NASA missed the markers of José’s potential because their selection process wasn’t designed to detect them. They had information about work experience and past performance, not life experience and background. They didn’t know that José was raised in a family of migrant farmworkers. They didn’t know that when he started kindergarten in California, he didn’t speak English, and it wasn’t until he turned twelve that he finally felt fluent. They didn’t know that he had traveled a great distance just to make it to college and become an engineer. The lack of accomplishments in his early applications
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