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"Homeless to Harvard"

Ihre Eltern setzten sich schon zum Frühstück einen Schuss, mit 15 Jahren war Elizabeth Murray obdachlos und schlief nachts in der U-Bahn. Trotzdem schaffte sie den Sprung an die Nobel-Uni Harvard. US-Filmemacher und Verlage lieben die Erfolgsstory - doch Elizabeths Leben ist etwas komplizierter als im Drehbuch vorgesehen.

Der Triumph über alle Widrigkeiten

"Homeless to Harvard" beruht auf einer wahren Geschichte, die der nun 23 Jahre alten Elizabeth Murray. Sie wächst mit ihren drogenabhängigen Eltern in der New Yorker Bronx auf, und die Mutter versetzt gar die Kleidungsstücke her two daughters for heroin. If there are even a couple of cornflakes in the fridge, exceptionally, Elizabe can eth eat with a spoon, use the their parents for drug preparation - and the school it is rare, because the classmates they tease, they ragged, dirty and stinking shows up.
The authorities finally take Elizabeth away from the parents. Because they do not like her sister can stand in violent relations, she lands in boarding schools and later on the street. There, she also learns from the AIDS death of her mother - and the 16-year-old girl is not only angry and sad, but decided against it all. "I had so many Opportunities have been denied, and I did not want to waste even all the talent, "says Elizabeth

you hear of a new school project in Manhattan, which are former truant as she cares -. And do their homework at night in the subway cars hear so unwaveringly that, four years opportunity as High School in two. When their teacher by a grant from the New York Times "for disadvantaged college applicants, they recommend the gifted student. And in the fall of 2000 as Elizabeth Murray as proud a freshman on the Harvard Yard.
The television film on which Murray has worked as a consultant and in the Thora Birch in "American Beauty" she plays, is only partially pathetic sentimental, but every minute a vehicle for a message: Every life is always what you make of it. Ideally, that's the sentence that Elizabeth proclaimed the most, with their innumerable lectures, for which she travels around the country.
The heroic epic - comfort to the nation
you can be booked as a speaker at the Washington Speakers Bureau ", which is also Al Gore conveys or Rudolph Giuliani wanted to bludgeon the homeless liked from New York - and on some days shakes before Murray Addressing first the hand of Nelson Mandela. During the Iraq war initiated talks with Elizabeth one interviewer, in these times is her story for the Nation an ideal comfort.

course it's not new that Americans love epics - but perhaps Murray's story has become so very popular, because everyone has his own morality can knit it. Conservative Americans who hold any kind of preferential treatment for blacks or arms for mischief, because even were to blame themselves for their fate like the message that it can create enough with each use. And who wants to defend "affirmative action" and similar utilities , in Murray's story is just as convinced celebrate the success of funded projects. and the message is hidden in some -

But on closer inspection Lines in the last movie setting - Elizabeth's story is no longer simply dreams at the end of the American dream. At Harvard, she has never taken a foothold. She left the noble college after half a year for twelve months, came back, but disappeared again to New York where she has her own apartment and where her father also lives with AIDS.

Harvard now shared with laconic, Murray was not a student anymore, and refunded the fees paid by newspapers Foundation. When the film came out, has written an unusually long article Unizeitung after an interview with Elisabeth - perhaps to avoid accusations that someone in difficult circumstances could not cope at Harvard.
The concern was unfounded - Murray loses not a bad word about the university. Harvard is perhaps not the ideal place for them was, although she says ("My Life in New York was so fast. And this was all so quiet"), but it had just been for them not the best time to study. They had nothing to do always as much awful, because everyone wanted her story - book publishing, where she will soon publish her autobiography, the TV stations, to journalists. And then they had to communicate with new problems in their family to take care of the old friends in the Bronx - at some point of reference for the study broke off completely.
The perfect marketing
Some students from Murray's vintage complain now, Harvard could offer more help. However, Elizabeth is to himself that it is through their early independence is not easy to discuss. "It was just too much noise in my head," they conclude.

the now wants to sell it in New York. Elizabeth currently working on the final chapters of her autobiography, she maintains her dying father and wants at Columbia University to study end. Lifetime
it also needs, such as Internet chat for the "Homeless to Harvard" film, which earned the channel the highest ratings in its history. The chat is online next to a banner ad for Face water available, and contains a statement that out soon bring Elizabeth's sister and her best friend a book.
The show must go on.

From: Spiegel.de