Walking across the stage at Bojangles Coliseum on Wednesday to get his associate’s degree from Central Piedmont Community College had special resonance for Alan Hidalgo-Lobo.
When South Mecklenburg High School held its 2015 graduation, he sat in the audience at the coliseum, watching his classmates walk across the stage. He hadn’t earned enough credits for a diploma.
“I felt like my life was just over at that point ’cause, you know, I wasn’t able to graduate,” recalls Hidalgo-Lobo, who is 25 now. “And now mind you, I went to school all four years.”
But Hidalgo-Lobo says his heart and mind weren’t in his school work. His parents came to the United States from Honduras, and moved to Charlotte when Hidalgo-Lobo was in middle school.
In May 2009, his father went back to Honduras. Two days before he was scheduled to fly home, he called his son.
“He told me to take care of myself, that he loves me and that he will be seeing me on Friday, and to pick him up at the Charlotte airport at 7 p.m. with my mom,” he said.
The next day, Hidalgo-Lobo’s father was shot to death as he rode his bicycle on a side street. Hidalgo-Lobo remembers that counselors at Quail Hollow Middle School sent a therapist to his house, but “I wasn’t myself for a long time.”
In high school, Hidalgo-Lobo says he was fixated on trying to figure out who killed his father and why. He now believes he knows, but no one was prosecuted, he says.
“I tried so hard to get justice for my dad and I was never able, unfortunately, to get justice for him.”
After failing to graduate with his high school class, Hidalgo-Lobo worked a couple of service jobs and thought about his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer.
“I noticed that yes, I wasn’t able to graduate high school but it doesn’t mean that I still can’t,” he said. “And that’s when I took the initiative and decided to enroll for GED classes.”
He signed up for classes in 2019, but COVID-19 shut down GED testing centers in 2020. It was a setback, but also a sort of blessing. Because when he was able to finish his testing at Central Piedmont Community College, he was eligible for a new Longleaf Commitment Grant. The state is using $31 million in federal COVID-19 aid to help pay community college tuition for students whose academic work was derailed by the pandemic.
Hidalgo-Lobo qualified for the grant and enrolled as a full-time student at CPCC in May 2021.
“It has helped me tremendously because I got it each semester and now here we are a year and six months later,” he said.
“Here” was back at the Bojangles Coliseum. This time Hidalgo-Lobo was wearing a cap and gown, with cords that signified he made the dean’s list and president’s list. The young man who didn’t pass enough high school classes to graduate received an associate of arts degree with a 3.8 GPA.
“The ninth of January is my first day at UNC Charlotte, where I’ll be there for two years, I’ll get my bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, I will be working on getting a minor in legal studies,” he said.
After that, he hopes to go to law school, pass the bar exam and eventually open his own practice. Hidalgo-Lobo says he wants to practice criminal defense and immigration law, helping families like his make a better life in the United States.
“Even though I wasn’t able to get justice for my dad,” he added, “I would love to be able to get justice for other people.”
