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SuccessStories

Success StoriesA Reading A–Z Level Z Leveled Reader

Word Count: 2,678

SuccessStories

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Success StoriesLevel Z Leveled Reader© 2002 ProQuest Information andLearning CompanyWritten by Kira Freed

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www.readinga-z.comwww.readinga-z.com

Written by Kira Freed

SuccessStories

Photo Credits:Front cover, pages 12, 13: Courtesy of the Dikembe MutomboFoundation; back cover, page 4: Jeff Christensen/Reuters/TimePix; title page, page 14: E.O. Hoppe/Mansell/TimePix; page 6: KevinLaMarque/Reuters/TimePix; page 9: Joe Giza/Reuters/TimePix; page 21: TimePix.

Illustration Credit:Page 18: Paula Schricker/© Learning Page.

CorrelationLEVEL Z

Fountas & Pinnell VReading Recovery 29

DRA N/A

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Table of Contents

Gloria Estefan ............................................................5

Dikembe Mutombo ..................................................9

Albert Einstein.........................................................14

Explore More ...........................................................23

Glossary....................................................................24

Gloria Estefan

Gloria Estefan (Gloria Maria MilagrosaFajardo at birth) was born in Havana, Cuba, on September 1, 1957. When she was 16 monthsold, her family fled the Communist governmentof dictator Fidel Castro and moved to Miami,Florida. She and her mother lived in a Miamighetto.

Gloria Estefan performs on an American television show in 2001.Her shirt reads “Cuba, B.C.”—Cuba Before Castro.

The three people featured in this Leveled

Reader—Gloria Estefan, Dikembe Mutombo,

and Albert Einstein—are all immigrants

who moved to the United States. The

circumstances that caused them to leave

their countries of origin are very different,

as are the areas in which they became

influential. Yet their stories have two

common threads: remarkable success and a

strong commitment to making a contribution

toward the betterment of humanity.

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Her father, who had been a Cuban soldier,was involved in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion,which was an unsuccessful attempt by Cubanexiles, backed by the United States government,to overthrow the Cuban government. Gloria’sfather was captured and imprisoned in Cuba for18 months. After his release, he moved his family to Texas. Later he served in Vietnam for twoyears, after which the family returned to Miamiin 1968.

Gloria grew up with the responsibilities of a caretaker on her shoulders. She took care of her younger sister, Rebecca, while their motherworked days and attended school at night, and she also took care of her father after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Doctorsthought his illness might be connected to a toxic chemical called Agent Orange that he wasexposed to while serving in the military duringthe Vietnam War. The chemical was used todestroy trees and shrubs where enemy soldierswere hiding, and as a result, American soldierswere also exposed to it. Gloria cared for herfather after school until she was 16, when heentered a veterans’ hospital. During those longyears of caretaking, Gloria took refuge in playing the guitar and singing in her room.

She entered the University of Miami in 1975on a partial scholarship to study psychology and completed a bachelor’s degree in 1978.Although she loved music, she was incrediblyshy and could not imagine herself performing inpublic. One day her mother took her to a Cubanwedding where she met her future husband,Emilio Estefan, and his Cuban-American band,the Miami Latin Boys. Before long, she became an accompanist and occasional lead singer of the band.

Emilio—the group’s leader and keyboardplayer—helped Gloria to break through hershyness. Over time, she began to sing more oftenand to add her own pop songs to the group’srepertoire. The group, eventually renamedMiami Sound Machine, began releasing albums,and starting in 1984 their success began toskyrocket. At first they were exclusively aHispanic group, but they soon became popularwith a widely mixed audience that enjoyed pop, dance, soul, and Latin music. As the groupbecame more popular, it was called GloriaEstefan and the Miami Sound Machine (tohighlight her importance in the group) andeventually just Gloria Estefan.

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tour. She wanted to give something back to allthe people who had cared about her after theaccident. In 1992, she organized a benefit concertand raised three million dollars for the victims of Hurricane Andrew.

Many successes, honors, and awards markedthe following years. She was chosen to sing in the closing ceremonies of the 1996 OlympicGames in Atlanta. She also took up acting,beginning with Music of the Heart with MerylStreep. She was also in a made-for-TV film,The Arturo Sandoval Story. She hopes to do moreacting in the future.

Now, more than ten years after the accident,she is one of the most successful entertainers in the world. Her concerts are sold out, and herrecords sell by the millions. Her life has beenstrongly shaped by her family’s roots as Cubanexiles, and she continues to speak out against the tyranny of Castro’s government. Like many other exiled people around the world, shefiercely defends her culture’s traditions whilecondemning the oppression that drove her family from their homeland. Her music and herlife reflect her Cuban roots and her Americanupbringing, and she continues to attract anaudience of millions from both cultures.

In 1989, Gloria released her first solo album,“Cuts Both Ways.” A year later, she was in a very serious accident when a semi truck collidedwith her tour bus. She broke her back and wasnot expected to recover fully, but with greatdetermination and hard work in physicaltherapy, she did recover. The shower of love fromher many fans helped to keep her spirit strong.

She celebrated her recovery with the release of the album “Into the Light” and a year-long

Gloria Estefan leads a group of Latino recording artists during an event at the White House on October 12, 2001, celebratingNational Hispanic Heritage Month.

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He came to the United States to attendGeorgetown University in Washington, D.C., on a scholarship. At the time, he planned to becomea medical doctor and return to his country topractice medicine. However, in his second year,the university’s basketball coach convincedMutombo to join the team because of his 7'2"height. After joining the team, he changed hisacademic goals and ended up graduating in 1991 with degrees in linguistics (the study oflanguage) and diplomacy (the study of relationsbetween nations). He speaks four languages andfive African dialects fluently.

Mutombo’s career with the NationalBasketball Association (NBA) began in 1991. He was chosen to play for the Denver Nuggetsafter graduating from college. The eighth-rankedNuggets beat the top team, the Seattle Sonics, inone of the most surprising playoff upsets ever.

He later signed a contract to play for theAtlanta Hawks. After joining the Hawks,Mutombo blossomed into the league’s mostdominant defensive player. He regularly led inblocked shots and also became one of the bestrebounders. He won three Defensive Player ofthe Year awards. But what he really craved was a chance to win a championship.

Dikembe Mutombo (left) and Tyrone Hill (right) hold the trophypresented to the Philadelphia 76ers in 2001 when they defeatedthe Milwaukee Bucks to win the NBA Eastern Conference Finals.

Dikembe Mutombo

Dikembe Mutombo was born in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo (formerlycalled Zaire), in one of the poorest neighborhoodsin the capital city of Kinshasa. He knowsfirsthand what it is like to be poor. Good fortuneand talent led him to an amazingly successfulbasketball career in the United States. Hepromised to use his success to help childrenaround the world who are trapped in poverty.

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When Atlanta traded him to the Philadelphia76ers in 2001, he finally had that chance. Hecollected his fourth Defensive Player of the Yearaward in 2001, and during that year his teamreached the NBA finals against the Los AngelesLakers. Although Mutombo’s team played well,the Lakers won the title. Mutombo’s career is farfrom over, however, and his talents will probablygive his team another chance at a title.

In addition to being a star basketball player,Mutombo is involved in many humanitarianprojects in the United States, in the Congo, and around the world. In the U.S., he has beeninvolved with an NBA program called StrongSTARTS (Strong Schools Taking Action to ReachTroubled Students), a program that helps teenswith emotional problems to succeed in school.While playing for the Atlanta Hawks, he wasinvolved in their Team Up program, whichencourages students to get involved incommunity service, such as working in soupkitchens and homes for senior citizens.

In 1997, Mutombo established the DikembeMutombo Foundation. Its purpose is to improveconditions in his native country, the Congo.Children there die every day from illnesses thatare prevented in countries with widespread

Dikembe Mutombo, actor Danny Glover, and 11-year-old Nkosi Johnson in 2000 at the 13th International Conference on HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Nkosi, an AIDS orphan who laterpassed away, was the inspiration for the creation of Nkosi'sHaven, the first and only care center in South Africa forHIV/AIDS-infected mothers and their children.

immunization programs. Mutombo has workedto educate people in the Congo about theimportance of immunization. One of thefoundation’s major projects is the construction of a new hospital in Kinshasa. Mutombo hasdonated $3 million of his own money and isworking to raise more to complete the project. In addition to improving medical care, hisfoundation’s goals include education and overallimprovement of quality of life.

Albert Einstein

How would you like to be so famous for your intelligence that when people hear the word “genius,” they think of you? That’s whathappened to Albert Einstein. Many of hisschoolteachers disliked him and thought he hadno potential. Yet he became famous around theglobe, and his ideas changed how we understandthe world of physics—the science of matter,energy, motion, and force. He is also famous for his wild hair and, more importantly, for hispassionate beliefs about world peace.

He has traveledall over Africateaching freebasketball clinics anddonating uniforms

and equipment for teams. He provided fundingand uniforms that allowed the Congo’s women’sbasketball team to attend the 1996 OlympicGames in Atlanta.

In 1999, Mutombo was named the first Youth Emissary for the United NationsDevelopment Program. He is working to enlistyoung people around the world in the fightagainst poverty. He has also toured Africa twiceas a spokesperson for CARE, one of the world’slargest organizations working to end poverty.Mutombo is a shining example of an immigrantwho has used his good fortune and opportunitiesto give something back to his country and to therest of the world.

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Dikembe Mutombo in 1999in Kinshasa at a wheelchairbasketball event to kick off the polio eradicationcampaign in the Congo.

Einstein was born in Germany on March 14,1879, to a Jewish family that owned a small shopthat manufactured electrical equipment. Whilemost children were talking by the age of two,Albert didn’t begin talking until he was three.And when he entered school, he did not do well.He disliked the structure and routine imposed on students in the German schools. He foundschoolwork dull and boring, and he showed littleinterest in classroom learning. Still, he was quickto grasp mathematics and taught himself difficultmath concepts even before entering secondaryschool.

After several business failures, Einstein’sfamily left Germany for Italy when Albert was 15 years old. He stayed behind in Germany butleft after failing an entrance exam to a technicalschool where he had hoped to study to becomean electrical engineer. He joined his family inItaly for a year and later completed his secondaryeducation in Switzerland. He went on to a Swisscollege and completed a program that certifiedhim to teach math and physics. However, he was unpopular with his professors, who refusedto recommend him for a teaching position.

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The late 1800s were a time of many negativeprejudices, feelings, and actions against Jewishpeople. These attitudes, called anti-Semitism,were especially strong in Germany. Like manypeople who emigrate to escape religiousoppression, Einstein left Germany because of the strong climate of anti-Semitism. In 1900, he became a citizen of Switzerland.

The European countries where Einstein lived are shown in white.

One of Einstein’s most famous theories wasabout how the rate of motion of an observeraffects the measurement of time. For example,imagine you are on a train traveling at 60 milesper hour. You toss a ball to your brother at aspeed of 15 miles per hour. To both of you, thespeed of the ball will be just that—15 miles perhour. But to your mom and dad, who are on the platform at the train station, the speed of theball’s movement is the speed of the toss (15 milesper hour) plus the speed of the train (60 miles per hour), for a total of 75 miles per hour.

In 1902, Einstein got a job in a Swiss patentoffice where he worked for seven years. He spent his free time studying physics andplaying the violin. In 1905, he earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Zürich. Duringthose years, he published many professionalpapers on physics. His unpopular ideas were notaccepted by his colleagues until experiments laterproved them correct. Because Einstein’s ideaswere ahead of his time, few people understoodthem, and few people understand them today.Yet he went on to become a famous physicist anddeveloped new thinking about how matter andenergy behave.

Einstein studied many things related tophysics. Before Einstein, ideas about atoms werebased mainly on speculation. Einstein usedmathematics to prove the existence of atoms. He also showed how the energy from light turnsinto electrical energy when it hits certain metals.For centuries before Einstein’s time, scientists had disagreed about the nature of light. His work allowed them to move forward in theirunderstanding of how these principles work.

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Illustration of how the ball’s speed is different depending onwhether the observer is inside or outside the train.

Hitler came to power. He disagreed with Hitler’ssocial and political beliefs and, once again, heemigrated. Einstein moved to the United States at the end of 1932 and taught at PrincetonUniversity. A month later, the Nazis came topower in Germany. Einstein knew he would be in danger if he returned to Germany because ofhis religious and political beliefs, so he neverwent back. He became a permanent resident ofthe United States in 1935 and a citizen in 1940.

Einstein’s theories about matter and energyhelped lead the way to the development of theatomic bomb. Along with several other scientists,he wrote a letter to U.S. President FranklinRoosevelt asking the government to support the development of the atomic bomb. WhileEinstein was a peace advocate, he was afraid that Germany, under Hitler, would develop anatomic bomb first. Although he did not work onthe bomb himself, the United States did developit. Dropping the bomb helped to bring WorldWar II to an end.

In addition to his great love of physics,Einstein was a passionate supporter of peace anddisarmament. During World War I, he was one ofthe few German scholars who spoke out againstGermany’s involvement in the war. After the war,

This idea led Einstein to many other ideasabout light, speed, and motion. These ideas aretoo numerous and too complicated for thisLeveled Reader (see Explore More on page 23),but his work revised earlier ideas about motionand time that had been around for centuries. Itintroduced, and proved, many ideas aboutmotion and time being relative—that is, that theyare not constant in all circumstances.

In addition to these ideas about relativity,Einstein is perhaps best known for his famousequation E = mc2. E is energy, m is mass (ormatter), c is the speed of light, and c2 means “c squared” or c multiplied times itself. Thisequation means that a tiny amount of matter can be converted into a huge amount of energy.This is the basis for how nuclear power works—a tiny amount of radioactive fuel such asuranium is converted into an enormous amountof heat energy.

These and other ideas brought Einstein famein the scientific world. In 1909, he began the firstof several teaching positions at universities inEurope. He was given many honors and awards,including the Nobel Prize in physics in 1922.Einstein eventually returned to Germany to workin a physics institute and stayed until Adolf

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he was criticized harshly for his pacifist(peaceful) values.

After World War II, Einstein promotedinternational disarmament. He strongly believedthat every nation should give up nuclearweapons. He also supported the right of theJewish people to have a homeland and spoke out in favor of the establishment of Israel as ahomeland for the Jewish people. While Einsteindid not enjoy his fame, he discovered that peoplewanted to hear what he had to say. So he mademany speeches and shared his beliefsoutspokenly.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton,New Jersey, at the age of 76. One of his legacieswas the demonstration, through his ownexample, that one needn’t be a genius in everyarea of life to make significant contributions. He did not speak until the age of three, failed a school entrance exam, did not excel in college,and was so absentminded that he had difficultyremembering his own address. Yet despite theseshortcomings, he made enormous contributionsto the understanding of how the physical worldworks. For those contributions, and for his visionof a peaceful world, he deserves the recognitionand respect he has earned.

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Albert Einstein was chosen “Person of the Century” by TimeMagazine at the end of 1999.

Glossaryadvocate a person who speaks or writes in support

of a particular cause (p. 20)

anti-Semitism prejudice or discrimination against Jews (p.16)

dictator a ruler with absolute power, especially one whorules tyrannically (see tyranny) (p. 4)

disarmament the reduction of armed forces and weapons (p. 20)

emigrate to leave a country to settle elsewhere (p. 16)

exiles people forced to leave their country of origin, either because conditions are horrible orbecause the government has sent them away (p. 5)

fluently speaking and writing a language easily, smoothly,and expressively (p. 10)

ghetto a section of a city where many members of a minority live, usually in poverty (p. 4)

humanitarian devoted to promoting the welfare of humanity,especially by eliminating pain and suffering (p. 11)

immunization inoculating or vaccinating against a disease (p. 12)

legacies anything handed down by someone upon theirdeath, such as money, property, or a message tohumanity (p. 24)

refuge a place of safety, comfort, or protection (p. 5)

religious the unjust treatment of a particular religiousoppression group (p. 16)

repertoire the collection of songs, roles, plays, or operasthat a group knows and can perform (p. 6)

speculation based on ideas and theories, but not proven (p. 17)

tyranny oppressive and unjust government; cruel andunjust use of power or authority (p. 8)

Explore MoreOn the Web

In the address window, type: www.google.com

Then type: Gloria Estefan. Click on “GoogleSearch.”

• Read the colored links. Click on one that looksinteresting.

• To explore other links, click the “back” arrowon the top left until you get back to the pagewith the links that Google found.

• Then try searching using other words fromthis Leveled Reader, such as: DikembeMutombo, Albert Einstein, disarmament, CARE,or Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Books about Albert Einstein

Goldenstern, Joyce. Albert Einstein: Physicist and Genius. Berkeley Heights, NJ: EnslowPublishers, Inc., 1995.

McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino. OrdinaryGenius: The Story of Albert Einstein.Minneapolis, Minn.: Carolrhoda Books, Inc.,1995.

Parker, Steve. Albert Einstein and Relativity.New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1994.

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