GILROY — When Alejandro Diaz arrives at the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall, the Gilroy teen will mark an odds-defying achievement for a family of recent immigrants who embody the promises of the American dream.

MIT seems like a natural fit for Alejandro, a 17-year-old athlete, musician and avid community volunteer, who will graduate from Christopher High School on Friday 9 with a 4.56 GPA.

At a time when immigration roils national politics and in a town at Silicon Valley’s heel known more for its garlic production and impoverished communities, Alejandro has succeeded in a public school system that, like many across California, has struggled to get Latino students ahead.

“It’s a milestone,” said 45-year-old Enrique Diaz, Alejandro’s father, an Apple software engineer whose parents, now U.S. citizens, came to the country illegally in the 1970s for farm work. “I don’t think that I could have imagined it, let alone my mom or my grandfather.”

Alejandro turned down offers from Columbia, USC, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and UCLA, among others.

“I didn’t really have a top school,” he said. “I just knew that there were a lot of good schools out there for me.”

The story of the Diaz family goes back several decades, to the start of the Bracero Program in 1942 and the fateful purchase of an ox. The Bracero initiative legally brought millions of Mexican guest workers to the U.S. on short-term, primarily agricultural labor contracts to alleviate a worker shortage plaguing the agricultural industry during World War II.

Alejandro’s great-grandfather, Porfirio Huerta, immigrated with his brother, Urbano, under the program, working part time in the Imperial Valley while making trips back to Mexico to visit his wife and children.

“They wanted to earn enough money to buy an ox, a becerro, so that they can plow their fields,” said Enrique Diaz, Huerta’s grandson. “That’s all they wanted to do. To earn enough to then go back to Mexico and continue working.”

Their journey north marked the beginning of the Diaz’s migration story, one that would take the family from San Miguel de Allende in the Mexican state of Guanajuato to the agricultural fields of California’s Central Valley and finally, the Bay Area. Each generation has paved the way for the next, establishing roots in the United States and pursuing greater educational opportunities.

Enrique Diaz’s parents, Antonio and Dolores Diaz, immigrated illegally into the U.S. in 1972 with Enrique, their eldest son. His father came with only a third grade education. His mother had made it to sixth grade.

The family settled in Cantua Creek, a tiny community near Fresno known for its troubles with access to safe drinking water. They became legal U.S. residents and eventually citizens through Huerta, who sponsored the three for green cards. Diaz’s three younger siblings were born in the United States.

He began working in the fields at age 7, a job he would keep until high school. But like his son, Alejandro, Diaz recalls liking school.

“It wasn’t difficult,” Enrique Diaz said. “But they didn’t know enough to guide us.”

Diaz relied on advice from school clubs, guidance counselors and a cousin to apply for college. He enrolled in Cal Poly, where he met his wife, Emily, the daughter of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores.

As first-generation college students, the couple learned to navigate a world that was challenging and new but offered endless possibilities for them and the generations to follow.

“I think education is so powerful,” said Emily Diaz, 44, an English teacher at Christopher. “I really do think it changes lives.”

Yet despite significant efforts in recent years, educators acknowledge that for many Latino children, change has come too slow.

At Alejandro’s Christopher High School, just 49 percent of Latino 11th graders met English standards last year, compared with 57 percent of all 11th-graders at the school. Only 15 percent met math standards, compared with 25 percent of all 11th-graders.

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But like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Alejandro has risen above those odds.

Paul Winslow, principal at Christopher High, described Alejandro as someone who has a “humble exterior with a brilliant interior.”

“He is obviously extremely bright, but he is also such a humble and well-rounded student. That’s probably what impresses me the most,” said Winslow. “He’s a great example of what public education can do.”

Joining Alejandro on the east coast will be his childhood friends, Eric Heiser and Jacob Yoder-Schrock. The boys met in a dual immersion program at Las Animas Elementary School and have been close ever since. The three teens, all products of Gilroy public schools and all valedictorian candidates at their respective schools, will attend some of the most prestigious universities in the country.

“I think we share a passion for learning and a passion for wanting to learn new things that has been extremely valuable, especially having two friends that had that same passion and cared about learning,” said Yoder-Schrock, a senior at Christopher who is set to attend Yale in the fall.

“I really enjoy learning,” said Heiser, a senior at Gilroy High School who will attend Columbia University in Manhattan. “That comes from home and also from the culture that we grew up in, as far as us three together, finding each other and getting excited about school together.”

Alejandro, who wants to pursue computer engineering at MIT, will leave home in a few weeks to participate in a summer program at the university.

At Apple, Enrique Diaz said, he’s become “the dad of the kid who got into MIT.”

After working in the fields of the Central Valley alongside his parents for nearly 10 years — often dreaming of having a job with an air conditioner — Enrique Diaz said he appreciates every accomplishment that has come his way.

“My fear was that my kids wouldn’t appreciate that,” he said, wiping away tears. “But I’m super happy that they do appreciate it, that they don’t take it for granted.”