My influences and my dad's decisions

Today in class as we were discussing college, and how we were guided (or not) by our families, high schools, etc, to attend college, it brought the story of my dad's childhood to mind. My dad, who is half-Hispanic, was raised in Tucson, AZ, in a family of seven, being in the middle of two brothers, and the younger brother of two sisters. They didn't have much of anything as he grew up. His mother worked as much as she could so that she could provide a little food, clothes, and shelter while his father was abusive, alcoholic, and didn't care about his kids. To make a long story short, my dad didn't have an easy childhood, and definitely was never encouraged to try to go to college, let alone finish high school.
Today we discussed how society makes options like getting out of poverty, more or less available to people and how most Americans believe that everyone has the ability to choose their path, ie; their economic status, occupation, etc. Yes, society makes some options more or less available, and yes, most of the time Americans don't choose their economic status and occupation, but in my dad's case I think he did choose his path. His two brothers still to this day live in Arizona, abusing the welfare system, bouncing regularly from job-to-job, and practically abandoning their children. If my dad would've stayed in Arizona, he might've ended up going down a similar path but at some point in his young life, he decided that he didn't like where he had ended up. He did the best thing he could've done for himself; he left Arizona, his brothers, his abusive father, and moved to Oregon to start over.
My dad is the hardest worker I've ever met. He finished school, and got a job at Weyerhaeuser, and has been working there for the past twenty-some years. His strong work ethic enabled his to be able to work his way up the corporate ladder and he's quite successful I'd say.
I think because of the childhood that my dad had, he's tried extra hard to push both my sister and I in the direction of furthering our educations and he's taught us to never settle for less than our best. My mom and him started setting aside money for us to go to school because they wanted us to be as successful as possible. My dad chose to change his life, and his story pushes me to work hard and make the most of the education that my dad was never able to get growing up.
His Hispanic roots hindered him at some points, and also got him in some doors that maybe would not have been open to him if he hadn't had that minority status. I use the quarter-Hispanic on applications for the sake of having that minority status but I don't really tell anyone about it unless they ask me about my last name because nobody really believes me... I don't think I look too traditionally Hispanic either. Ha.