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Leader in the Cancer Fight, & Son of an Illegal Immigrant Dr Ronald DePinho Realizes His Father’s Dream

(Jim Dwyer, New York Times)
A few minutes before Ronald DePinho was to give a speech to his graduating class at Fordham College in the Bronx, he sat with his father in a student lounge. It was May 1977. His father had been in the United States for nearly 40 years. The son was on his way to a career in medicine and research that would bring him to the presidency of the biggest cancer center in the country. It was a time for the father, Alvaro DePinho, to pass along some history.

In 1939, it turned out, the elder Mr. DePinho had made his first home in America in the basement of one of the creaky three-story apartment buildings just outside the gates of the Fordham campus. He had settled in the Bronx after coming to New York as a stowaway, spending 13 days at sea in a cargo container: an illegal immigrant.

On his way to work digging ditches, Mr. DePinho, who had had just a year or two of grade school in rural Portugal, noticed the young scholars heading to classes.

“He lived right across the street with another man in this refugee situation,” Dr. DePinho said. “I didn’t know this. He talked about seeing these men in ties and white shirts, the dress code back then, walking around the college. His only thought was that he wanted his children to go to college.”  …Which they did.
(Read the full story at New York Times)

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