It made him grow up really fast. His brothers, who were a couple years older, went off to work, so he ended up taking care of his dad.

[In 2003 the brothers learned that community college students with high GPAs could apply to transfer into the UC system. Angelo went first, to UCLA, where he will graduate this spring. Josh followed in his footsteps to UCLA this fall. Daniel decided to head north. Leaving his brothers in Los Angeles was hard, but] UC Berkeley has always held a special attraction for me, ... It has such a storied history, and I like how the university looks at the world from a humanitarian and activist viewpoint. It also has a good history department.

There is nothing as beautiful as Chandra sailing off on its way to work. We were almost too excited to video.

That's really the only thing there is around here. If you're not willing to work in the mines, you have to leave.

But we decided to make it work.

I was desperate for a friend, and I used to lie in bed at night thinking about what it would be like. My younger brothers and sisters had friends, and I used to watch them playing to try to work out what they did and how friendship worked.