By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Q. WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?

A. Mexicali. My father had a small gas station. The family’s stability vanished when there was a devaluation of the Mexican peso in the 1980s. My father lost the gas station, and we had no money for food. For a while, I sold hot dogs on the corner to help.

As the economic crisis deepened, there seemed no possibility for any future in Mexico. I had big dreams and I wanted more education. So in 1987, when I was 19, I went up to the border between Mexicali and the United States and hopped the fence.

Some years later, I was sitting at a lunch table with colleagues at Harvard Medical School. Someone asked how I’d come to Harvard. “I hopped the fence,” I said. Everyone laughed. They thought I was joking.

READ MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/science/13conv.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

---