At 5:30 a.m., his alarm would start blaring. Reluctant to get up, Jose Aceves-Salvador would hear his parents outside his door, bustling to get ready for work. “Ponte las pilas!” they would shout, using a Spanish idiom expressing encouragement to work hard. The expression would stick with Aceves-Salvador throughout high school as he dreamed of going to college. Although neither of his parents had college degrees, they were both huge supporters of his decision. As Mexican immigrants who had moved to Los Angeles in their youth, their goal was to…
