Unpacking my knapsack: the privileges of a Hispanic male in tech
danilocampos.com
danilocampos.com
I had it rough, too. Grew up in a barrio. Where most of my childhood friends are either dead, in jail, or crackheads. Few ever managed to make it into college (I did not). I'm the only one who has actually made something out of himself. But not without a lot of hardships. Not long ago (less than 5 years ago) I was completely broke, no transportation, no job, nothing. But somehow I kept moving forward. Throwing punches whenever I could. Like you, I was lucky. My parents got me a computer ( a C64) early on. No one else in a radius of 5 sq. miles had a computer. It was the best thing to ever happen to me. It gave something for me to hold on to when all my friends were busy learning how to sell drugs. It kept me safe at home when drive-by-shootings started to happen. It also helped me not get a young lady pregnant (which was the norm).
Nowdays, I am an accomplished engineer, marketing consultant, and entrepreneur. I work remotely, with a great team, building a very tough system (that has me writing code like crazy in different languages). Also help great people build their businesses into powerhouses. Best of all, I get to build my own businesses, which I find extremely fun (to the point of even doing some as a hobby). Who knows what would have happened to me had I not discovered my love for code? I know that I would not be able to say how proud I am of reading about a fellow puertorican who has made it. Good luck, and let me know if you ever visit. I know a place who makes great frituras.
It's amazing. Education really is the silver bullet. And computers are the most revolutionary education tool ever devised. Way to climb out of a tough spot, my fellow boricua.
Not everyone can make of the tools the same house you have fashioned, which follows from people themselves being massively varied.
I suspect that many tools in your tool case would be used in a variety of manners for people who wanted to get out.
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Side note - I've heard "education is the silver bullet for our problems" and seen it applied with very disappointing results.
On one hand it has definitely given several people a path to move up in life. But its also been terrible for the rest of the populace.
It ended up creating legions of people who are literate but not 'educated'. A curious situation where people can say they know about rationality without having to be rational.
It produces legions of people who can perform mental athletics like rote memorization, or mental calculus and other tricks, but about poor understanding of the logic of the underlying principles they apply.
The number of people who grow up to be like the two of you is few and far between.
When I say education is the silver bullet, I guess I mean that a full suite of well-rounded knowledge, along with the tools and confidence to derive more knowledge, can cure most social ills.
But your point is well-taken. I think we can lay the blame for, say, young-earth creationism at the feet of a widespread state of literacy without education.
You know enough to read a book, but not enough to know why you shouldn't take its contents at face value.
> You know enough to read a book, but not enough to know why you shouldn't take its contents at face value.
Exactly my position - you can be literate (able to read, write and master a subject enough to be employed) but either are unwilling or unable to understand the implications/meaning of what you have read.
Educated people, the way I've seen it, can apply and use what they know to make the world as a whole better, or at the very least not encourage or allow assaults on the societal contract.
I think for a while, people assumed that there was a strong correlation between education and being able to think for yourself. Especially after seeing people like yourselves who used education as a way to actually be people who have a moral compass and excel in society.
What people didn't want is the legions of excellent workers who can value a firm from its financials in their heads, but turn around and promote intolerance, racism and corruption.
Perhaps its got a lot more to do with the role models you saw. As you said you had someone who became a thief, but from the way you write, it seems that path just didn't make sense to you.
Computers are an amazing tool. That is why I'm always helping people learn to use and program them. I wish all programmers would do the same. It makes a huge difference.
Oh, and I'm not done climbing. :)
Thank you.
PS. Lets keep in touch. Email in profile.
As much as it saddens me, I haven't met anyone who has left and hasn't found a better/safer opportunity here. We're lucky we don't need to worry about citizenship...
Mano y si necesitas ayuda me avisas, yo soy Cagueño también! 3 in one hn thread! Ship me some alcapurrias ;)
But I feel your article gets derailed with too many anecdotal stories. Some rub me the wrong way, but maybe I'm just reading it wrong...
I was also born in Puerto Rico and grew up in Caguas (Bairoa). But that wasn't a bad thing...
I have a horrible accent (which seems will never disappear) and would probably not pass the Texas State Trooper test. But that has not impacted my career...
My family was religious, but the first person I met who believed the world was only a few thousand years old was in Florida. I find it irritating that you would insinuate Puerto Ricans don't believe in Science...
I don't think being or not being Hispanic has anything to do with it. There are plenty of people, minorities or not, stuck in crappy areas. With good parenting, they can at least ensure their kids have a chance at hard work. It's what helped you, and what helped me. I was also the first person in my family with a six figure salary.
We should chat though, boricuas in tech has to be a very small group ;).
Same boat, Boricua in tech, same traits. Read the article the right way, and liked the anecdotes. Take care.
I owe my entire life-path of technology to my grandfather on my fathers side. He was an electrical engineer, far ahead of his time, and when he was done playing with something he sent it to us. I was privileged to receive a TI-99 at age 5, a C64 at age 6, and an 8088 after that. I was hooked from the start, and computers have been the single most important constant in my life ever since.
https://plus.google.com/106356964679457436995/posts/dcPPziC1...
Simply being an American, even if from a non-state, was your biggest advantage and privilege.
I was an illegal immigrant living in Texas until I turned 19 or so, when Nicaraguans were granted amnesty. Since then, my quality of life has only gone up and up.
I continuously hear statements like "it's partly luck", or "luck is obviously a component of it", or "luck is clearly a factor", or "luck plays a role" [1] - all attempting to downplay the enormous magnitude random chance has on our daily lives. Hell, they might even put numbers on it like "it's probably 50% luck", or "90% luck". Nobody seems willing to go all they way to and just come out and say "Yeah - I got really lucky and that's about all there is to the story".
The just world fallacy is a very, very strong illusion.
Life's a crapshoot. It's all luck.
Your values/behaviours are given to you via both your genes and your environment - which are effectively random. If your parents were prone to addictive behaviour in an environment that provides addictive substances - you will probably do the same.
This reminds me of thing I've always found highly curious about how the religious think.
They can't seem to understand that their choice in religion is relatively arbitrary and geographically dependent. Born in America you're Christian. Born in Pakistan now you're Muslim. Born in India now you're Hindu. Born in Israel now you're Jewish.
The fact that people can't seem to understand that the reason they believe in X god instead of Y is merely a question of a few hundred miles.
Life is particularly arbitrary. For example: I'm an atheist because of my environment (middle-class male, western country, studies science and technology, with access to freedom of speech). This is irrelevant as to whether atheism is actually the right option (which I believe it is - but then of course I would :) - the key fact to understand here is how the environment determined it.
Finally, physics eliminates the case for free will. So yes - you do what you do because you were set up to do it.
We're all just biological machines.
Okay, let me rephrase the question. Do you believe that a biological machine's algorithm (i.e. values and behavior) has any bearing on outcome?
No - we blame the programmer/hardware manufacturer for screwing things up - which in the case of humans is the environment and genes.
Is a car actually a car, or is it just a collection of atoms? It's both. Does the car actually drive, or is it just physics? It's both - "driving" is a subset of physics that acts on a collection of atoms known as a "car".
When people say "luck", they are usually referring to external circumstances not under the influence of the biological machine's algorithm. To say that luck is the only factor, or never a factor, is wrong. Given similar inputs, some algorithms will excel and some will fail.
You certainly can "blame" an algorithm for certain outcomes. How the algorithm formed is a red-herring.
Your DNA, aka the algorithm that is who you are, is given to you by the external environment - you have no control over it, and neither do you have any control over your upbringing - rich/poor/race/sex.
Your argument is, well, void.
First, how does physics eliminate the possibility of free will?
Second, why are you even bothering to tell us this?
How do you personally justify taking any action in life, as the pointlessness of it all clearly hasn't escaped you. Yet, from my naive perspective, I see someone determined to have their self-perceived intellectual superiority and ability to transcend it all recognized. I don't understand why, though.
Go do some physics - then come back to me.
> why are you even bothering to tell us this?
I don't know. There really isn't any point to it. I'm not here to convince you.
> taking any action in life
I'm programmed to take actions - 4 billion years of evolution tends to do that.
> self-perceived intellectual superiority and ability to transcend it all recognized.
Never said I was smarter than anyone. Just said that people were wrong. There is a difference.
Thinking of yourself as probability function interconnected with the whole universe all the time must be pretty inconvenient for you. Why not simplify it to "this factors are ME, and the rest it external Universe, and the interactions can be rounded to work mostly like Newton said. Bonus - your algorithm now knows almost exactly which parts of that function are under his direct control. It's very useful model, why not use it?
We're not sure our current best model is The Truth anyway. And notion of free will is another useful simplification. You already think in its terms (English is impossible to use otherways).
I've actually thought about this a long time ago -- back in high school, and came to the conclusion that if everything were to follow a certain set of "laws", then indeed free will wouldn't exist.
But that isn't the case. Have you heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle for starters? If not, look more deeply into physics. After a certain point, the "laws" stop governing, and probability takes over. Probability leaves room for multiple possiblities -- a.k.a. choice. I can't say an electron chooses to be at position X at time T, but I can say that the fact that you can't determine it's positions and that it does tend to be "wherever it wants" within a certain range, hints at something of the kind. For more lookup the "Free Will Theorem": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem
A = physics
B = individual values and behavior (aka "algorithm")
C = outcome
[0] Like author of Fooled by Randomness, an interesting book on the subject.
"You know what I always find so hilarious. How people always seem to qualify luck - even when they show us how lucky they have actually been. ..."
What's so funny about it? Their fallacies are predetermined anyway. (Tangent: how can you call it luck, coming from this perspective?)
So it seems to me a particularly useless line of thought. I'm not saying you can't indulge in it for kicks, but doesn't provide any useful input to behavior.
Well then - I guess you'd really hate physics then, a field that reduces everything you see around you to a series of equations with a tad of randomness thrown in for good measure.
Now then - if you don't believe humans obey the law of physics - well then - that's your problem.
I'm not a Christian, but I can easily see how someone could be a Christian while not accepting the fundamentalist outlook (i.e. that the world is only 6,000 years old, we're not descended from other species, etc.). Those "other" Christians believe in God, but don't accept the literal interpretation of the Old Testament.
To argue that all Christians are fundamentalists would be like arguing the all Muslims want to fly airplanes into buildings. As a viewpoint, it lacks evidence.
Even Einstein held something resembling a religious outlook -- but his supreme being couldn't be bothered to deal with us lowly insects:
“I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
Also, remember that, until the end of the 19th century, there was no plausible way for the sun to have been in existence for more than a few million years (in that pre-relativistic era, the sun's energy was thought to arise only from gravitational contraction), which wasn't enough time to support Darwin's timetable. So at that time, even scientists couldn't explain how complex species arose.
> We're just machines fueled by chemistry.
That's my outlook also, but I can see how religious people might possess different views on the literalness of scripture.
To put it another way, it's like trying to fix a watch with a shotgun. And as long as you would like to keep the watch, I'd say save the shotgun for other uses.
Pure determinism is fun to play with, and you can believe that it is the ultimate answer, but it has no real use here and now.
This is separate to my main point, but I like this quote from E. F. Schumacher: "Relativism and positivism, of course, are purely metaphysical doctrines with the peculiar and ironical distinction that they deny the validity of all metaphysics. including themselves."
You took down a straw man.
"Finally, physics eliminates the case for free will. So yes - you do what you do because you were set up to do it."
Also, for the purposes of my argument randomness doesn't really matter, anyway. It's whether you exclude free will or not.
This is an information free sentence. Everything that makes me _me_ comes from my genes and my environment. If it were much different, I wouldn't be me. If you are attributing everything I do to an external force even though it goes through the intermediate step of my identity and skills in the process, then you just have a tautological statement. Sure, things happen because things happen. Bravo, but I'm also one of those things.
To dictate policies that advocate punishing and killing people for what they had no control over (like being born in a muslim-majority country) is folly, or worse - a justification for bad behavior.
Ever realized that physics (as a science) is incomplete?
Some info.
http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1210/in-which-...
Meditate on what a philosophy like this, universally held, would do to morality.
Personally, I think it would improve it.
I also was an immigrant to the US, and it sounds like we have a similar immigration story. I wonder what it would be like to be born in a low-income community in the US where social mobility is difficult. Do you think you would be where you are now if you grew up in that kind of environment?
I fit that description.
In short, my personal, anecdotal experience says immigrants often place a greater value on education, recognize more viable options for success, are more supportive of each other and have less fear of stepping out of their comfort zone.
I saw no shortage of people hamstrung by each of those things growing up, particularly the de-valuing of education.
When I worked in East Palo Alto, which is a low-income community in the heart of Silicon Valley, I sometimes felt like it was like living and working in a bucket full of lobsters. Instead of being helped up out of the bucket, we'd get clawed down.
But slowly and surely, the work of community leaders, nonprofits and community organizers are changing this landscape and building up a new generation of kids who think differently.
Yes.. we can get at ER and school. but no stamps, disability or unemployment checks.
So we have to help each other and never rely on gov...
I know that non-judgment is the default modern moral stance. But there ought to be a way that we can advertise and support the values of self-reliance and respect for others without sounding accusative. Yes, luck plays a part in success, but why are we so focused on that part and not the easily repeatable values that will help out most poor people who adopt them?
And not everyone gets that tutelage. The values may be universal, but the opportunity to learn them is less so.
But I think we can agree that while I harmed Adobe not at all through my transgression (they have been more than paid back in licenses bought since), that store lost real money.
However, that just means that in this case where the alternative was no use Adobe wasn't hurt by pirating. However, in another situation when the alternative to pirating is the sale of software, the loss isn't any less real than the loss to the candy store of not selling candy because it was stolen.
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On another topic, do you believe that there would be significantly more opportunity in Puerto Rico with statehood?
I'm honestly not qualified to give an answer re: statehood. I'm so removed from the politics of Puerto Rico, I don't even know what levers matter there. My hunch is that the issues run deeper, though.
A role? A part? Are you serious?
> adopting these values will make the world a better place and reduce the burden on public services
That's such bullshit. "If only poor people would just work harder and save more - everything would be awesome". Reality check: poor people work long, hard hours for minimum wage with no hope of escape.
> luck plays a part in success
Delusion - it is strong with this one.
My goal with my comments is not to convince you. Neither is it to teach you. Rather it's to help me think about my own opinions by writing them down.
I'm not here to convince or teach anyone. I'm here to write.
I didn't see a bit of accusation in the original post. Maybe you're hearing that because you brought it in with you?
Thank you for your comment – I'm glad you appreciated it, and that you mentioned the hostility a lot of this conversation can breed.
Part of the problem, I think, is that it feels like an accusation to tell someone about their privileges. No one likes to be confronted, no one likes to feel like their hard work is being short-changed.
So I decided to try and turn the conversation around. Maybe it'll be better received.
I'm irked that you've set yourself up to call this proof of privilege to discredit any disagreement. If you want there to be more discussion of the role that luck plays in our lives, you should not do that.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people
Believe me. These advantages were not universally available. I got lucky.
An advantage is like having a secret television in North Korea or living near the northern Chinese border. The rules for escape and censure apply exactly the same as they do to others, but the situation one randomly finds oneself in makes beating the game easier. That's your situation.
I think one could argue that your example is a privilege.
You may not be intending to come across this way, but as one white guy to another, a common way people avoid recognizing these sorts of privileges and avoid discussing social inequity is to quibble about little details. Like, say, the definition of a word.
And yes, I'm aware of the meme that I'm taking issue with something said about social justice so I'm privileged (so to speak) or racist, and I think it is a disgusting lie to propagate. I wish you would please stop trying to do that to people. Ironically, I have many straightforward and interesting conversations about this with the people who we want to obtain these advantages. As more economically disadvantaged move to the United States, I'm looking forward to having a larger supply of honest conversation partners.
The fact that some people have an opportunity that others don't and that the distribution of those opportunities is unequal is definitely unjust. Is there some particular privilege Danilo has listed that you are thinking of?
Your last paragraph is not entirely coherent, so I'm not sure what you think the lie is. I have personally avoided paying attention to my privilege by quibbling about minor details. And I've seen others do it quite often. I'm not accusing you of doing that; I couldn't know. But I am saying that having your only contribution to this discussion be of that form makes it harder to take your point seriously.
And that goes double for your strong emotional reaction in the post above. E.g., accusing me of propagating disgusting lies and doing things to people. That's a lot of drama, and raising the drama level is a common derailing tactic.
Privilege is latin for private law. It's a special set of rules that can only be offered to a minority like guaranteeing admission spots to top universities to legacies.
Privilege does not describe things that could be offered to everyone but are not out of sheer nastiness. If the state U prohibits blue eyed people from enrolling, that isn't a privilege for everyone else. It's just nasty prejudice against blue-eyes. Nobody is getting special private-law treatment; a minority is just getting shafted.
Advantage could be any number of things, including privilege, but could just be parents that care more about you. Everyone could have that; nobody threatened your parents to make them less caring. Not everybody does have it, though, so it's an advantage.
I appreciate this post though. It's from a perspective I don't hear too often, and I've been slow to contribute my own. So, thanks.
Wow, I forgot about that part. I've done that thought experiment a couple times myself, how it would affect things if I looked markedly different. It's always a little scary, honestly.
Like Danilo said, there is no replacement for having lived and grown up in the United States. I'm a native English speaker, but Portuguese was my first language. I'm fully fluent in Portuguese, but I wish I spoke at native fluency. However I would not trade my native English fluency for native Portuguese fluency. English is simply way too valuable.
Can you expand on that?
I look very Hispanic, and have a marked accent. What have I been missing in life?
So I stand upon the shoulders of giants. Holding a
winning lottery ticket.
Take away the stability, college-educated parent, examples of success, spare time and replace Caguas with Washington D.C. and we've had a similar experiences.
I've been known to expound to anyone who will listen about the amazing opportunity that I believe a career in tech presents for "climbing out".
I could certainly be wrong, but given my circumstances it's hard to imagine coming as far as I have doing anything else.
I started spending all my free time reading about computers (I didn't own one) at the public library, later extending that to used books and eventually saving up to buy a used IBM XT.
I managed to teach myself enough to impress the office folks at my landscaping job, gained some part time experience there, landed an internship and had my first "real" IT job by late '97.
That's fantastic – you make me feel like I was doing my run on easy mode. A great argument in favor of funding for public libraries, or their 21st-century equivalent.
Way to get it done.
Yeah, I think about this often.
The public library was a huge part of my life from as early as I can remember - my window to the world.
That hasn't changed for a lot of people, but the method of delivery is different. The library is now a place to access the Internet. It puts things in perspective to see people line up at the library for a time-limited shot at the kind of access to information I've grown to take for granted.
This leads to be a strong supporter of efforts to spread cheap/free Internet access.
Perhaps you are underestimating the impact that hard work has had on your life and over-estimating the impact of "privileges" you list. Certainly, you were born into such favorable circumstances (although your parents/family seemed to have been very intentional in creating that for you) but you wouldn't be successful in tech without the hard work part. I wonder what motivates you to emphasize the former and not the latter?
Clearly not – they are advantages that are atypical to my race and starting class, but entirely typical to a great many of the people I've encountered in my work. That's what was interesting to me about the exploration.
> but you wouldn't be successful in tech without the hard work part.
I completely agree. I'll put it to you like this: I may have run in the race, and that was all my effort, but someone needed to first put me on plane for me to even compete.
Sure, but they worked hard to be able to put on that plane. That you recognized the opportunity and took it is a tribute to you and them. It sounds like you're the product of a lot of hard work (and maybe a little luck). Why minimize that by calling it privilege? It does a disservice to you and those who've helped you.
It is privilege because not everyone got parents who gave a damn.
Not everyone got parents who would bother to teach them things or buy them a computer. Some people just aren't getting those things in their lives. And as long as that's true, these things are privileges.
So I am grateful. But I know that you can't universally pick up any given person with my background, tell them to work hard, and have that be enough.
I try to bring up the concept of privilege once in a while, but I find it really hard to get people to think about it. On one hand, it can come off as an attack on your sense of self. And I think it is a blow to certain aspects of your ego. But the intellectual gratification of understanding yourself and how things come to be should make it worth the reconceptualization, even if it didn't tend to make you appreciate your own life as well as the people you spend it with more.
Here's a thought experiment - when you try to bring it up, replace the word "privilege" with "blessing" or "luck". Does the concept lose any of its meaning? How do people's reactions change?
If you then go on to tell all kinds of people that you got where you are by working hard and everyone else just has to work hard and they'll get there too, you're minimizing their challenges. They have to work harder to maintain a realistic, positive attitude with respect to the hurdles in front of them, which makes their life harder. Meanwhile, your life is not affected at all by the conversation, you go back to work and are productive. That's wielding your privilege, and that's a dick move, and people have every right to check you for that.
As for the difference between privilege and luck or blessings... Privilege is a kind of continuous luck.... one's maleness pays off throughout their entire life. Finding a dollar on the street is only instantaneous luck. And privilege only applies to things that are substantial advantages in the sort of common denominator pursuits of the median individual. Your maleness helps you earn more money which is something pretty much everyone needs to do. If you have small wrists and can easily clean out the inside of glass jars, that's not really privilege.
As for why you hate the word, perhaps you hate it because you think being sexist and racist means you're evil, therefore having privilege makes you evil. But everyone is sexist sometimes and everyone is racist sometimes. It's harmful, but it doesn't mean you're evil. It's just the way people work. That said, recognizing your racism and sexism and seeking out ways to be less so is an opportunity to be good.
As for people making you feel guilty... No one has a right to make you feel guilty. If they're trying to make you feel bad, they're just being an asshole. That said, they could be simultaneously being an asshole AND checking you on something where you're being an asshole at the same time. If so, I would just forgive them (to yourself) for trying to make you feel bad, and thank them (to their face) for helping you understand better the ways in which you're harming people. Learn something and don't let the petty stuff get in your way.
As a straight white guy, I have a hard time saying "Gosh, I'm so lucky to be white." But it has absolutely been an advantage for me.
I don't know that I feel guilty for that, exactly. But I do feel an obligation to use my power responsibly. And if I fail to do that, then I hope I have friends kind and smart enough to call me on it. And that is when I'd feel guilty.
Your argument only makes sense in a bubble where institutional sexism, classism, racism, and xenophobia doesn't exist.
Hard work alone should be enough - but that is an ideal, not the reality.
I am brazilian, born and raised in Brazil, but had the privilege of coming here twice (Disney) when I was a teenager. This was when I decided to eventually move to US at my first opportunity (20 years old).
It was for sure, the best decision of my life since the opportunities and lifestyle that I have here in US are simply just short of impossible back in Brazil. 7 Years in US gave me the opportunity to really grow professionally and personally.
I think my story is the similar to Danilo's…. Great parents, great support and education when growing up but ultimately, after age 17, "you are by yourself", which also includes paying for you college education if you want one.
For enabling me to get amazing education with scholarships and free content made available by US Colleges and Universities, also to accepting me as one of your own, THANK YOU AMERICA !
You'll probably like this essay¹, which made it big on HN² a few weeks ago.
¹: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/07/23/a-self-made-man-looks-...
Geez Louise. I sure hope you will use all your advantages in life for better purposes than acquiring a fancy mansion. There are so many difficult, but worthwhile problems out there.
See? I am also right, in a vague, generic sense. But it's the sort of advice that doesn't contribute anything to your life, and only makes me feel slightly superior.
But I do take your point. And I am pleased to make your acquaintance, I enjoy your comments.
I can't deny I did well in birth lottery, and due to similar circumstances I wound up a programmer with an amazing job and even more amazing opportunities. That's not the point of this post however.
I am currently on holidays in Europe and am spending a month in Ukraine. I can't even begin to describe how the people I've met and the conversions I've had with them have changed me. To sum it up briefly, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Kiev looks like a modern European capital, and there is obviously money around judging by the number of luxury SUVs on the road. Yet $400/month is considered a good wage, unless one has the appropriate connections. In short, European costs of living coupled with developing world wages.
The post's ending about somehow giving back is what resonated most to me. When I was a student I was fortunate enough to have free time and the money to explore my outside interests; fast forward 4 years and I have taught myself Japanese to fluency and have lived in the country on 3 separate occasions. I've met a student here that who I see a lot of my self in, she gets top grades and has an inexplicable interest in Japan. It is her dream to work there and she studies the language in her spare time. The only difference is that she works a full time job to pay for her studies (unrelated to Japanese) which are also full time. The reality is that she doesn't have the free time I did to learn Japanese, let alone the funds to visit independently. It kills me inside knowing that two weeks of my salary would give her a year of free time and the same opportunity I had to pursue my interest in Japan.
There are a lot of posts below about how education could be a silver bullet. I know what has affected my life most, however, was the ability to pursue my own interests.
Competencies in any area will open doors, maybe not doors as wide as those available to programmers, but doors to better places none the less. In her case Japanese language competency would make her eligible for the MEXT scholarships paid for by the Japanese government.
Honestly, I have debated offering to loan her a year's salary to be paid back if and when it is ever convenient for her. My conclusion is that the same could also be used to sponsor a child through to high school, and something else tells me its just not the right thing to do. Yet I arrive at the same internal conflict that you do, how to give back after winning the lottery.
For the record there are no romantic interests at stake here.