To find Bryant Scarlett s path to the high school graduation stage, one has to start looking in Jamaica.
There, Scarlett was unmotivated. Lacking direction and living with his mother who jumped from one employment opportunity to the next, school never was interesting enough to hold his attention.
He d rather be writing, he said.
Because of a family tragedy, he, his mother and sister found themselves in the United States. On a bus ride from Florida to Texas, the world shifted. I was thinking about what I was going to do with my life, Scarlett, 21, said. We ve come to America and I have this opportunity and I m going to be a bum? I ve gotta buckle down. And from there, I just went off.