Latin School of Chicago

36 L AT I N M A G A Z I N E Diaz chose Latin after asking a lot of people for advice and after reassuring his parents, with a young person's unshakable confidence: "If you help me by paying for Latin, I'll worry about (paying for) college." e load was lightened for Diaz's parents through financial aid from the school. Yet, the transition wasn't easy, Diaz acknowledged. "at daily bus ride down North Avenue represented more than a physical distance," he said. "at bus crossed a socioeconomic chasm from the land of fairly limited options to a world of almost limitless possibilities." He recalled getting off the 72 bus to see "a line of luxury cars dropping off kids who lived five blocks away." He was flabbergasted by his new friends' stories about weekend trips to exotic locations. But the divide was about more than cars and vacations: "I didn't fail to notice that the great majority of my friends' parents wouldn't allow them to come to my house," because they were worried his neighborhood might not be safe. e first few months of high school were "pretty tough," Diaz said. Starting at a new school is always challenging, and he was entering a close-knit class with established personalities and a pecking order. He found his footing fairly quickly, joined various sports teams and generally settled in. "My friends and their parents soon welcomed me into their homes, their religious ceremonies, their families. My early moments at Latin helped me understand a bigger lesson: that my classmates and their families were just people, like my own family, living their lives, going to school, pursuing their goals and seeking to protect their kids. And I knew they understood that, too." When David Diaz arrived at Latin, he knew right away he was entering a new world. Raised in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood by parents who valued education, Diaz attended parochial schools for much of his childhood. As high school approached, Diaz craved more intellectual rigor, and he applied to a number of independent schools. "That daily bus ride down North Avenue represented more than a physical distance. That bus crossed a socioeconomic chasm from the land of fairly limited options to a world of almost limitless possibilities." David Diaz' senior portrait from the 1988 yearbook.

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