Democracy Camp in Berkeley

Christian Jared Aleman is a Bay Area native who grew up in San Francisco and the East Bay. With his various academic experiences, he is interested in the advancement of educational rights for historically marginalized students within California and beyond.

As a student, Christian has worked on projects within the Democracy Lab at the Latinx Research Center. His project focused on the democratic representation of Latin Americans in the United States. He recorded a period where undocumented families under Oakland Unified School District voiced their political...

Cristal Amezcua (she/her)

Cristal is a first-generation Latine student at UC Berkeley, majoring in Political Science. She was raised in the California Central Valley and attended College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California prior to transferring to Cal. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants from the states of Michoacan and Zacatecas. Her identity of being a Latina and an unconventional college student is what makes her passionate about advocating for educational equity and immigration reform policy.

In Summer 2024, Cristal had the...

As a first-generation student coming from a low-income background, it has always been a goal of mine to give back to the community that raised me and taught me the values that I hold dear today. Growing up as a child of Mexican and Honduran parents, my identity has shaped how I value and understand the world around me. I’ve come to understand the importance of honoring where I come from and preserving these stories and customs for future generations. Coming into Berkeley, I came with the intention of learning how to use my voice and education to uplift those who couldn’t have the same...

My name is Jasmine Bloomberg, a transfer student from Santa Rosa Junior College. Being raised in a low-income family as a first-generation college student, education was always understood as an obstacle in the road of my life, rather than a tool that I could utilize to my advantage to better understand the world and people around me. At my community college, I developed self agency and became interested in education and how we counsel students. I’m deeply passionate about student agency and voice, and am currently studying the contemporary issues and history surrounding students and...