One of Fernando Macias’s worst high school memories is the driving theory class he took when he was 16. It was a requirement to graduate. It would have given him a thrill – the prospect of having his own car, of driving, of freedom – but it felt like a betrayal. Because when their instructor asked students to bring in their IDs to start the process of applying for a license, Macias knew he couldn’t do that.

He didn’t have one.

That year, Macias and several of his Mexico-born friends watched their American classmates get their licenses and ecstatically show them off. It made him angry. It made him sad.

“I didn’t even see the point in taking the class because I wasn’t ever going to be a licensed driver,” he says. Ironically, he ended up getting an “A.”

But Macias’ life unexpectedly changed in 2012 when President Obama announced a new program called DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). While not a path to citizenship, it guaranteed young people living in the U.S. since 2007 the right to remain in the country for two years – and to work, go to college, and apply for a driver’s license.

When Macias’ mother, Yanet, told him about DACA and about the license part, “I said, ‘I’m going for this.’” And he did. In October 2012, the 16-year-old became the first youth in the entire South Coast region to receive a DACA work permit. In quick succession, he got his California ID. And then, finally, his driver’s license.

“When I got my license, that was a really happy day for me,” says Macias, who is now 18 and will graduate from Pescadero High this summer.

Other things changed. For the first time in his life, he started working hard in school. He’d been failing most classes, skipping school. “I had this friend – we would have these competitions for who would have the lowest results in tests. My friend won by 5%. We wouldn’t even touch the pencil,” he recalls.

Sometimes he didn’t come home, or when he did, he wouldn’t tell his parents where he’d been. He wanted to drop out of school, but they refused to let him.

In an interview in 2012, Yanet Macias explained that her son, the eldest of four brothers and only one of all his siblings to be born in Mexico, couldn’t see past high school.

“In the past he used to say, ‘Whether I get an A or an F, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be able to go to college or get a license to get into the profession I want.’ Now he knows he’s working to get into college.”

A total of 23 local youth have received work permits under DACA since 2012 and 14 have already renewed the two-year permit. They were all facing the same uncertain future here. DACA has changed all their lives, says Rita Mancera, Program Director for Puente. They’ve obtained Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and work permits. They’ve stopped looking over their shoulders. And the college-bound students also became eligible for financial aid. 

“That’s what DACA does. It erases the barriers. Puente has been able to level the field for all the youth regardless of their status,” Mancera says.

Because of DACA, more students on the South Coast have options.

A second wave of youth, those who arrived in the U.S. by January 1, 2010, were set to benefit from an expanded DACA program outlined in President Obama’s recent executive order. Unfortunately, that program is on hold while the Justice Department appeals a Texas court decision that prevented Obama’s action from taking effect. DAPA, a related program to protect some families from deportation while they raise their children here, was also put on hold. DAPA could benefit as many as 120 South Coast parents and allow them to remain united with their children. 

The Department of Homeland Security is moving forward and preparing for a wave of DACA and DAPA applications, and so is Puente. Three staff members and three volunteers are pursuing an accreditation that will help them expand Puente’s immigration services. In the meantime, Mancera has had to break the news to several young people who had already completed all the DACA paperwork: their applications are on hold.

 “What are you going to tell them? It’s like the courts are playing with them. And I was so excited to talk to them about all the opportunities they were going to have,” she says.

The benefits of DACA aren’t just legal, they’re psychological. Pat Talbot, Principal of Pescadero Middle and High School, says the school district treats all its students the same, and pushes them all equally. But the fact is that some students are not equal. You can see it in their motivation to succeed. Some can’t apply for college scholarships, let alone legally drive to school. But DACA has transformed their outlook, she says. “I’ve seen a change in those students – a sense of pride.” 

 Talbot says Macias’ grades have vastly improved, especially in math. She suspects that things changed when he got his driver’s license. “Just being a regular teenager was huge for him,” she adds.

 The story only gets better from there. As a participant in Puente’s youth leadership development program, Macias did childcare, office work, and was a summer camp counselor. With his new documents, Macias secured housekeeping work at an outdoor conference center near his home in Loma Mar. He eventually saved up $14,000, enough to buy his dream car, a used silver Infinity G35. When he’s not in school or applying for college scholarships, he’s in his sports coupe with sunroof open and the windows down, blasting music as he drives down the highway, using his freedom to explore the place he has always called home.

 “To me it’s a symbol that change is happening,” he says. “I hope it keeps being that way.”

Thanks to Nancy M. for donating this vacuum cleaner to Puente. Now we need three more. Help us do a better job of staying clean. Contact Abby Mohaupt at amohaupt@mypuente.org to contribute to our vacuum fund!

The doctor is in. At last.

This Thursday, a small group of patients will inaugurate Puente’s new “Pescadero Clinic” – a converted meeting room inside a portable, now home to an exam table and some limited medical equipment.

Puente has started scheduling patients for 30-minute time slots on Thursday nights from 5-7 p.m. A doctor, a nurse, and a medical assistant from San Mateo County’s Coastside Clinic will staff the clinic each week, with the help of a Patient Services Assistance support staff person. Puente will coordinate the clinic and help provide transportation for people without cars.

The new clinic, a pilot project, is a co-initiative of Puente and the San Mateo County Health System. Its funding source is Measure A, a county sales tax that passed in November 2012. It may expand based on how well it works for local patients. For now, the clinic is equipped for primary care services, such as blood draws for lab testing, physical exams and vaccinations.

After years of watching too many South Coast residents put off their doctor’s visits (and end up in the emergency room months down the line), Puente believes that having a doctor in the neighborhood will save lives, in the literal sense. For example, the first five patients seen at the clinic have untreated diabetes and other chronic conditions.

“We’re trying to do a lot more preventative medicine so people don’t have to go to the emergency room. We want the Pescadero Clinic to be the first place people without a medical home go,” says Molly Wolfes, Community Health Coordinator for Puente.

Just like the Coastside clinic, the Pescadero clinic will serve patients with public insurance (ACE, Healthy Kids or Medi-Cal). Roughly 500 patients who reside in Pescadero, La Honda, San Gregorio and Loma Mar already have these insurances and more will likely sign up to obtain care, according to Wolfes. One day, Puente hopes that they will all use the clinic as a first resort – and forestall larger health problems down the road.

The “Pescadero Clinic” is the latest proposed solution to help solve the systemic lack of health care on the South Coast. It is an alternative option to the concept of a mobile health van to visit farms and ranches – a plan the County decided was too expensive and not flexible enough to accommodate changes in the demand for services.

The South Coast has seen mobile vans in three iterations, in 1994, 2002 and 2007. All were discontinued due to lack of funding. This is also the third time that a public health clinic has been established in Pescadero – first at Pescadero Community Church in the 1970s, then at Pescadero Elementary School in 2002.

In 2012, San Mateo County approved funding for a full-time South Coast Public Health Nurse, Karen Hackett, to work with Puente. She sees patients regularly and helps connect them with the Public Health System.

Molly Wolfes, left, and Karen Hackett, in pink, visit a farm on the South Coast to administer flu shots.

Where efforts have succeeded, it is thanks to the painstaking work of county public health workers, local volunteers, Puente staff, and groups like the South Coast Collaborative, a precursor to Puente. The level of need has never been in question.

“Our community has worked hard for two decades to find a sustainable solution to the healthcare needs of our entire South Coast community. We hope that this solution, fueled by County and local commitment, will stick,” according to Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel. “Rural residents face a unique combination of obstacles that create disparities in health care not found in urban areas. Economic factors, cultural and social differences, transportation challenges, fears around immigration status, and the sheer isolation of living in remote rural areas conspire to impede residents of the South Coast in their struggle to lead a normal, healthy life,” Lobel said.

San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley, whose district covers the Coastside, says he is committed to seeing Puente and the County Health System use Measure A funding to resolve the dearth of South Coast health care once and for all. He even suggested expanding or relocating Puente within Pescadero, so as to establish a larger exam room.

“I’ve told Puente I’m committed to spending $400,000 or $500,000 a year to do whatever it takes to get real medical care out on the coast,” Horsley says, adding, “I wish we had figured this out from the very beginning. Having a clinic in there makes a whole lot more sense.”

Puente will stake the clinic’s success, in part, on the success of the Coastside Clinic in Half Moon Bay. Two Coastside Clinic staff members, Dr. Rebecca Ashe and Change Nurse Vicky Camilleri, have been instrumental in helping launch Puente’s clinic, and they will be staffing it every Thursday. They already live on the Coastside and consider Pescadero a part of their community.

“Our staff is excited to see how we can go down there and extend our services,” says Camilleri. The Coastside Clinic most recently paired up with Puente to administer a TDAP vaccine (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis) at 18 different farms around Pescadero and a winery in La Honda.

When it comes to serving a rural population, getting signed up for health care doesn’t always ensure follow-through in seeing a doctor. In its recent community health care survey, Puente found that 40 percent of adults had not seen a doctor in the past year. Camilleri says that’s not unusual: “People sometimes are afraid and don’t know that they’re entitled to services.”

When it comes to the Pescadero clinic, she adds, “We’ll be trying to find out – what are those barriers folks may be encountering? Is it transportation? Is it a time issue? Medical coverage?”

Puente has learned that health care must be paired with outreach. Wolfes has begun distributing an info sheet, part of a campaign to get people comfortable with seeing a doctor in town. But in true Puente style, staff will be listening to what patients require and responding rather than telling them what they must do. Puente will soon launch a program to bring even more education on prevention to the region’s residents.

“We will continue to be guided by what the community needs,” says Wolfes, “and now it’s time to deliver the health care they seek – and deserve.”

Pescadero Elementary School students share their images of what having a doctor in Pescadero might look like.