At the start of his educational journey, Daniel Hernandez joined his father in working construction to pay tuition and bills. Daily, he would show up to a work site, where fellow construction workers, older Latino immigrants, would ask him, “Why aren’t you in class right now? Stop picking up a shovel and start picking up a pen. Don’t fall in love with this life, because you need to go to school and you need to pursue a higher education.”
Today, Daniel is an undergraduate in SF State's Bilingual Spanish Journalism program — the first program of its kind at a public university in the U.S. — focusing on producing journalism that is relevant to his community. Recipient of the Otto J. Bos Memorial Scholarship and the Vincent Constantino Scholarship, he no longer works in construction and can focus on his award-winning journalism.
