An Unlikely Journey by Julian Castro

Author:Julian Castro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

I knew a classmate at Stanford whose mom worked at the White House, and she suggested that students apply for a summer internship there. Joaquin and I filled out the application form and forgot about it as we continued our studies and looked into other internships over the summer. One of those was with KSAT-TV, the ABC affiliate in San Antonio. My brother and I had been thinking about a career in broadcast journalism, and we figured that eight weeks of seeing it from the inside would be invaluable and perhaps create connections for jobs after graduation.

KSAT-TV called us back, and a few days later we toured the station and met with the assignments editor. Joaquin and I imagined ourselves pursuing hard-hitting investigative pieces, helping with research, and maybe interviewing people for leads, learning from pros how to dig for stories that made positive change.

Joaquin asked the editor about these types of stories. The editor paused, then said, “There’s more of an appetite for big fires and shootings, gang violence and crimes. That’s what the viewers want to see.”

We spoke with the editor for another ten minutes, and almost immediately after leaving the station we began to wonder whether local TV journalism was really for us. A couple of weeks afterward, I received a letter from Washington stating that I was accepted as an intern for the Office of Cabinet Affairs. Not the sexiest title in politics or the White House, but it was a start.

Joaquin waited for his letter in the mail. Nothing. There was no logical reason why one identical twin with an essentially identical résumé would get accepted while the other was rejected. Time was running out, and after a few weeks with no White House letter, Joaquin heard back: his application had been lost somewhere along the way. Joaquin had to make other plans, so he secured an internship with a law firm in San Antonio. I scrounged what money I could and made a trip to Solo Serve, a discount clothing store in San Antonio. I needed a wardrobe for Washington, DC, so I bought two suits for work, two pairs of casual slacks, and a black jacket on sale.

This summer would be the first time we were split for any significant period. Luckily, we were used to feeling a little more independent since we lived in different dorms at Stanford and took some different classes. I really came to value that distance because it made me appreciate Joaquin as a friend as well as a sibling.

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