Before I start, I want you to please bear with me on the way I write, I have very little general education and so I know beforehand that I will be making lots of grammatical errors, I will, however, try not to make too many, after all the whole purpose of an article is to read.

在开始之前，我希望您能对我的写作方式表示满意，我的通识程度很少，所以我事先知道我会犯很多语法错误，但是我会尽量避免犯太多错误。 ，毕竟文章的全部目的是要阅读。

I have tried to write about my story for quite a while now and honestly, I’ve always been so worried (afraid) about what people might say about me, especially in the time we’re living in where racism and all that crap is all over the news, and of course, let's not forget that there are many out there wanting us back to where we came. I understand their position. I don’t feel entitled to be treated any differently after we broke the law, even though some of us didn't know or did not have a choice because someone else made the decision for us.

我已经尝试了很长时间了，说实话，我一直很担心(害怕)人们会对我说些什么，特别是在我们生活在种族主义和所有这些废话存在的时代整个新闻，当然，我们不要忘记，有很多地方希望我们回到我们的家乡。 我了解他们的立场。 即使我们中有些人不知道或没有选择的余地，因为有人为我们做出了决定，但我觉得没有权利在我们触犯法律后得到任何区别对待。

The reason why am writing this is that I hope that I can be an inspiration to some of you out there struggling to be a professional or whatever you want to be, lots of my friends have asked me to write about it and I’ve always refused for so many reasons, but here I am, trying to make sense of what has happened in my life, add a narrative to it and hoping to give you some hope and examples that, when you are committed and work hard you can become whoever you want to be regardless of where you come from or if you don’t have the necessary resources to achieve your goals.

之所以写这本书，是因为我希望我能为一些想成为专业人士或想成为一名专业人士的人提供灵感，很多朋友都要求我写这篇文章，而我一直被拒绝的原因有很多，但是我在这里，试图弄清我生活中发生的事情，为它添加一个叙述，并希望给你一些希望和榜样，当你投入并努力工作时，你可以成为任何人无论您来自何处，或者没有足够的资源来实现自己的目标，您都想成为自己的人。

This is me in the white shirt, black pants( women pants), and 2 sizes bigger shoes because you know, they have to last at least one year or two. Here I am with one of my older brothers in the only picture I have of those years. As I said, am wearing a pair of jeans that I got from one of my dad’s bosses daughter. Man, I loved those pants, they lasted about 3 years of constantly wearing them.

这是我的白衬衫，黑色裤子(女式裤子)和两双大码的鞋子，因为您知道，它们至少要使用一两年。 在那年我唯一的照片中，我和我的一个哥哥在一起。 就像我说的，我穿着一条从我父亲的上司女儿那里得到的牛仔裤。 伙计，我爱那些裤子，它们持续穿着约3年。

You might be asking why women pants? well where I come from a pair of new jeans were like $20, approximately a week worth of work or more. If you are lucky you get a pair of semi-used jeans every year, in this case I got so lucky that this guy donated us some clothing and these happened to fit me.

您可能会问为什么女士裤子？ 我来自一条新牛仔裤的价格大概是20美元，大约相当于一周的工作量或更多。 如果幸运的话，每年都会有一条半旧牛仔裤，在这种情况下，我很幸运，这个家伙捐赠了我们一些衣服，而这些恰好适合我。

I grew up in the most rural areas of El Salvador, Sonsonate Nahulingo, you know, where there’s no electricity and you go to bed at 6:00-7:00pm because it gets really dark outside that you can’t even see your hands, and you use a Candil (a metal can full of gas and a cloth sticking out of the cap) to light up the house, of course this is if you have enough to buy the gas, otherwise, you need to go to bed as soon as it gets dark, I don’t remember at what time it starts to get dark but I would guess around 5:30pm.

我在萨尔瓦多最偏僻的乡村索纳纳特·纳胡林哥(Sonsonate Nahulingo)上长大，因为那里没有电，所以您在6：00-7：00pm上床睡觉，因为外面天黑了，甚至看不到手，然后使用Candil(装满汽油的金属罐和从盖帽上伸出的布)照亮房子，这当然是如果您有足够的钱购买汽油，否则，您需要上床睡觉天一黑，我就不记得什么时候开始黑，但我猜大概是下午5:30。

When it comes to school, most of the kids start later in life, I started school at the age of ten because you usually skip pre-school and kindergarten due to the lack of money to buy the necessary school supplies and school uniforms.

上学时，大多数孩子都是晚年开始学习，我十岁就开始上学，因为您通常由于缺钱而无法购买必需的学习用品和校服，因此跳过学前班和幼儿园。

Schooling and commuting is always a challenge, I would walk to school for about an hour everyday. In the winter you usually take your shoes off, roll up your pants and put your books in a plastic bag so that they don’t get wet, umbrellas don’t exist, unless you make your own with a leaf of a banana tree. If one of your books gets wet, oh boy you’re screwed, you need to let it dry and keep on using it even if the lines on the sheets disappear, theres no money to buy new books, not even for lunch, sometimes my dad would give me $0.25 to buy myself some lunch but most of the time I ate until I returned from school. School starts at 12:00pm and it ends at 5:15pm, you gotta make sure you eat something before you go because if you don’t, most likely you don’t eat until you’re back. Most of the people in the rural areas don’t know how to read or write, none of my parents have a degree, I think my dad only finished 1st grade while my mom learned to somewhat to read and write on her own by reading the Bible.

上学和通勤始终是一个挑战，我每天要步行约一个小时。 在冬天，您通常会脱鞋，卷起裤子，然后将书放在塑料袋中，以免被雨淋湿，也不会撑伞，除非您用香蕉树的叶子自己做。 如果您的其中一本书弄湿了，天哪，您被拧死了，即使书页上的线条消失了，也需要让它干燥并继续使用它，没有钱买新书，甚至连午餐都没有，有时爸爸会给我$ 0.25来给自己买些午餐，但大多数时候我都吃着，直到我从学校回来。 学校从下午12:00开始，到下午5:15结束，您必须确保在出发前先吃点东西，因为如果您不这样做，则很可能直到您回来，才开始吃饭。 农村地区的大多数人不懂读写，我的父母都没有学位。我想我父亲只有一年级，而妈妈则通过阅读来学习一些自己的读写能力。圣经。

Anyways, that’s a little background of where I came from and some of the challenges I’ve faced growing up.

无论如何，这是我来自哪里的背景，以及我成长过程中面临的一些挑战。

So how did I get the idea to become a software engineer?

那么我是怎么想到成为一名软件工程师的呢？

Well, one day some random guys showed up at my house, I don’t know how they found us since there’s no address or even street names that indicates the way, in that area people usually don’t get mail or anything, if you happened to buy something by credit, theres a person who goes to your house to collect it every month or whatever date you agreed to pay, anyways, this dude insisted to my parents that one of their kids in school had won a ticket or prize (I don’t recall exactly what), and that this kid who won the ticket could go for a three month bootcamp to learn about computers. Oh gosh when I heard the word “Computers” I started begging my dad to please let me go, I’ve heard about this device called “computer” and that it was some sort of magical, mysterious device that you could play with and if you ask it a question it would respond back with the correct answer and it knows everything about the world. If I recall correctly I was in second grade, I already knew how to read and write (Spanish) at least to some extend, so at the end my dad said yes, I don’t remember how much they paid, of course it wasn’t a one time payment, most likely in installments.

好吧，有一天，有一些随机的家伙出现在我家，我不知道他们是怎么找到我们的，因为没有地址甚至街道名称都没有指明方向，在那个地区，人们通常不会收到邮件或任何东西，如果您碰巧是用信贷买东西的，有一个人每个月或您同意付款的任何日期去您家收取，反正，这个家伙向我父母坚持说，他们在学校的一个孩子中了票或奖品(我不记得确切是什么)，而那个赢得票的孩子可以参加三个月的训练营来学习计算机。 噢，天哪，当我听到“计算机”一词时，我开始恳求爸爸让我走，我听说过这个叫做“计算机”的设备，它是一种神奇，神秘的设备，您可以使用它，如果您问一个问题，它将以正确的答案回复，并且它了解世界的一切。 如果我没记错的话，我是二年级学生，我至少已经知道如何读写(西班牙语)了，所以最后我父亲说是的，我不记得他们付了多少钱，当然那不是一次性付款，很可能分期付款。

So two of my older brothers end up going with me, now that I think about it these guys probably were scams and just used the prize winning as a way of getting people to buy the bootcamp, regardless of that, we started attending, it was a rapid fire where they try to teach you a year worth of material in three months, honestly the only thing I remember about that bootcamp is my brothers making fun of me because I kept on asking what the “Enter” key was, a MSDOS black screen and me punching some key strokes. But that was it, this bootcamp marked my life forever, after I finished it I decided I wanted to be a software engineer, (Yeah maybe I called it something else), but something that had to do with computers.

所以我的两个哥哥最终和我一起去了，现在我考虑到这些家伙可能是骗局，只是将奖金用作吸引人们购买训练营的一种方式，无论如何，我们开始参加，一场大火，他们试图在三个月内教给您一年的材料，说实话，我唯一记得的那个训练营是我的兄弟取笑我，因为我一直在问“ Enter”键是什么， MSDOS黑色屏幕上，我猛击一些按键。 就是这样，这个训练营标志着我的一生，当我完成它之后，我决定我想成为一名软件工程师(是的，也许我叫它别的名字)，但这与计算机有关。

来到美国 (Coming To The US)

I never intended to come to the US, neither I ever dreamed of leaving my home country but things didn’t turned out that way, and, I was forced to leave due to some conflicts with gangs and poverty, my parents send me out on my way to the US full of broken dreams, brokenhearted and only with 5th grade education.

我从未打算去美国，也从未梦想过离开自己的祖国，但事情并没有得到解决。由于与帮派和贫困的某些冲突，我被迫离开美国，我的父母把我送出去了。充满破碎的梦想，伤心欲绝的美国之路 并且只有五年级的教育。

The second day I arrived, I had already found a job, cleaning a pool and helping around the house for this old man from Argentina, he was a nice old man.

第二天，我已经找到了工作，打扫游泳池，为这位来自阿根廷的老人提供帮助，他是一个很好的老人。

I had to work to pay rent and what not, in America you can’t be without a job, more so if you are an immigrant, no welfare, no nothing, again, I don’t expect government help, am just re-iterating what it is to be here as an immigrant, like any other coming from Central America, I did every job there was for me, I worked as a landscaper, as a dishwasher, as a constructor, and any other labor work. The only thing I did not do was beg for money in the streets.

我必须工作来付房租，否则，在美国，你不可能没有工作，更多的是，如果你是移民，没有福利，什么都没有，再说一遍，我不希望政府提供帮助，只是像其他任何来自中美洲的移民一样，反复移民在这里的生活，我为我做了所有工作，我担任过园艺师，洗碗工，建筑工以及其他劳动。 我唯一没有做的就是在街上乞讨钱。

死梦复活 (Reviving A Dead Dream)

As you might recall, I stopped attending school at 5th grade from El Salvador, where the education system is not like the one in America, so no English ,no high school, no college, no nothing. How could I possibly be a software engineer? if I didn’t even finish high school, not even middle school to be precise, I had zero chances.

您可能还记得，我从萨尔瓦多开始五年级就读，那里的教育系统不像美国那样，所以没有英语，没有高中，没有大学，一无所有。 我怎么可能成为软件工程师？ 如果我什至没有读完高中，甚至没有读完中学，我的机会都是零。

One day returning from work I spotted a computer our neighbor had put up for free on his driveway, at first I though that it was just garbage and probably wouldn’t work, anyways, I went home, left my stuff and came back to check it out, I started wondering where the CPU tower was because the only thing I could see was the monitor, still I really wanted one so I decided to take the “Monitor” and thinking to myself that someday I could buy the other piece “CPU Tower” but it turns out it was an iMac, of course not the fancy ones but those old ones (iMac G3) wikipedia link. It definitely turned on without asking for a password, it was kinda hard to play around with since the MacOS was weird and it felt out of place. but still, I used it for a while to play some pre-install games like Poker.

下班回来的一天，我发现我们邻居邻居免费在他的车道上放了一台电脑，起初我虽然那只是垃圾，可能无法正常工作，反正我回家了，把东西丢了回来，回来检查出来之后，我开始想知道CPU塔在哪里，因为我唯一能看到的就是显示器，但我仍然真的想要一个显示器，于是我决定拿起“显示器”，对自己想，总有一天我可以购买另一块“ CPU”。塔”，但事实证明它是iMac，当然不是花哨的iMac，而是那些旧的(iMac G3) 维基百科链接 。 它肯定是在不要求输入密码的情况下打开的，由于MacOS很奇怪并且感觉不合适，因此很难使用。 但是我还是用了一段时间玩一些预装游戏，例如扑克。

Some time later there was a fair happening in the San Jose Pavilion, where there’s a bunch of people selling all sort of things, I don’t know what they call it or if those events take place nowadays, anyways, I had saved up $200 dollars and I was able to buy a used Toshiba laptop, I was super happy with it, this computer was the one where I re-discovered my passion for computers. After a little while I was able to use the internet, a dial up internet provider called PeoplePC Online ( I think now acquired by Earthlink).

一段时间后，在圣何塞馆发生了一场大事，那里有一堆人在卖各种各样的东西，我不知道他们怎么称呼这些东西，或者无论这些事是否在如今发生，反正我已经节省了200美元美元，因此我能够购买一台二手东芝笔记本电脑，对此我感到非常满意，这台计算机让我重新发现了对计算机的热情。 过了一会儿，我可以使用互联网了，这是一个称为PeoplePC Online的拨号互联网提供商(我认为现在已被Earthlink收购)。

在成功的旅程中 (On A Journey To Succeed)

I started researching about how computers worked and how the heck I was able to see objects on the screen. I was determined to find out how to be a programmer, after months of searching I found very little information, most it was in English, a language I did not know at that time, after no much success on my search I stumble upon a series of books in Spanish named “The books of hack and crack”(Spanish: Los Cuadernos del Hack y Crack) link(https://hackxcrack.net/foro/cuadernos_antiguos/)

我开始研究计算机的工作方式以及如何在屏幕上看到对象。 我下定决心要成为一名程序员，经过几个月的搜索，我发现很少的信息，大部分是英语，那是我当时不知道的语言，但在搜索上没有多大成功之后，我偶然发现了一系列信息。以西班牙语命名的“黑客和破解书籍”(西班牙语：Los Cuadernos del Hack y Crack)链接( https://hackxcrack.net/foro/cuadernos_antiguos/ )

I started reading them, I would spend nights without sleep trying to make sense of what these books were teaching, although the books were in Spanish I lacked the necessary background to understand the content, still, I read them all, some content was outdated but I was more focus on trying to understand the whole programming concept.

我开始阅读它们，我会整夜不眠，试图弄清这些书的教学内容，尽管这些书是西班牙语的，但我缺乏必要的背景知识才能理解内容，尽管如此，我还是全部阅读，有些内容已经过时了，但是我更专注于尝试理解整个编程概念。

I would read anything that had to do with programming or computers in general. One day I went to a saver store in 875 Main St Redwood City, where I found book in C, C programming language is one of the most popular languages and most of the current languages are built upon C, of course it was in English, so to read it I would use a dictionary to translate each word. Honestly it was so frustrating and sometimes I was not able to fully understand once I formed a sentence. Again, I read it, well, I think only couple of chapters because it was very difficult to understand it.

我会阅读与编程或计算机有关的所有内容。 有一天，我去了圣雷德伍德城主大街875号的一家储蓄店，在那里我发现用C语言编写的书，C编程语言是最受欢迎的语言之一，并且当前大多数语言都是基于C编写的，当然它是用英语编写的，为了阅读它，我将使用字典来翻译每个单词。 老实说，它是如此令人沮丧，有时我一口气就无法完全理解。 再次，我阅读了，好吧，我认为只有几章，因为很难理解。

挑战 (The Challenges)

After struggling with English I was giving up the idea of becoming a software engineer. It was so difficult to make sense of the whole programming thing, I lacked so much, my math skills were barely enough to multiply, my English skills were zero. I don’t remember how many times I cried out of frustration. I wished with all my heart of having the opportunity to go to school and fulfill my dream. I would get jealous seeing kids my age pass by with their school backpack, while I was full of mud digging a trench for a garden. Challenges were real, many times I realized how unlikely I was to succeed, with no education, no school, and the most challenging one, no English and education. I stoped many times, Yes, I gave up many times. I think giving up for a little while is not a bad thing, as long as you comeback to it, taking a break help you clear your mind, but don’t forget what your goals are. I never forgot that I was going to be become an engineer, even if it looked far away.

在努力学习英语之后，我放弃了成为软件工程师的想法。 很难理解整个程序设计的东西，我缺少那么多东西，我的数学技能勉强可以相乘，我的英语能力为零。 我不记得有多少次我因无奈而哭泣。 我衷心希望能有机会上学并实现自己的梦想。 我会嫉妒地看到我这个年龄的孩子们背着他们的书包路过，而我却满是泥泞地挖沟挖一个花园。 挑战是真实存在的，很多次我意识到没有教育，没有学校，没有英语和教育是最具挑战性的挑战，我是多么不可能成功。 我停了很多次，是的，我放弃了很多次。 我认为放弃一小段时间并不是一件坏事，只要您恢复原状，稍事休息就能帮助您清除主意，但不要忘记您的目标是什么。 我永远不会忘记我将成为一名工程师，即使它看起来很遥远。

After realizing that the whole thing of using a dictionary to translate each word so I could understand the topics of the articles or books was not working, I needed to learn English first before attempting to learn how to program. Catching up the language was a challenge on its own, since I wasn’t able to attend a school. So I set my goal to learn English first and then come back to programming.

意识到使用字典翻译每个单词以至于我可以理解文章或书籍的主题的全部内容都行不通之后，我需要先学习英语，然后再尝试学习编程。 自从我无法上学以来，掌握这种语言本身就是一个挑战。 因此，我设定了自己的目标，首先学习英语，然后再返回编程。

It took me quite a while to grasp the language, picking up a language without help from a tutor or going to school for is truly a hard thing to do, but I was able to understand the basics of it by watching TV, trying to read anything I could spot but most importantly, practicing a new word everyday.

我花了相当长的时间来掌握语言，在没有导师帮助的情况下学习语言或去上学确实是一件很难的事，但是我能够通过看电视，阅读来理解它的基本知识。我能发现的一切，但最重要的是，每天都要练习一个新单词。

And so I moved into actually learning to program but there was always the dance of going back and forth on things I did not understand. When math was required on a topic I was reading about, I had to stop, go find out what an Equation was and than come back and re-read it.

因此，我开始真正地学习编程，但是总有来回跳动的舞蹈，我不了解。 当我正在阅读的主题需要数学运算时，我必须停下来，找出方程式 ，然后再重新阅读。

There are so many people that become software engineers without formally going to school for it, in fact, most of the great engineers either drop out or learn on their own, and theres usually a pattern, drop outs or switching careers. Im none of those. I had to learn from actual zero. I barely knew how to read and write. So learning how to program was 10x harder than the usual challenge of learning it. You might have heard how hard programming is, lots of students struggle with it and some switch majors to something else. Math plays an important role in programming, specially if you want to optimize your algorithms, but even if you just want to program, interviewing for a software engineer role requires that you know your Big O notation quite well, and of course a lot more..

有太多人没有正式上学就成为软件工程师 ，实际上，大多数伟大的工程师要么辍学，要么自己学习，通常会有一种模式，辍学或转行。 我没有这些。 我必须从实际零开始学习。 一世 仅仅 知道如何读写。 因此，学习编程的难度比学习编程的难度高10倍。 您可能已经听说过编程有多难，许多学生都在为此而苦苦挣扎，有些人将专业转向其他课程。 数学在编程中起着重要作用，特别是在您要优化算法的情况下，但是即使您只是想编程，面试软件工程师的角色也要求您非常了解Big O标记，当然还有很多。 。

Anyhow, It took me about 7–8 years to learn. Yes 7–8 years.

无论如何，我花了大约7-8年的时间来学习。 是7–8年。

作为iOS开发人员的第一份工作。 (First job as an iOS developer.)

After building small iOS apps and websites I was ready to test the waters. I formed a LLC with my wife and started applying for contracting jobs around the Silicon Valley area, I finally landed an interview at this new startup that had barely formed, I was giving an interesting challenge, to create a carousel menu, lots of math and animations was required as it needed to be a half circle and rotate with selectable items. I remember spending the whole day and night on it to present it the next day, of course it wasn’t perfect but I built most of the functionally and animations. It was the most satisfying feeling ever, even if I wasn’t accepted I realized how far I’ve come but thankfully they accepted me. I can’t express the feeling and emotions I had going through my head after they handed me a contract to sign. There I was sitting on a desk, going through the codebase and thinking to myself how much those years full of frustration, tears and struggles had paid off.

构建小型iOS应用程序和网站后，我准备进行测试。 我与妻子组建了一个有限责任公司，并开始在硅谷地区申请承包工作，最后我在这家刚刚成立的新创业公司进行了一次面试，这给我带来了一个有趣的挑战，那就是创建轮播菜单，大量数学知识和动画是必需的，因为它必须是一个半圆并随可选项目一起旋转。 我记得花了整整一夜的时间在第二天展示它，这当然并不完美，但是我构建了大部分功能和动画。 这是有史以来最令人满意的感觉，即使我没有被接受，我也意识到自己已经走了多远，但幸好他们接受了我。 他们把合同交给我后，我无法表达自己的想法和情感。 在那儿我坐在一张桌子上，浏览代码库，对自己进行思考，这些年充满挫折，泪水和挣扎的岁月收获了多少。

Read part 2 of this article

阅读本文的第2部分