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My family traces its ancestry back to a merger of peninsulares and Aztec nobility right after the fall of Tenōchtitlan. A Spanish noble, Don Fernando de Seville married Quetzalli, the sister of the last Aztec emperor, Cuautemoc, my namesake in a move to unite the peoples of New Spain. As a Criollo, my family passed easily in both the halls of power in the newly renamed Mexico City and the indigenous villages in the surrounding hills. Always blessed with great luck, they honored both the old and new ways.

Four hundred years later, my ancestors scored a great coup, and were able to secure land rights adjacent to their their hacienda in the northern states of Mexico during the Porfiriato that were rich with oil. Though the Diaz regime would eventually fall, and the nation be wracked with civil strife, we were able to hold onto our new and ancestral lands, becoming very wealthy in the process.

I was born into wealth and luxury. I was a child actor on Marimar, growing up on the small screens across Mexico. In 2008, I was kidnapped by a narco- gang that held me hostage until my family paid a ransom of nearly 13 million dollars to secure my release, a drama that you may remember playing out in the newspapers. During the exchange, I grabbed a pistol from my captors and gunned down 2 of them turning a peaceful negotiation into a bloodbath. Twelve people ended up dying, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I felt my ancestors smiling on me as the blood soaked into the parched earth, satisfying an ancient and forgotten covenant. The surety of this revelation scared me, as did the exhilaration of the adrenaline rush that followed. My family ensured that I'd be able to defend myself if the narcos came back or if any others saw easy money.

Seeking to move beyond the public spectacle both being a child star and the centerpiece of a narco-kidnapping, my family pushed me into Universidad Anahuac as an undergrad a couple years later. I was a poor student, used to getting what I wanted. When my personality failed to score me passing marks, several large donations ensured I passed. After 5 years, I graduated and attempted to come up to speed on the family businesses. I failed spectacularly, running a ranching business almost into the ground. My father sought to send me to graduate school in the United States with a stern warning that I'd be on my own to succeed this time. Failure would result in having to earn a living the hard way.

It has been a struggle, and while I've not learned the ins and outs of economics as I've been supposed to, I've learned many valuable lessons. A winning smile, confidence, and demeanor will get far more than knowledge from a book will ever do. When that doesn't work, a little nocturnal effort will get you past the campus security guard and into the professor's office where a D- can become a C (or better, but sometimes, occasionally, it doesn't pay to attract attention). In the end, the most valuable thing I learned was that most everybody likes to be flattered, and that talking to people in the right way … well… you get the idea.

Except this anthropology professor. He is so old he doesn't keep his grades on his computer, but in a book in his briefcase. The briefcase, by the way, doesn't leave his side. Further, it doesn't seem like he can be bought. He is old and senile enough that he can't be charmed. So, I'm off to this Waffle House to try to pull out a miracle of sorts. This was supposed to be an easy undergrad elective, but if I fail this class both my student visa and future are on the line…