A hand up to a better future
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. During his four years at Harvard College, Jesse Sanchez has been a continent away from the troubled streets of San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood where he grew up, but in his heart he never really left. Sanchez, a senior, said the struggles of kids growing up amid poverty, drugs, and gangs have never been far from his mind. Coming from a similar background, he credits his own success to his mother’s tireless work ethic and her selfless dedication to him and his brother, and to the intervention of people working to bring a better future to neighborhood kids. “I owe everything to her,” Sanchez said of his mother, Julia Sanchez, a housekeeper. “All the work I put in has only been modeled on her hard work. All the sacrifices I made were only modeled on the sacrifices she made.” A...