An American Dreamer: Cal Basketball Star Jorge Gutierrez

I had the pleasure of watching a previous ImmigrationProf Immigrant of the Day, Jorge Gutierrez, play his last home basketball game at Haas Pavilion at UC Berkeley on Saturday night.

Gutierrez, last year’s Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year as well as a member of the conference’s All-Academic team, is a contender for this year’s conference Player of the Year. On Saturday night before a raucous crowd (including his parents from Mexico) celebrating Jorge and his achievements, Gutierrez helped lead the team to victory against the Oregon State Beavers to stay atop the Pac-12 standings.

On the verge of a possible NBA career, Gutierrez came to the United States just a few years ago from Chihuahua, Mexico and had to learn to speak and write English. He will graduate from Cal this June.

Cal basketball has a few other players from outside the United States. Bak Bak comes from Sudan and Emerson Murray is from Canada.

KJ