Christopher Peak Photo
Daniel Hernandez Torres speaks to fellow Adult Education grads.
When Daniel Hernandez Torres was living on the streets for several years, he kept one comic book with him, read its color-splotched pages over and over again until it fell apart.
On Thursday evening, when Torres delivered a speech to his friends at the New Haven Adult & Continuing Education Center just before receiving a high school equivalency, he quoted a few lines that Flash Gordon speaks as he battles against The Thinker.
“Life is in motion. If you’re not moving, you’re not living,” he quoted, wearing a blue cape across his shoulders. “But there comes a time when you’ve gotta stop running away. You have to stop running towards something.”
Natalie Robinson and Tarena Gadsden sing.
Torres received a diploma on Thursday night in a ceremony at Southern Connecticut State University’s Lyman Center, along with 175 others who’d finished up their high school credit requirements, 36 who gained certifications as nursing assistants, and 11 who passed the American citizenship test.
The cohort of graduates is one of the largest that’s ever come through the center, said Michelle Bonora, the new principal.
Michelle Bonora.
In her first year on the job, Bonora has instituted a “No Excuses” campaign, letting New Haven residents know there’s nothing to stop them from finally getting their high school diploma. She touts the wraparound services that the school offers and the dedicated staff who will drive by students’ houses when they don’t show up.
During the graduation ceremony, she made a pitch to those in the audience to sign up, and over the summer, she’ll be knocking on doors across the city to spread the message even further, reaching people like Torres who once thought everyone had given up on them.
A packed house fills Lyman Center.
Torres dropped out of high school 14 years ago. Running away from a mentally unstable mother and an alcoholic father, he had nowhere to sleep and no way to get to school.
He eventually decided to try out the Adult Education program that the city offered.
“It was there that hope and helplessness collided,” he said. “Hope, because I signed up for classes. But helplessness, because there was nowhere to lay my head at night.”
Family snap videos on their smartphones.
He cycled through programs at the center on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard four times, quitting and returning to the streets.
But after he married and became a father to three kids, he felt that this most recent attempt would be his last. He committed to his studies, and his classmates elected him as their student council representative.
Torres is now working on a graphic novel of his own, featuring a character named Fatu the Widow, a black female vigilante who stalks the streets of New York City, vowing to protect others from the crime that took her father’s life.
Grads toss their caps in the air.
During his speech to a full auditorium on Thursday night, he ripped the blue cape off his back and dropped it on the ground.
“Not all superheroes come with a costume,” he said. “Yes, it is my turn. I’m allowed to tell my story, our story. Like the Flash, similarly, we too have stirred up enough excitement and a few tornadoes to combat life’s negative influences. We have used our own lightning bolts to shoot down our enemies. We run fast enough to reverse time and forge fearlessly ahead.
“We did it,” Torres finished. “Tomorrow, we’re ready to take on new challenges. Don’t stop running. No excuses!”
Torres: “Don’t stop running.”