Arturo is bored. He compares his grandfather’s broken English to his own fluent Spanglish. He feels superior and disconnected. Abuelo, sensing the boy’s impatience, asks him to put down his music. "An hour," the grandfather says. "You can give me an hour?"
Abuelo tells Arturo that he did not want to be a farmer or a factory worker. He wanted to be a teacher—a profesor . He describes walking miles to school, saving his centavos , and eventually earning a teaching certificate in Puerto Rico. But just as he was about to live his dream, the Great Depression hit, and his family starved. He gave up his books for a machete to farm sugar cane.
Arturo assumes the story ends in tragedy. But Abuelo smiles. He explains that he came to America, worked in a hotel, and raised a family who now visits him (even if only for an hour). He asks Arturo: "Do you know what I learned? That the only real failure is the failure to grow."