He makes an effort to accommodate everyone, driving to certain students' doors without prompting.

"I know the color of your house," he says. "I know your house better than you sometimes."

One woman offers to get off at the corner, but Andrade refuses: "Going straight? I'll drop you off straight."

Andrade may connect with students in part because of his age--at 29, he is only a few years older than some of them. But his life story is very different from most Harvard undergraduates.

Born in the Azores, an island possession of Portugal, Andrade came to the U.S. at nine unable to speak a word of English. His courses at Kennedy Elementary School didn't help him learn, he says.

Instead, he picked up the language on the streets of Cambridge. Underneath his thick Boston accent, Andrade still has traces of Portuguese pronunciation.

Although he worked hard as a kid--Andrade has worked 60 to 70 hours ever since he was 15--his family still faced anti-immigrant prejudice, leading him to seek American citizenship.

"Because of the way I was treated in the past I wanted to make sure my kids were American, my wife was American," he says. "I've poured all my sweat here, I think I've earned the right to speak for this country."