From Colombia to Tyler, Jose Reyes Bastidas has overcome cultural barriers to adapt to a new life, graduate high school and work toward an associate's degree.

Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of stories highlighting graduating high school seniors in Smith County.

From Colombia to Tyler, Jose Reyes Bastidas has overcome cultural barriers to adapt to a new life, graduate high school and work toward an associate’s degree.

At a young age, the RISE Academy senior’s father died, so it was just him, his mother and seven sisters in Colombia for a while. Being the only male in the house, his family often jokingly referred to him as the “man of the house,” he said.

Despite whether or not his family was serious, Bastidas said he “kind of grew up having the mentality that I needed to do everything good for them that usually a man does for his family.”

“To me, everything revolves around the people I love and care about,” he said.

At age 12, Bastidas said his mother got married to his stepfather, and they moved to Tyler, which “was a whole different thing” compared to Colombia.

In Colombia, people tend to treat everyone as family and are more open to conversing with strangers, Bastidas said.

People’s attitudes are not the only difference though — the “food is different, school is different, friendships are different,” Bastidas said.

He said he believes the transition to life in the U.S. “was kind of easy for me being that over there in Colombia, I was in my years of being playful and … when I came over here, I was transitioning from being just a kid to a teenager. I think that kind of helped me.”

Some challenges Bastidas said he faced along with adjusting to a new culture were speaking English and learning about things such as ADHD.

“I was kind of doing all right in school in Colombia, but I always used to get distracted and I didn’t know you could get diagnosed for (ADHD),” he said. “I have had ADHD all my life, and I didn’t even know.”

He added it was his family and relationships he built in high school with RISE Academy Principal Dexter Floyd and other staff members who have helped him build more connections and persevere.

“My dad’s family is a really big family,” Bastidas said. “Seeing them and their family has kind of made me adapt to the culture that we have here in Tyler and the U.S.”

With his stepfather having 12 brothers and five sisters, not only was adapting to a different life easier, but it also gave him exposure to a lot of different career paths.

Bastidas said he has one uncle who is an engineer and another who is a mechanic. Helping his uncles and also his stepfather work on tractors could be a factor in his enjoyment of building and fixing things, he said.

“I like being able to know how things work, being able to fix them yourself,” he said. “It gives you pride or happiness that you do it yourself, and that kind of makes me want to learn more.”

While Bastidas said he believes he has adapted well over his seven years in the U.S., he still often thinks of life in Colombia.

“I kind of get that homey feeling in Colombia because I was born and raised over there,” he said. “I sometimes even feel like the smell of the air is different over there living by the coast, and you see so many different things like mango trees.”

Despite missing his home country, Bastidas said, “I think it’s for the better — I think I have more opportunities (in the U.S.) than I had in Colombia.”

After graduating from RISE, he will have one more class before earning his associate’s degree. His first goal is to complete it before figuring out exactly what he wants to do next, however, possibilities are studying to be a civil engineer or going to firefighter academy.

Moving forward, Bastidas said he will continue to have the mentality to ”put a goal in place and go toward that goal always.”