East Los Angeles Occupational Center ESL Program

08/30/2025

Rafael Aguirre held on to a dream for more than 60 years. He was born in Mexico, and came to the United States to work and support his family. School had to wait. At 83 years old, that dream finally came true this year when he graduated from Amarillo College in Texas.

Rafael earned a technical degree in Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC). For decades, Rafael repaired machines and installed satellite dishes. In an interview, Rafael said, "It wasn't easy. I worked eight to ten hours a day and took classes in a second language, but I had clear goals. It’s never too late to learn."

Outside of school, Rafael gives back to his community by volunteering at his church in Amarillo as a greeter, parking host, and security officer. On graduation day, Rafael showed the world something bigger than a diploma. He showed all of us that it's never too late. You just have to keep believing in yourself and remember that age can't stop a dream.

📸 (Photo: Lily Gamble / Amarillo College)

11/20/2023

11/10/2023

Facts. 😳

08/26/2023

https://youtube.com/shorts/KO3r5efOcMc?si=r8pnRqoF8RGN1OEv
This should be the standard announcement on all public transportation

02/11/2023

I just Recently realized this

11/09/2022

Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in 1909 to a Jewish-Italian family in Turin. Levi-Montalcini's years in medical school coincided with the rise of fascism in Italy and the imposition of anti-Semitic laws which limited her career prospects. Once WWII broke out, she and her family decided to stay in Italy rather than flee overseas and she built a laboratory in her bedroom to continue her research work. It was in this makeshift laboratory that she began studying the development of chicken embryos; research that laid the underpinning of her later Nobel Prize-winning work on the mechanism of cell growth regulation.

After the N**i invasion of Italy in 1943, Levi-Montalcini and her family were forced underground and moved to Florence where she worked as a doctor in Allied war camps after the city was liberated. Following the war, in 1946, she moved to the U.S. for more than twenty years to conduct research at Washington University in St. Louis. It was there that she discovered nerve growth factor, a protein which regulates the growth of cells; this discovery was critical to better understanding tumor growth among other conditions.

It was for this breakthrough research that the Nobel committee described her work, along with fellow winner Stanley Cohen, as “a fascinating example of how a skilled observer can create a concept out of apparent chaos.” Both received the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Dr. Levi-Montalcini passed away in 2012 at the age of 103.

Rita Levi-Montalcini's story is told along with other pioneering women of science in the illustrated biography "Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers" for ages 9 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/women-in-science) and “Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – and The World" for teens and adults (https://www.amightygirl.com/headstrong-52-women)

She is also featured on the 'Famous Women in Science Socks' for teens and adults at https://www.amightygirl.com/famous-women-in-science-socks

For a fascinating book for adults about women in the Italian Resistance during WWII, we highly recommend "A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism" at https://www.amightygirl.com/a-house-in-the-mountains

For many books for children and teens about girls and women who lived during the Holocaust, visit our blog post, "60 Mighty Girl Books About The Holocaust" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11586

06/11/2019

Thank you!!!