America is built on rags-to-riches tales. But how does ‘class-passing’ actually work – and how to navigate your new life and your old? When Nancy Reyes was 11 she was selected for a diversity initiative called Prep for Prep. The program identifies promising students of colour in New York and sends them to private schools. She was living in Queens at the time. Her dad was a taxi driver and her mom was a cleaner: it was “a very paycheck-to-paycheck kind of life.” She credits Prep for Prep for where she is today: a Harvard graduate and the managing director of New York ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, and one of the most respected women in advertising.
