibilities of an adult, helping out his mother to earn enough money to feed the family. She made pizzas during the day and cleaned office buildings at night. On weekends, she cooked tamales and Arellano delivered them door-to-door.

The family first lived with the mother’s sister in Santa Ana, and after struggling to save enough money, they moved into their own modest home.

“It was hard,” said Arellano, a soft-spoken, shy young man. “But I set my goals, try hard to achieve them and don’t give up.”

By anyone’s standards, Arellano’s accomplishments have been remarkable.

When he moved to Santa Ana five years ago, he did not speak more than a few words of English. By high school, Arellano was enrolled in advanced English courses. He also took honors physics, math and science, graduating 25th out of a class of 393 students.

“Usually with non-English-speaking students, they come through here and finish in about five years because it takes about a year to attain some level of fluency,” said Santa High School Principal Andrew Hernandez. “But what’s amazing about Arellano is that he’s achieved the academic successes in the same amount of time as the English-speaking students.”

But as Arellano advanced, he never forgot those he left behind.

Two years ago, while he was scanning a newspaper for job listings, his eye fell on an advertisement for high school students willing to help younger children build their self-esteem. Soon, in what little spare time he had between his own studies and work, Arellano was teaching disadvantaged youths to sell candles and other items in an effort to help them learn a trade and build their confidence.

“I would really like to be a sponsor of something like that or the Boys Club when I’m older,” Arellano said. “Maybe even start one of my own.”

Arellano also found time in school to tutor other students who were having academic problems.

Arellano dreams of becoming a civil engineer after graduating from UCI. But his heart remains with helping other young people, and he said he would also enjoy teaching math to high school students.

Regardless of what else the future brings, Arellano says he will always be grateful to his mother.

“I’d just like to thank my mom,” he said after receiving the Stanley Behrens scholarship award. “She’s been really great in supporting us and I couldn’t have done it without her.”