When Pablo Hernández was a child, his father would sit with him and help him with his math homework.

“I coached him until he reached the eighth grade,” said Joaquín Hernández, a truck driver. “But when he got to the ninth grade and began studying algebra and trigonometry, I was left behind.”

These are memories that fill him with pride.

Now his 16-year-old son is in Boston, getting ready for an elite math competition. Pablo Hernández is one of only 10 students nationwide — the only Hispanic — who will compete Friday in the annual competition “Who Wants to Be a Mathematician,” hosted by the American Mathematical Society.

“Initially, I didn’t realize how important this competition was,” the teen said. “But as the date got closer, I learned that it is a very special event in the field of mathematics.”

An 11th-grader at Miami Springs Senior High School, Pablo Hernández has always been a math fan. His mother, Guillermina, recalls that when he was little her son would spend hours solving puzzles and playing with cubes.

“Numbers have been his great passion, really,” she said.

The Hernándezes are Cuban immigrants. Their children, Pablo and Jazmín, 18, were born in Miami. Jazmín is in her first year at Florida International University, where she plans to study political science.

“We are a humble family,” Guillermina Hernández said. “We both have always worked, but our kids’ schooling has come first.”

Pablo Hernández credits his school, particularly the teacher who heads the Mu Alpha Theta math club, with motivating him. Last year, Sam Koski received an award from the prestigious university Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston for being one of the most inspiring teachers in the country. Every morning, Koski teaches an extracurricular math class before his regular day begins.

“We are about 40 club members, and about 30 participate regularly,” said Pablo, who began attending the class while in seventh grade. “It’s like a family.”

The teen and his sister arrived in Boston Wednesday for the competition. It’s their first visit to the city. If he wins on Friday, he will receive a $5,000 prize. The math department at his school will receive an equal amount.

Anna Rodríguez, principal at Miami Springs, said that she is proud of Pablo, the only student in Florida competing in the contest.

“It gives me so much pleasure to see one of my students competing in such a prestigious math contest,“ she said.

While in Boston, Pablo will also visit MIT, the university he would like to attend. He is thinking of going into a math-related career, like statistics or engineering.

Why does he like math? “I guess I like to see the relations between numbers.”