By E.A. Barrera

February 6, 2018 (San Diego) -- It is slightly less than 3,000 miles between the tiny village of Mompos, Colombia and Washington D.C. But of course it is in many ways farther then traveling to the moon. On a bright day in early 1961, my father, Ernesto Martin Barrera, and 16 other Colombian college students made the trip to America as part of a visiting tour of young leaders. They got to shake hands with a young American president who had his own dreams of trips to the moon, and they got to tour America.