Lucio

Lucio is originally from Mexico.  He only attended a few years of school as a child because he needed to work to help support his family.  When he came to the United States in 1985, he worked long hours and never had time to study English.  Lucio registered with the Oak View Literacy Program in June 2013 and his goal was to learn English to become a citizen.  Although he was able to communicate on a beginning level and read some basic sight words, hr was unable to write at all in English.  Lucio worked with a tutor in 2013 and then had to stop for a time but came back in 2014.  He and his tutor, John, worked diligently on preparing for the citizenship test and in late spring 2015 Lucio passed all parts of the exam… except for the writing. 

After the test, Lucio told me that he knew writing was his weak area and wished he had spent more time practicing this but he had an appointment in September to re-take the writing portion and he focused on that.  His regular tutor was unavailable to work with him in the summer, so we sent an urgent email to our literacy volunteers and several agreed to work with him over the summer on writing.  He met with Coni and Mike each week and practiced diligently at home.  In the fall, when Lucio passed the writing portion, he proudly came to tell literacy staff and his tutors.  On November 20, Lucio went to the Citizenship Ceremony and came to the library directly after it to show us his certificate and to thank his tutors, the literacy program and the library.  Lucio told me that before coming to Oak View Branch he had no idea all the programs and services available in a public library for free.  He was so grateful. 

“This program and the tutors were a big help to me.  They gave so much effort to help me and had so much patience and I was able to become a citizen here.  Many people don’t know what a library offers, that there is so much available so close to us.  Thank you for giving this help.  I feel like I am with family here.  I feel so grateful with the teachers because they were able to teach what I needed.  Without this, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve citizenship.  The teachers made me feel good.” (Translated from Spanish)

Lucio’s wife also told us that the tutors here really motivated and encouraged her husband and because they believed he could pass, he believed it to.