Alvaro Huezo Coto has picked coffee berries, earning $1.25 for every 25 pounds, and worked at construction sites for $8 a day. Sometimes he earned more – $10 a day – spraying pesticides in sugar cane fields, carrying a 10-gallon tank on his back and wearing no protective gear.

But when his friends at Kennebunk High School ask him why he’s so strong, he says, “I don’t know. I just drink a lot of milk.”

Two years ago, Coto left behind a life of hard labor in La Palma, El Salvador, and came to live and finish high school in Maine, sponsored by an uncle and aunt in Arundel who are U.S. citizens, he said.

Coto had been a good student, but free education in El Salvador ends at grade 9, and his parents couldn’t afford to pay for grades 10-12 on his father’s salary as a bus driver. So he went to work at age 16. It didn’t take long before he was ready to try his luck in the United States. He knew it wouldn’t be easy.

“I didn’t know any English,” Coto said. “I could say ‘Hi’ and ‘Good, how are you?’ I felt very insecure.”

He arrived in Arundel in the spring of 2017 and enrolled in Kennebunk High as a sophomore. By summer he was practicing with the soccer team and frustrated that he couldn’t communicate with the other boys.

“I knew I needed to learn English right away, so I pushed myself,” Coto said. “I memorized words I heard during practice and when I got home I would write them down and look them up.”

Coto excelled academically in college prep classes and will wear a gold honor stole over his graduation gown. As a senior, he enrolled in a history course at York County Community College to ensure that he could succeed at the college level. He also participated in track and wrestling, and has two part-time jobs busing tables at a Japanese restaurant and tying up ships on the Portland waterfront.

Now 19, he is grateful to his uncle and aunt, Walter Garcia and Shanice Doudey, who have become like second parents. He plans to attend Southern Maine Community College, then the University of Southern Maine. He aspires to become a lawyer so he can fight for workers’ rights here and back in El Salvador.

“I can’t wait to get a degree,” Coto said. “I’m eager to do something for people who work so hard for so little. I can see them in front of me now, spraying the sugar cane with no protection.”