(pronouns: she/her/hers)
 

I stand for courage, compassion, dignity, well-being, and joy for myself and all others. I am a proud daughter of immigrants, with Mexican, Guatemalan, and Chinese heritage. I am a first-generation college student with an undergraduate bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC-Santa Cruz and am certified in teaching positive discipline in home, school, and early childhood education settings. I fervently believe in the power and potential of community building and strengthening families. My personal, professional, and volunteer experience has granted me the wisdom to harness my curiosity and integrity to better serve my community.

I serve our community of children, youth, and families as executive director of Positive Discipline Community Resources (PDCR). PDCR is a local trauma-informed social justice nonprofit serving youth and adults through workshops, support groups, and classes in the Central Coast of California, across diverse sectors of our community. Our work shifts paradigms from transactional to relational, systems from punitive to supportive and restorative, and homes from fragmented to deeply connected and mutually respectful. Through my leadership during a global pandemic, I have reinvigorated our program model through community-centered collaborations in order to provide parents with free-to-participant bilingual education. Working adamantly to remove barriers of access, we have seen a 200% increase in Latinx participation and increased revenues and fundraising streams, ensuring program sustainability and longevity.

I do this work for the children and adults who are tasked with breaking generations of cycles of trauma, violence, neglect, and disconnect. I do this work for my parents who did the best they could with the skills and tools they had as I now raise their grandchildren and lift up my community in the process. This sacred work begins at home with my husband, our seven-year-old son, and our newborn daughter, and it extends across my research, activism, volunteer, and community organizing work.