Word: hernandez
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...moves through her Winthrop room, hung with Mexican art, Free Tibet postcards, and memorabilia from her prep school, Exeter, Hernandez is comfortable and cheerful. The daughter of immigrant parents, she appears unburdened by her trek from Mexico City to Harvard, and her eyes light up at every interval as she talks about moving to Houston, Texas, in the eighth grade...
...Hernandez remained ambivalent even after she had been filled in on Exeter and its national prestige. “I always had a nightmare that I would wake up and not be able to speak English,” she says. “So I was afraid that if I went to Exeter, I would suddenly be unable to communicate...
After her middle school guidance counselor convinced her to apply, Hernandez had to face the interview process. At the interview, her African-American interviewer offered to conduct the meeting in Spanish. Hernandez was put at ease, but insisted on English. After the interview, the Exeter representative made a surprise appearance at her choir performance and waited afterwards to speak to her parents, explaining to them in Spanish all of the opportunities Exeter had to offer...
...When Hernandez had first mentioned applying to boarding school, her mother had burst into tears at the prospect of the family being divided. By the end of the application process, Hernandez says her parents were fully behind the idea. Her mother had been a professor of public administration in Mexico, an occupation she had been unable to continue in Texas because she spoke little English, and strongly encouraged her daughter’s education...
...When I think about it, I think my mother is the reason why I was so persistent about my education,” says Hernandez. “None of my friends in the ESL program decided to go to college. For me, there was never a question as to whether I would go to college, although I never thought it would be Harvard...