UC Berkeley student Jose Felix Mayen died in a car accident on the San Mateo Bridge approximately two weeks ago. He was 23.
On April 24, Mayen was driving a Toyota Corolla on Highway 92 on the side of the San Mateo Bridge when his car stalled. A black BMW station wagon rear-ended the Toyota, and a silver sedan rear-ended the BMW at 7:15 a.m., according to California Highway Patrol officer Art Montiel.
Shortly afterward, an ambulance transported Mayen to the Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where he passed away the next day, Montiel said. The California Highway Patrol is still investigating the crash.
“When Jose passed, I had to make the announcement to let everyone know,” said Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, a UC Berkeley lecturer on global poverty and practice, in an email. “Several students commented that they were looking for him that morning because he was always there, on time, sitting near the front, with a warm smile. His absence was felt by all of us.”
At the age of 16, Mayen came to the United States from Guatemala, facing the challenges of learning a new language and adapting to a different culture. However, these difficulties did not stop him from excelling academically.
When Mayen entered his sophomore year at Menlo-Atherton High School, he knew little English and took English instruction classes, but by the time he was in his junior year, he had already caught up and was taking core English classes.
“He had a great sense of community,” said Stephen Ready, a bilingual resource teacher at Menlo-Atherton High School. “He was diligent about catching up, accelerating up as quickly as he could … In my 20 years as an educator, I have never known anyone like him.”
Before he came to UC Berkeley, Mayen attended Canada College, where he was heavily involved in many areas of campus life, such as serving as the vice president of the campus’ student government, working as a tutor for English learners and helping out at the reference desk in the library.
“We have a lot of students who start off the same way as Jose,” said David Patterson, a librarian at Canada College. “They’re immigrants, they have very little English and they have lots of dreams … Jose was able to do it. He was able to transfer to Berkeley.”
His passion for helping others led him to consider sociology as a major. Since he personally knew the challenges immigrants face upon coming to America, Mayen hoped to be an immigration lawyer, Patterson recalled. Even before he came to UC Berkeley, Mayen had already received his paralegal certificate.
One of the classes Mayen took at UC Berkeley was called “Educational Justice: Undocumented Migrant Students and Struggles to Remake ‘Citizenship.’”
“(Jose) saw himself as a member of a community and wanted to get involved in changing the conditions that make it so difficult for marginalized students to access a university education,” Negron-Gonzales said.
But beyond his academics, Mayen was also deeply committed to his family. When his father went into heart failure, he deferred his admission to UC Berkeley, according to Alicia Aguirre, mayor of Redwood City and a professor of Spanish literature at Canada College.
“He was just one of those students you loved having in class,” Aguirre said. “I challenge people to follow in his dreams, to do what you really believe in doing.”
Mayen is survived by his parents, his brother and his sister, who live in California.
Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.