This one’s for the dreamers. For the ones who strive for the impossible. For the underdogs. This is the story of a boy who grew up working the fields of California, his family struggling to make ends meet—a boy who couldn’t even speak English until the age of 12, who moved constantly with the harvest seasons, never able to settle in one place and get his bearings.

Young José Hernández’s life changed the day he watched Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan on television as he made the last moonwalk in 1972. From that moment, Hernández made it his life’s ambition to defy all odds and become an astronaut too. As he grew up, he never lost sight of that vision until one day (spoiler alert), the dream came true.

The road that led him there is long and winding—and incredibly inspirational to anyone who’s ever wanted to reach for stars of their own. Hernández applied to NASA’s astronaut program again and again, faced rejection again and again—11 times, no less. But he persevered. That little boy who spent years of his childhood working in the fields would eventually make it to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in 2009—a mission that lasted almost two weeks, covering close to six million miles, and completing 219 orbits around the earth. Hernández’s story is the subject of several books as well as the movie, A Million Miles Away.

And now Hernández is coming to Texas Lutheran University to tell that story and inspire others as the featured speaker for this fall’s Brown Event. TLU’s Brown Event, sponsored by the Jessie S. and Jack Harold Upton Brown Cultural Enrichment Endowment Fund, is a multi-event series that has taken place every year since 2010, bringing world-class speakers and entertainers to campus and sharing them with the whole community. The event, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for Tuesday, September 24, at 7 p.m. in Jackson Auditorium. The presentation will be followed by a meet-and-greet and book signing.