Alexis Aguilar

My name is Alexis Aguilar, I am a fourth year student studying Conservation and Resource studies. At the age of seven years old, my mother and I fled our hometown in Michoacán, Mexico, escaping a life flustered by organized crime and violence. Throughout the course of my life, I’ve used these experiences to frame the mantra I live by; no matter what happens, never let it affect your education. As I navigate my undergraduate career at UC Berkeley, I proceed to valorize this notion while I forge my own path through an educational system whose upfront facade continues to isolate and exclude BIPOC minorities. My leadership skills in relation to my political passions have continued to be nourished. My involvement with the Associated Students of the University of California, has served as a platform that has allowed myself to address important issues pertaining to the immigrant community at Cal. As a first-generation, queer Latinx student, its often difficult finding a support system at this institution. However, in moments of despair I fall back on my community, who never fails to remind me of the power bestowed in the core of my resilience. As I dissect my experiences growing up in Stockton in retrospect, I come to comprehend the way in which my positionality as a child of immigrants in the Central Valley has proceeded to trailblaze my passions addressing the environmental inequities immigrant farm workers face.