Dr. Mark Hugo Lopez is Director of Race and Ethnicity Research at the Pew Research Center, where he coordinates the National Survey of Latinos. Both sides of his family worked the fields of Mexico during the Revolution before settling in California, where his father rose from meat packer to principal and his mother from bank teller to elite cosmetic sales director. A young Mark took notes on the evening news, a habit that sharpened his English. He chose Berkeley over Stanford and Yale, then went on to Princeton, where he nearly walked away in his first six weeks. He stayed, earned his Ph.D. in economics, and joined the University of Maryland faculty at twenty-eight. Today he is one of the country’s most trusted voices on Latino public opinion. His newest work finds hope and doubt side by side: only one in five Latinos say they have fully achieved the American Dream, yet most say they already live better than their parents did.