Meet Paulo: “Tú Eres Mi Otro Yo.”

Paulo Martinez Alamillo showed up to his first day at the County of Sonoma Office of Equity in his dad's shoes. Four months later, he walked into his final presentation carrying a painting he'd made for the team.

Featuring Paulo M.

On his first day, Paulo took the bus straight from Maria Carrillo High School. He wore a polo, the nicest dress pants he owned, and his father's shoes.

"It felt like I was wearing clown shoes."

Paulo was starting a Path to Purpose internship, CTE Foundation's program that places Sonoma County high school students in paid and unpaid internships with local employers. His placement was the County of Sonoma Office of Equity. He was nervous, the way almost anyone is before walking into a room full of adults and hoping they belong there.

What changed over the next four months was easy to hear. Paulo recorded video check-ins throughout his internship for CTE Foundation's "Share Your Internship Story!" project, and from one video to the next, his voice got steadier and his answers got longer. The student who started out unsure began to sound like someone who knew he had something to offer.

He also never stopped being an artist.

Most people spend their first job trying to shrink themselves down to fit in. Paulo brought the whole of himself into the office, and his mentors made room for it. By the end, he understood the relationship as something that ran in both directions.

"Not only did I learn from them, but they learned from me, and me being a presence in that room taught them as well."

When it came time to thank the people who had taken a chance on him, he didn't write a card. He painted them a picture of who they are.

"I'm an artist and I wanted to capture everything the Office of Equity is within this painting."

He brought it to his final presentation.

Asked to sum up the whole experience in a single sentence, Paulo answered in Spanish: Tú eres mi otro yo.

"Which basically means you are my other me. They are another me."

It's a remarkable way to describe a first job. Internships usually get talked about as something given to a student: experience, a résumé line, a first paycheck. Paulo described an exchange. A county office looked at a teenager in borrowed shoes and recognized something of itself in him. He looked back and saw a future he could actually step into.

Paulo said he couldn't have been paired with a better group of people. At the Path to Purpose Employer Celebration, his mentors said the same thing about him.

He arrived in shoes that didn't fit. He left having found a place that did. 

Watch Paulo’s journey below!