This stop on the journey

Jesus Lemus '01 was the first person Adam Lieber '01 met at Princeton. The two were freshman-year roommates and when Lieber strolled into their quad in September 1997, Lemus was already there waiting.

"It was nice to meet another Californian," Lieber recalled.

But the soon-to-be friends had grown up in two different Californias. Lieber was from Beverly Hills, while Lemus had spent his childhood in impoverished south-central Los Angeles and Brawley.

"His memories were a lot worse than mine," Lieber said of his fellow Californian.

So they were.

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She knew she didn't like it, she just didn't know why. While his seven brothers were outside playing marbles, young Jesus Lemus was spending his Saturdays inside studying his math book, and his mother did not like it at all.

"She would punish me at times and take my books away," Lemus recalled. "When I went to school she would hide them so that I would not spend time working. She was like, 'This is abnormal, you should go out and play,' and, 'You're going to go blind if you keep doing this.' "

Friends and family staying at the house felt the same way. They had never seen a child like this before.

By any standard, Lemus was not an ordinary child. Instead of collecting baseball cards, he collected math books. Every three years the schools in south-central Los Angeles would give away textbooks that had been vandalized by students. As a fourth grader, Jesus brought home three sixth-grade math books one day after school.

"I would finish my homework and then do work on those books," he said. "I was doing the same math my brother was doing — we would compete with each other."

But the youngster's budding academic interests did not sit well with his tradition-bound parents, who had immigrated to the United States only recently from Mexico.

Their reverence for tradition was unshakable. For instance, Lemus was born left-handed — and since tradition held that left-handed writers were sinister, his mother forced her southpaw son to write with his right hand.

Still, though he could switch his writing hand, Lemus could not change the way he was perceived. His parents had been taught that getting an education was for only certain people. They brought their children to the United States so they could learn to speak English, a skill that would enable them to find jobs and a build a better life than the one they left behind in Mexico.

The family settled in the Los Angeles area shortly after illegally crossing the border. Lemus' father worked as a butcher to support a nine-person family that eventually swelled to 12, including eight sons and two daughters. The family stayed in a two-bedroom house with a kitchen and living room. Jesus and five of his brothers slept in one big bed.

"Three of us faced one way, three faced the other way. We always used to have kick fights when we didn't want to sleep," he said.

Though Jesus' father found work and was able to support his children, the violent realities of the family's surroundings quickly began to take their toll. The Lemus' next-door neighbor was a member of the Bloods, a national gang. Drug dealers and gang members were always lurking, and drive-by shootings became a frequent occurrence around the house.

"Our windows were always broken from the bullets. There were always holes in the walls," Jesus recalled. "One time a guy was killed on our porch. My mom used to always stay up with us because we were afraid."

It wasn't until his oldest brother went to high school, however, that the violence really hit home.

Jesus' brother Gonzalo attended John Adams High School, where most of the gang members were enrolled. They told Gonzalo that because of where he lived, he had to join the gang.

"My brother told them he wasn't that kind of guy, but they said, 'No, you have to join or you'll have to watch your back.' "

Gonzalo did not join, and the gang members made good on their threat, chasing him home from school daily. Furthermore, each afternoon they would come by to throw rocks at the house. The constant torment took its toll.

"My brother never liked the gangs, and sometimes he would come home crying," Jesus said. "These kids were probably 14 to 18 years old and didn't have any discipline. Their parents were probably drug addicts and didn't care whether they made it through the day or not.

"Eventually my mom decided we had to move out. She said, 'I'm not going to stay here given that one of these days one of my kids is going to get hurt.' "

Given the violence all around them and the number of children in the house, it seemed to be an obvious solution. But Jesus' father was not convinced. He had a job, and life was better than it had ever been before. Furthermore, there were serious questions surrounding a move. Where would two illegal immigrant parents find a place to live? How could they afford a new home?

But Jesus' mother continued pleading. And outside their home, the violence did not abate.

Eventually, her husband relented.

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To Jesus' father Ermilio, south-central Los Angeles was a paradise compared to his home in Mexico. His own father — who had been the chief of the Cora tribe in El Puente, located in the tropical regions of Mexico — had many children with his four wives. Just before his death, he divided up his estate among his heirs, but since Ermilio was only five years old at the time, he received nothing. When he was old enough, he worked for his older brothers in the tobacco fields. A few years later, his future wife came to work in the same town.

Jesus' mother, Edubina, was born in Santa Rosa — a village with about 400 inhabitants in a mountainous region of Mexico. She was born into a family of six children in an area where life depended on the harvest. As a result, years that were too dry or too wet brought disaster to her family.

Neither Jesus' mother nor his father had received substantial education — Edubina had completed first grade, Ermilio the third grade. And none of Jesus' grandparents had any formal education to speak of — a result of both tradition and necessity. His parents left school to help support their families. Education was a luxury they could not afford.

But Jesus' father knew there was something better, and he intended to find it. Shortly after their first child, Gonzalo, was born, Jesus' parents decided to go for their dream.

They began by trying to cross the border into the United States, but were caught by Immigration and Naturalization Service officers and returned to Mexico. This happened several times before Ermilio finally crossed successfully late in 1977. Three months later, he paid a coyote — a smuggler of people — to make arrangements for Gonzalo and his wife to follow.

There are horror stories of coyotes who abuse children and women and then never get them to their destination. But Gonzalo and his mother were lucky. The family settled in Los Angeles and began living their American dream.

Jesus began to dream big from an early age. One day when he was eight years old, he came down with a bad cold. His mom took him and the rest of the children to a local health clinic where a nurse checked on him.

"She seemed to really care about me," he said. "We were so many that my mom could really never spend time with just one of us. She had to be cleaning the house, cooking for my father and taking care of the other families in the house so she never really had time to dedicate to us. The nurse gave me a good feeling, and I decided, 'I want to do something like this.' "

While Lemus' new quest filled him with hope for the future, his parents viewed it as an unreachable goal.

"My mom cried the day I told her I was going to become a doctor. All she said was, 'With God's will.' But as she was thinking about it, she was crying because she was telling this kid he could do it but she had no idea how. She had no clue what it was to become a doctor. She thought only certain people could do it," he said.

"They [my parents] thought we could get elementary and high school education, but the goal was never to become a professional," Lemus continued. "She was just hoping I would forget about it. She never told me I couldn't do it, but she didn't want me to waste my time on the idea."

The Lemus family set out from Los Angeles, trying to leave behind the big city and all its problems. Their search took them as far as Tucson, Ariz., with no success.

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Norma Sierra was used to children running away from her. As a truancy officer who spent days scouting local parks for delinquent students enjoying the California sun, she was the person kids never wanted to see.

But when she saw two small dirty children washing their dishes at a water fountain in a park on the east side of town, she paused. They saw her and scampered away. She knew something was wrong.

She followed them and found the Lemus family living out of a van.

She asked their father why the children were not in school.

"He said, 'We're living out of the van and I got really fed up with the violence in Los Angeles so I packed up my family and I'm going to get a job,' " she said. "The children were dirty but very, very happy. That's probably the best example of a whole family that I've ever seen."

Jesus and his family had left Los Angeles, traveled to Arizona and just outside San Diego but they could not find anywhere to live. They returned to Los Angeles, but found they had no house to return to.

They finally arrived at Brawley, Calif., homeless, where they were discovered by Sierra. She took the family to a local Salvation Army shelter.

"When we went there, they didn't want us because we were too many again. People there were complaining about all of us staying there," Lemus said.

The stay lasted two days before the family found an apartment with two bedrooms and a living room in a nearby complex. Jesus' father found a job as a butcher in Brawley and did a variety of odd jobs to supplement his income, including working for food at a local grocery store.

Once again, the family was not entirely welcome. Several of the other tenants complained about the size of the family, and within a year they had moved again. But Lemus enrolled in Brawley Union High School, which houses grades seven through 12.

Though Lemus had missed a whole year of school, he couldn't be held back.

"They didn't want a 12-year-old in fifth grade," he said.

The yearlong absence from school did not slow Jesus down.

"My eighth grade year I managed to get a 4.0, and it was like, 'Wow, I can really do it.' That kept me pumped up all the way through high school."

He was the valedictorian of his class and was elected student body president.

Jesus' lofty academic standards sometimes contrasted with his way of life, however. Two of his first jobs were as a yardman for local residents and as a tutor for other students in his school. Often, he would serve the same client in both jobs.

"It was this awkward thing, because on weekends I would be cleaning their yards, and then in school I was helping them with their homework," he remembered. "This kid would be telling me and my father what to move and what not to move, and then I would be telling him what to do so he could pass whatever class."

Academically, Lemus was so successful in high school that his college choices were plentiful. He was accepted by Brown, Harvard, Notre Dame and several of the California state schools.

Notre Dame was his first choice, and so Jesus boarded a plane for the first time in his life and traveled to South Bend, Ind., to meet with advisers and visit the campus. It seemed that the school was a perfect fit.

The family's financial situation, however, was not.

"I really wanted to go to college, but Notre Dame could only give me loans, no aid. I was going to be like $35,000 in debt, so I had to tell them I couldn't go," Lemus said.

"That day that I flew back, I checked my mail and I had the big packet from Princeton. I was excited because I knew that meant something good. I found out I got in, and Princeton had the best aid package so I came here."

Jesus knew precious little of the school he had committed to attend. His only contact with Princeton was through an alumnus named Albert Gail, a member of the Class of 1988. Al was a van driver for an Outward Bound summer program for disadvantaged kids at the University of California at Los Angeles. Lemus attended the six-week program when he was a freshman in high school.

"That was the first time I had heard of Princeton," Lemus said. "So when I got the applications for schools, I thought, 'That guy was cool,' but that's about all I knew. I knew it was a good school, but I didn't know anything about it."

The Outward Bound program was designed to give disadvantaged students an idea of what college would be like to convince them to continue their education. Instead, it almost convinced Jesus to give up.

"It was my first time away from home, so it was a bad experience," Lemus said. "I had never spent more than five hours away from my family. The family was always together, even at school. I never went to camps, so the idea of sleeping away from my family was really hard. I remember crying on the phone and telling my mom I was coming home."

Now Jesus was deciding where to spend the next four years of his life. And though his parents had no idea what college was, they knew they did not want him to go.

"My father was being indifferent, but more to show that he wanted me to stay," Jesus said. "I'm sure he was hoping I would stay, but he didn't want to say it. I was very confused. My father, with the whole macho idea, would just say, 'Let him go. He can pack his bags and go.' He just doesn't show emotions because of the way he was raised."

His mother's pleas were more vocal and compelling. Even as Jesus began packing his bags for Princeton, his mother was trying to keep him in California.

"Two or three weeks before I came my mom was like, 'Don't go, you're abandoning your family. We've been through this harsh life, and you don't like that. You're making this decision because you want to go away from your family, not because you want to go study.' She was crying to me.

"That day when my mom was crying I told her, 'You know what? I'm leaving so there's no use crying. I'm still going to leave.' She just said, 'I hope this is really what you want to do. I hope that you never have regrets,' " he said.

He could not make her understand.

And even now, as he leaned forward on the bed in his Princeton dorm room, remembering his mother's pain still makes him pause.

Staring straight ahead he wiped his eyes.

"She didn't know what I was going to do," he said. "She just thought I was tired of living the way I was living."

But Jesus knew what his mother did not.

"Of course I knew I was poor but I never wanted to change my life," he said. "It made me learn what it is to live. It's just as much a part of me now as it was then."

So Jesus Lemus boarded a plane and tried his best not to look back.

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"When I first arrived, I was in New York with all these people. I had two suitcases with all my belongings. I was the only person who got off the Dinky, and that's when it hit me. It was just like, 'What . . . am I doing here?' " Lemus said. "It was the first time that I felt worse than I did at UCLA. I felt like hopping on the train and going back, but I knew I didn't have a ticket.

"Everything my mom had said to me before I left hit me at once, but then I thought, 'You're choosing to do this, so you can't feel bad for yourself. Don't coward out now, you're here already.' "

But Lemus came close to not making it. His freshman year, he worked more than 30 hours per week at three different jobs. He was almost a full-time worker and a part-time student. As had been the case in high school, half of his income went home to support his family.

His pre-med workload did not make the transition easier. His educational background often left him playing catch-up with the rest of the students in his class. Jesus had never had hands-on science education in high school; he had never used or seen many of the basic tools in a chemistry lab.

"First semester I thought about quitting," he said. "But some upperclassmen who were Latinos would call me up and give me advice and motivate me. They saw I wasn't going to make it, and if it wasn't for them I probably wouldn't have made it."

Jesus' first-year struggles were not all academic. His parents remained opposed to his attending college, and his brothers felt that he was no longer one of them.

"The first two years when I would go home for Christmas, the most my father and I would say was, 'Hi.' When I was first going home, I would eat meals alone. My brothers thought I was going to be cocky and have an attitude. They thought I was going to think I was a higher class than they were."

The strain took its toll. After a mentally and emotionally exhausting year, Lemus found he could not move back home for the summer.

"After my first year here I decided not to go home, because if I went home I knew I was going to get too used to it," he said. "I would go home and decide that college was not for me. If I went home, I knew I wouldn't come back. So I stayed here almost the whole summer. I went home for two weeks, but I had a job here, so it bound me to Princeton."

In addition to playing catch-up in classes, Jesus also had to adjust to a new way of life. When he first arrived on campus during the summer before his freshman year, he was living by himself for the first time in a room roughly the size of his house in Los Angeles.

His high school was 95-percent Mexican. Now Jesus was in the 5-percent minority.

"When I first came here, I tried to be very friendly — I sat at a different table every meal to meet as many people as I could," he recalled. "But I felt that I wasn't fitting in. People had different niches or friends from high school. I had to find my own."

To do so, Jesus went back to his roots, joining the Chicano Caucus and Ballet Folklorico, a dance group that performs traditional Mexican dances. For Jesus, it created a family away from home.

"The people there know and appreciate the culture I'm from more than other students here who are Latino."

While he tended to depend on Ballet Folklorico and the Chicano Caucus for many of his friends early in his time at Princeton, Lemus said he did not intentionally self-segregate.

"You really can't stay in the Latino group — there are so few of us here, I can probably count them right now on one hand," he said, "and so many different backgrounds within the community that you can't restrict yourself."

So Lemus joined Phi Kappa Sigma, a community-service oriented fraternity on campus.

"Within the fraternity, everyone has a different background," he said. "Some of the guys went to Andover, their parents are professors who have patents. So we have different stories, different backgrounds and there's still a union between us."

And with time, his outlook grew more upbeat.

"After my fall semester sophomore year, I realized I could do it," he said. "It's gotten easier. Now I'm taking five courses, but I can mostly handle it. Now it's applying to [medical] schools and my lab work that make it difficult, not the fact that I'm behind."

Daniel Notterman, Lemus' pre-med adviser, said that it was important to the medical profession that students such as Lemus succeed.

"In the case of Jesus and other minorities, we have a two-fold responsibility," he said. "First of all, it's an issue of fairness. Affirmative action needs to make up for our past history of discrimination in this country. But also, it's a medical necessity to get students like Jesus to enter the medical profession so that medical services can be given to groups such as those Jesus is a part of."

Lemus' parents — who now have Green Cards — have begun to believe as well.

His experience at Princeton has changed his parents' attitudes about education and the American dream. Now when other mothers talk of pulling their children out of high school and putting them into the work force, Jesus' mother tells them proudly about her son.

"She's a lot different now. She wasn't going to let my sisters go to high school because girls were supposed to stay home, learn to cook, the whole tradition. I actually got in fights with my mom telling her to let them stay in school."

Lemus' freshman-year roommates stayed together sophomore year, drawing into a five-man room, along with Carl Riccadonna '01.

"Jesus has always been in close contact with his family," Riccadonna said. "Several of his brothers and sisters have come to visit him. You can tell they are very proud of him. He's always talking about them too. There's not any sort of divide between the Princeton Jesus and the California Jesus."

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Lemus' relationship with his family was not always so straightforward or supportive. He still recalls his mother's reaction when he left for college.

"The whole blame was on me," he remembered. "She thought I was abandoning the family, thought I was just tired of the life. She thought I would just move away and forget about them."

Lemus did move away. But he hasn't forgotten.