Immigrant Lawyer Reunites With Teacher Who Taught Her English 40 Yrs Ago [Video]

• Ana Reyes could not read or write English when they immigrated to the US from Uruguay.
• Her teacher started going an hour early to school to tutor her.
• She is now a successful lawyer and has finally said thank you to her teacher after 40 years.

---

An immigrant experiences a lot of challenges especially the language barrier.  This is what happened to a 5-year-old girl whose family transferred to America from Uruguay.

Ana Reyes struggled with the American English in first-grade.  She did not know how to read and write a word of English which made her fall behind in school at Wilder Elementary in Louisville, Kentucky.  Seeing her predicament, one of her teachers went the extra mile in arriving an hour earlier in school to tutor her.

Ana who is now an award-winning attorney practicing in Washington, D.C. said, “That was life-changing. To this day, I don’t know how far behind I would have been if no one had done that.”

Under the teacher’s tutorship, Ana’s performance in school greatly improved.  In fourth grade, she was entered into the school’s gifted and talented program, and went on to graduate from the Harvard Law School.  She also has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University. 

Her teacher’s goodness inspired her to pay it forward to others by doing pro bono work for refugees seeking asylum in the U.S.

But she could not thank her teacher properly for she forgot her name. Until one day, she sent out an email which led her to Jason Glass, the commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Education.

Glass immediately knew that the teacher was Pat Harkleroad.  Now retired, she remembers exactly who Ana was!

So a reunion came through in November between the grateful student and the teacher after 40 years. Even with thousands of students that have been under her tutelage for over 30 years, Pat said she did it because she loved Ana.

“I did everything I could with all of my kids to get them to do as much as they were capable of doing. All I knew was that I had this little girl that needed lots and lots of help, and I wanted to do as much as I could.”

Ana on the other hand expressed her gratitude by reading the email that led her back to Pat.

“When I started elementary school, I couldn’t speak a word of English. I recall that my first-grade teacher at Wilder Elementary School in Louisville came to school early regularly, on her own time, to help me get caught up on learning to speak, read, and write English.”

“I would very much love to say thank you, and that my life very likely wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

Source: Inspire More