High schooler with deported parents earns $20,000 college scholarship

Jesus Valenzuela was summoned to the Desert View High School principal’s office at lunchtime Wednesday, and he was somewhat concerned.

The 18-year-old senior, a captain on the boys basketball team, was told he needed to tell administrators about his recent trip to Washington, D.C., where he was recognized as a Horatio Alger Association National Scholar.

Once the quick meeting ended, Valenzuela was escorted to a breezeway where he was surprised by a drum line, a mass of classmates and a $20,000 scholarship from the Foot Locker Foundation.

Valenzuela was one of 34,000 applicants from across the country; the foundation awarded 20 grants based on athletic and academic achievement.

Valenzuela, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, was clearly surprised.

“I wish they would have let me know so I could have been dressed a little better,” Valenzuela said after the cheers and congratulations ended. “I walked out and everybody was staring at me — it was a good stare-down, you know?

“Just looking at everybody’s smiles, I didn’t know how to react. It’s a great feeling.”

‘No time to cry’

Valenzuela’s accomplishments — and his 4.1 grade-point average — are even more impressive considering all he has overcome over the last several years.

Valenzuela was living with his mother, Maria Jacobo, in Phoenix six years ago when she was deported under Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 law. Valenzuela, then in the sixth grade, moved back to Tucson and lived with his father. But a year later the elder Jesus Valenzuela was deported, too.

Since being left without his parents in middle school, Valenzuela has lived with different relatives. He had been living with his brother, Carlos Leon, who recently moved to Texas. Now he’s staying with his aunt.

“Seeing Jesus and knowing the stuff he has gone through and how he has pushed himself, I would ask him, ‘How do you do it? What is your secret?’ ” said George De La Riva, Desert View’s basketball coach. “He would always say, ‘There’s no time to cry, Coach. There’s no time to cry. We’ve got to push forward.’ It was really neat to see that and to see how he looked at life that way.”

Valenzuela, the youngest of four siblings, has also relied on and worked with Youth On Their Own, a local nonprofit organization that provides assistance to teens without parents or long-term legal guardians.

“All these things started coming down,” Valenzuela said. “I think I just realized that life happens, and you’ve just got to deal with it and go off that; it’s what you make of it, honestly.”

College-bound

Now Valenzuela is looking forward to having his own dorm room. He will soon choose between the University of Arizona and Arizona State University and hopes to pursue a career in either business or the medical field.

Tuition shouldn’t be a problem: Valenzuela has already received a total of $42,000 in scholarships when you add the $22,000 from the Horatio Alger Association and Wednesday’s Foot Locker scholarship.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“I’m a first-generation student, so this is really important to me,” he said.

When graduation day arrives next month, it will be a bittersweet farewell to Desert View for Valenzuela.

Valenzuela has never earned less than a ‘B’ grade and has made a full-time job out of applying for scholarships, said Kelly Cobos, a counselor at the south-side school who became close to Valenzuela over the last three years.

“He’s going to be my lifelong friend,” Cobos said. “He is an amazing young man. All the recommendation letters I’ve written for him, I always write what a kind heart he has. He’s so humble, he’s so down to earth, and he thinks of everyone before himself.

“That’s just the type of person he is; you can’t help but want to help him.”

Cobos encouraged Valenzuela to apply for assistance with Youth On Their Own, where she previously worked. Then, Cobos put Valenzuela in touch with school colleague Lee Gustus, who arranged for him to clean yards and offices during his free time.

“His journey has been intense,” Cobos said. “Typically a student who comes out of that kind of environment tends to go toward breaking the law or not doing well in school. He turned it the other way around and wasn’t going to let that affect him.”

Anything is possible

De La Riva took over Desert View’s basketball program last April after spending 23 years as an assistant at Nogales High School.

Valenzuela stood out to him right away, sitting front and center at the team’s first meeting and asking plenty of questions.

“I have never met a kid like this guy,” De La Riva said, noting that Valenzuela was a unanimous pick to be the team’s co-captain.

“He welcomed me into the program, and I will always say he was the biggest asset that I had because I knew his story, I knew his willingness to never quit,” he said. “I’m proud to have known him, but I think more blessed, than anything, to have known Jesus.”

Valenzuela credits basketball for helping him develop such a strong work ethic. He has also spent four years with the school’s choir and is a member of several other clubs, including the National Honor Society.

“It’s neat to see that his resiliency had definitely paid dividends for him,” said Jose Gastelum, Desert View’s principal. “He could have easily quit, he could have easily given up, he could have easily made excuses, and he never has.”

Valenzuela hopes his story can serve as an example for those in a similar situation. He gave a short speech to his peers after receiving his oversized check, reminding everyone that anything is possible.

“I come from a very humble beginning,” Valenzuela said. “I’ve faced a lot of obstacles in my life, but I didn’t let that manage what was going to occur in my future.

“I think everything happens for a reason and, in this sense, I’m glad it did because I was able to learn from it all and become wiser.”