When Linda Hernandez was growing up in Lincoln, Neb., 1 in the 1960s, her family was one of the few Latino families 2 in town. And that sometimes made school life difficult, she 3 says. 4 "We had to sit in the back of the class and stay after 5 school and clean the erasers when the other kids didn't 6 have to do that," says Linda, now 60. "But both my parents 7 laid down the law and said, 'You had to go to school.' " 8 Linda and her older sister, Marta, did well academically. 9 But the school's expectations were low. The school 10 counselor told them not to worry about taking the SAT or 11 ACT tests "because we were Hispanic women, [and] all we 12 would do is have babies," Linda told StoryCorps in 13 Notes: Albuquerque, N.M. 14 "So we went home and we told our parents, and my 15 mother went in the back room and cried," Linda says. "And 16 then that's when my brother said, 'Uh-uhn, it ain't 17 happening.' We were very lucky that he was over 6 feet tall. 18 So he walked us down to school and told our high school 19 counselors, 'My sisters will take the test.' " 20 But then the sisters encountered another obstacle. "In 21 order to take the test, you had to have a No. 2 pencil," 22 Linda says. "My sister and I, we had to walk the alleys to 23 find pop bottles — because that's when you could still turn 24 them in and get money for them — so that we could have 25
1 When Linda Hernandez was growing up in Lincoln, Neb., 2 in the 1960s, her family was one of the few Latino families 3 in town. And that sometimes made school life difficult, she 4 says. 5 "We had to sit in the back of the class and stay after 6 school and clean the erasers when the other kids didn't 7 have to do that," says Linda, now 60. "But both my parents 8 laid down the law and said, 'You had to go to school.' " 9 Linda and her older sister, Marta, did well academically. 10 But the school's expectations were low. The school 11 counselor told them not to worry about taking the SAT or 12 ACT tests "because we were Hispanic women, [and] all we 13 would do is have babies," Linda told StoryCorps in Notes: 14 Albuquerque, N.M. 15 "So we went home and we told our parents, and my 16 mother went in the back room and cried," Linda says. "And 17 then that's when my brother said, 'Uh-uhn, it ain't 18 happening.' We were very lucky that he was over 6 feet tall. 19 So he walked us down to school and told our high school 20 counselors, 'My sisters will take the test.' " 21 But then the sisters encountered another obstacle. "In 22 order to take the test, you had to have a No. 2 pencil," 23 Linda says. "My sister and I, we had to walk the alleys to 24 find pop bottles — because that's when you could still turn 25 them in and get money for them — so that we could have