When Soledad M. O’Brien ’88-’00 was lobbying for the vote of Cabot House sophomore Charles “Bradley” Raymond ’89, she did not know that she was speaking to her future husband.

O’Brien, a Cabot House resident herself, was campaigning room-to-room in preparation for that year’s House Committee elections.

Neither Raymond nor any of his roommates ended up voting, but Raymond was struck by how personable “Soly” was.

O’Brien’s winning personality helped her clinch the HoCo seat, where she would organize House events and Housing Day festivities.

But after college, O’Brien would emerge from her role as a behind-the-scenes organizer to become one of America’s most recognizable broadcast journalists.

Perhaps most famous as the former co-anchor of the CNN show “American Morning,” O’Brien has earned accolades for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina and her critical portrayal of race relations in the “Black in America” and “Latino in America” documentary series.

Friends and family say that O’Brien’s success in the media industry can be attributed to her upbringing in a first-generation immigrant family and to her exposure to a diverse array of opportunities in college.

A FIRST-GENERATION UPBRINGING

When O’Brien left her suburban Long Island home and entered Harvard as a freshman in the fall of 1984, she was following in the footsteps of her older siblings Maria O. Hylton ’82, Anthony N. O’Brien ’84, and Estela V. Ogiste ’85, all of whom graduated from the College before her.

Despite its numerous Harvard connections, O’Brien said she considers her family to be just like everyone else’s.

“When I think of a Harvard family, I think of a family who made enough money to build a library after them. We’re not that family,” said O’Brien.

“My parents were regular, middle-class folks who really valued education and encouraged their children to do well in school.”

O’Brien’s father, a mechanical engineering professor of Irish descent, and her mother, an Afro-Cuban French and English teacher, faced challenges as an interracial couple in the late 1950s.

According to Kim Bondy, O’Brien’s longtime executive producer and god-mother to O’Brien’s four children, O’Brien’s work ethic is a direct result of her upbringing.

“She’s a child of immigrants. Her parents are both super accomplished and smart people who have a very immigrant thought pattern about putting your head down and doing the hard work,” Bondy said.