Norman Bristol Colon
When Norman Bristol Colon was growing up in the coastal Puerto Rican town of Guayama, he had no idea how poor his family was.
At least not at first.
"My mom used to work in the fields, picking watermelons and peppers just to make sure we would have the best possible resources," he remembers.
"And to tell you the truth, I didn't know I was poor until somebody told me so," he said. "My mom never left us know that, or think that poverty would be defined by how much money you have."
Bristol Colon's mother taught her five sons that they would never be poor as long as they held dearly to their values, showed a commitment to their communities and respected others.
It was a lesson her youngest son took to heart.
For the last seven years, the 32-year-old Lancaster man has carried a torch for Pennsylvania's booming Hispanic community, serving as head of Gov. Ed Rendell's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs.
And he recently earned another distinction when he was named chairman of the Interstate Migrant Education Council, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for quality education for the nation's migrant children.
"For me it's a great sense of pride, ensuring these children achieve educational excellence and making sure their hopes aren't diminished," Bristol Colon said in an interview this week.
Bristol Colon understands the challenges migrant children face.
He moved to Lancaster with his mother in 1992, during his senior year in high school.
"It was really difficult because Spanish is my first language. I needed to learn English, especially because writing English was the only way for me to be successful in college," he said.
"One thing I always tell students when I am invited to talk to them all over the state and the nation is I didn't bring … even a dime when we moved here," Bristol Colon remembers.
"Nothing in my pockets. My pockets were full of my hopes and dreams and aspirations," he said. "That's what was the biggest motivator for me."
Bristol Colon graduated from McCaskey High School in 1993 and went on to earn a degree in political science from Penn State University in 1998.
He returned to Lancaster and quickly worked to become one of the community's most well-known activists for Latinos. Bristol Colon founded Congress of Puerto Rican Leaders, a local organization that has worked to improve conditions for Hispanic people.
Before being tapped by Rendell, he worked as assistant director of admissions and co-coordinator for minority recruitment at Millersville University and, later, director of the Future Planning Center in the School District of Lancaster.
He continues to serve as head of the Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs.
But in his role as chairman of the Interstate Migrant Education Council, he will play an important role in influencing policy aimed at helping migrant students overcome the challenges of poverty and language and cultural barriers.
"It's a great opportunity for me to draft a national agenda, a national message that will improve the education of the nation's poorest kids, who are the migrant students," he said.
It is a job his mother, who has since moved back to Puerto Rico, is proud of — "not for money, but for believing in the future and what can be done," he said.