Gustavo Arellano: We need immigrants more than ever. They keep hope in this country alive
When I think about the American dream, I think of Julio Arana.
He was my student at Cal State Fullerton a decade ago, a crackerjack of a kid from Jalisco who didn't know what he wanted to do with life but knew the United States was the place to do it in. Today, the 36-year-old is a real estate agent who owns seven properties, from Orange County to the Coachella Valley, and flips houses like a cook handles pancakes. But Arana prides himself most on helping young couples, Latinos and not, buy their first homes.
"I couldn't have done this in Mexico," he told me as we stood in front of his latest purchase, a beat-up 1925 Spanish Revival in Santa Ana just down the street from another house he owns. Long-haired, tanned and tattooed, Arana wore a stylish brown hat and a T-shirt with Emiliano Zapata drawn as the grinning skull logo of punk icons the Misfits. "The one thing this country still offers is that the little guy can get it."
We were at his newest acquisition because he wanted me to see something: On the side of the
