My dad is a defense attorney. He is one of a handful of attorneys in Fort Worth that speaks fluent Spanish. He has a degree in law from Baylor University and a bachelor's in political science from TCU as well as a minor in Spanish from the same school. He has been practicing since the 80s and is perhaps the most successful of his brothers.
My dad grew up in Fort Worth in the late 50s through the early 60s. He was the oldest of his 3 brothers, and his family was a fairly lower class, country family. My grandpa made a meager living for the family, and they had to raise animals to make a bit of extra money. Their house was small, and he shared his room with his brothers. There was no air conditioning, and it was often just not the most comfortable place to live. As the war in Vietnam came around, he was playing football for his high school where he tore a rotator cuff and also injured a knee, a miracle for him because he turned 18 in the last year of the war. When he was graduated from high school, he got a deal with the nearby Texas Christian University to be an off-campus student, and he had to get a job to help his parents pay for it, but he graduated in 4 years with his degrees in political science and Spanish. From there, he applied at a few law schools in Texas and was narrowly able to go to Baylor University in Waco, Texas with the help of a kind woman in their admission department who was sympathetic towards his humble beginnings. He got his law degree and moved back to Fort Worth to start practicing law. He used his Spanish skills to represent those clients who didn't speak English, and he slowly but surely gained experience as a lawyer, making a vert decent income. He met my mother in the 80s while she was working as a prosecutor in the DA's office, and they got married and moved in together. He further honed his Spanish skills with more lessons as well as by visiting Spanish-speaking countries such as Costa Rica, and through this coupled with his career, he became fluent in Spanish. By this point, he had come far from his humble, country-boy beginnings, and was driving Jaguars, collecting wine and was apart of the Fort Worth club. He also continued his hobby of singing he picked up as a kid in the Texas Boys' Choir, and sang in the Fort Worth Opera Chorus as well as a couple of other choral groups as a hobby. He and my mother had my older brother and I both in the 90s, and he bought his dream home with two storeys, 4 bedrooms, multiple acres of property and even air conditioning. He is an amazing, inspirational man who could be considered an American success-story, building his way from a very humble beginning to a very comfortable, upper-middle class lifestyle all through hard work and dedication. I'm very thankful for my dad for giving my brother and I such a comfortable, wonderful life.
Sorry for any typos. I also left a lot of stuff purposely ambiguous for privacy reasons.