Early Life and Education
Maldonado was born in Pelham, New Hampshire, to Jose and Rena Maldonado. He has an older brother Scott and sister Tamara, and younger brother Josh. In 1995 as a freshman in high school, he was the only one to wear dreadlocks; friends said he liked attention in the suburban town. While remembered by teachers as bright and outspoken, he dropped out of high school before his junior year. Maldonado lived in other places in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, including Methuen. The Boston Globe reported that, as a youth, Maldonado had minor brushes with the law, but nothing serious.
In Methuen, Maldonado started attending the Selimiye Mosque, where he asked to learn about Islam and converted in 2000. He took an Arab surname, calling himself Daniel Aljughaifi. Another member, Matthew Yusuf Trombly, who also converted to Islam from Christianity, said of Maldonado after his arrest on terrorism charges that he "fell victim to 'the zeal of the convert'." Members of the mosque feared Maldonado's actions would cause people to think ill of Islam.
According to the Boston Globe, Maldonado's views became so extreme that the imam of the mosque asked the young man either to stop criticizing the other members, or to leave. His friend Soner Uguz of Lawrence, Massachusetts, said:
- "He was arrogant; he knew the book better than anyone, He went from loving rap to hating poetry."
Read more about this topic: Daniel Maldonado
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or education:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers’ wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed toward that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)