Eating meals in the dining hall gave me the chance to speak with those I shared workshops with and those I didn’t. Sylvia and I hadn’t spoken until our last day at breakfast. After introducing ourselves with questions, she began to tell me of her time studying in New Haven years before.

“I came to Yale in 1976 with affirmative action, because I am Chicana (She has Mexican parents but raised in the US.). They had sent recruiters out to fill quotas and one of them ended up at my high school. I found out later that someone said, “Don’t waste your time they’re all Mexicans.” My English teacher standing there suggested to the recruiter that he drop by to meet her students. He came fifth period. If it had been fourth period or sixth, or any other time I wouldn’t have been there, but I was. I had a friendly,  but competitive relationship with one of my classmates and he said. “I dare you to apply.” “Only if you do too.” So we both did and I got in.” “Did he get in?” I asked. ” No” she replied.

“My school was in a poor, small town in Texas where I was an A+ student, but I didn’t have the academic skills to survive here. I spent my four years at Yale just trying not to drown.”

” What grade were you in when they recruited you?” ” I was a senior.” “That didn’t give you much time to prepare.” I added.  Sylvia said, “It was tough competing with kids from Phillips Exeter and other top schools. My mother kept telling me I was too far away and that I should come home, but I stayed. Back home meant watching my mother prepare twelve enchiladas, on a good day, for our family of six. My father ate first, my older brother already six foot three, would eat seven of them, leaving two more for the four of us. There were days my mother who always ate last, had none.” ‘Was your brother ever told to leave more for the rest of you?” ” No, he’s always been my mother’s favorite.” she replied. “I began accepting the fact that I wasn’t going to be getting A’s or B’s. I mostly got C’s–but, nobody ever asks me how I did here, saying I went to Yale is enough–although it took me years to regain my self-confidence after those four years. It also didn’t help that I fell in love with a woman.”

“Do you have any regrets on having studied here?” I asked. “I found a job publishing Spanish textbooks in Boston where I worked for thirty-five years. Back home I would have been expected to get married and have a family. That’s not what I wanted. No, I have no regrets. My education gave me the life I never would have had.”