ARLINGTON, Va. — When Sergio Hernandez reached various milestones in his educational career, he always wondered why his father never showed up at the ceremonies to celebrate.
He harbored resentment toward the man all the way up until the time he earned his political science degree from California Polytechnic State University in 2010 — not fully appreciating the fact that his father’s work as a gardener played a major role in his ability to graduate from college without debt.
“My mother asked me: How are you graduating without owing anything to the institution?” said Hernandez, who serves as outreach programs manager for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.
“I was like: I can’t believe I’ve been blaming him for all these years.
“It took me almost 23 years of my life to realize the resentment and anger I had for him was really dumb because he was busting his butt off to make sure my sister and I would go to college,” Hernandez said. “We graduated from college with zero loans because he paid for it.”
Hernandez shared his story with more than 100 select high school seniors recently during the Youth Leadership Institute, a four-day, overnight “college empowerment” conference that the Hispanic Scholarship Fund held at Marymount University.
The conference is one of several that the Hispanic Scholarship Fund is staging this summer at campuses throughout the nation in an effort to encourage its scholars to seek entry into America’s elite colleges and universities.
