Leo, the eldest of the Cardenas children, was the "pioneer" in their family. He was the first to graduate from college and only recently retired from the U.S. Justice Department. Another brother has retired from his career as the office manager of a corporate business firm, Cardenas says, and his older sister recently retired from her job as personnel director for a U.S. Air Force base. His younger sister is a pharmacist. But training for their work life wasn't easy for any of them.

"I remember talking to my father about going to college," recalls Leo. "I was a sportswriter for my high school newspaper and I worked as a stringer for our local paper, covering sports. Because I was covering the University of Texas teams, I decided that's where I wanted to go. When I told my father, his first question was, 'Where will you get the money?' My parents' concerns were practical. So we worked and took out loans to pay for our education."

Knowing that higher education is attainable for nearly everyone in California, today Isaac Cardenas labors tirelessly with organizations dedicated to improving the lives of those who harvest the local fields. He was recently honored with the 2003 Educator Award, bestowed by California Rural Legal Assistance, a statewide nonprofit social justice organization dedicated to legal advocacy for farm workers and other rural low-income families. The Hispanic Bar Association of Orange County named him Educator of the Year in 2000, and Cardenas has received honors from the Hispanic Faculty and Staff Association, the Independent Latino Student Association, the Association of Mexican American Educators and the League of United Latin American Citizens for his work.

Problems still exist, however, despite the attention given to Cardenas, other Hispanic educators and the growing numbers of successful Hispanic college students. In Orange County alone, statistics show there are an estimated 4,000 students of migrant workers and thousands more Hispanic children growing up in families living at or below the subsistence level.