This book is dedicated to my parents, who made the utmost sacrifice and supported me in my journey to the United States at the age of 15. Without my two loving parents, I would not be where I am today; a tenured high school history teacher working in the most impoverished neighborhood in New York City, the South Bronx, where I help students that dropped out of high school achieve their goal and receive a high school diploma.

The reason that I feel like I am in the right place for my job is because just like these "lost" students, I was going through a tough transition myself as I left my impoverished third-world country and decided to embark on a journey by myself across the ocean for a better opportunity. The toughest students are sometimes the best ones because they either have a goal in mind and they want to succeed, or they are not ready and are very honest with themselves and their teacher and decide that education is not in their cards at that moment of time. I feel that these students are marginalized from society because of their socioeconomic status, and it is important that they realize that there is light at the end of tunnel, just like for me my parents decided to leave their pretty cushy jobs to try and support me and my brother in the United States.

That is why I decided to publish this book, to show that in each of one there is hope for a better future, and we must take in account that life will not always be easy and will throw unexpected moments our way.