Congratulations to our 2022 Scholarship Winners!
We’re proud to announce the three 2022 recipients of the Sylvia Bracamonte Memorial Scholarship. Thank you to Sylvia’s mother, family, and friends for reading the applications and selecting the winners.
Congratulations to Tonatiuh, Rosa, and Luz!
Happy Birthday, Sylvia!
Tonatiuh Beltran is a first-generation, Indigenous, Queer, system impacted, transfer, Hope Scholar graduating with a BA in Sociology. In her role as transfer coordinator with Berkeley Underground Scholars, she supports formerly incarcerated and system impacted students from the community college level to reach their academic goals of transferring to a UC. As a Haas Scholar alumnus, she has pursued her independent research by looking at the resources and policies to best support children of incarcerated parents. She was recently accepted into the McNair Scholars Program where she will be building on this research by looking at the barriers to said policies/resources. Tonatiuh is dedicated to uplifting and supporting her community through advocacy and service. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue her Master in Social Work.
Luz Hernandez was born in Honduras and came to the U.S as an undocumented immigrant at age fourteen. Now, she is a student at UC Berkeley Social Welfare Master’s Program. One of Luz's goals is to support young people in the community, those who come from financially and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. She has a strong desire to help people of color, especially undocumented young people. She wants to show our disadvantaged communities that there are people out there that care about their physical, social, and emotional well-being. Luz believes each of us is unique; that we all have our stories and purposes in this world. She genuinely believes that our trauma and experience don't define us. Her goal is to build a community full of powerful and determined youth. During her free time, Luz enjoys going for hikes, spending time with friends and families, watching Netflix, and walking with her five months puppy.
Rosa Corona Silva is a Mexican Immigrant, single mother, and first-generation graduate student, who originated from a family of farmworkers in the Salinas Valley. Rosa obtained her Bachelor's Degree at UC Berkeley where she saw an additional need for support for disenfranchised and non-traditional students. Rosa became involved in the UC Berkeley Student Parent Center where she became a lead intern. She collaborated with student parents from Hope Scholars, Underground Scholars, and Brown Issues to create Unapologetic Madres: Demystifying Higher Education, a presentation designed to share lived experiences, and resources, and cultivate academic social capital. Rosa and her team were able to present at the Brown Issues Youth Conference and several community colleges. Shortly after graduation, she joined a small group of student parents to create a non-profit organization called Nurturing Academia by Navigating Tools which Initiate Literacy (N.A.N.TI.L), with the objective of catering to the advancement of at-risk youth and student parents in achieving their academic goals. This project was inspired by the work she did at the student-parent center as a lead intern for their outreach team. As a Parent Consultant for N.A.N.TI.L, Rosa understands the importance of evidence-based research to assist others in the pursuit of their own economic upward mobility through higher education. During her first year at her graduate program placement, she interned at Oakland Unified School District as a clinical social worker and has been accepted to intern for Child Protective Services in Contra Costa County. Rosa is committed to gaining skills and knowledge through her graduate career specializing in Strengthening Children, Youth, and Families and pursuing her Pupil Personnel Services Credential (PPSC) to have the opportunity to practice social work with children in school settings. Rosa’s ultimate career goal is working toward establishing N.A.N.T.I.L with the objective of further bridging the gap between community college to four-year institutions for at-risk youth and student parents. Rosa sees academia not only as a pathway toward a better life for her and her family but also as a tool to dismantle oppressive systems that she worked hard to overcome at UC Berkeley.
