“My par­ents did­n’t have a lot of mon­ey grow­ing up, and even now we are still poor—technically, we live below the fed­er­al pover­ty line. That real­ly moti­vat­ed me to want to go to col­lege, so I can help give my fam­i­ly a bet­ter life—a sta­ble life—instead of wor­ry­ing every day and ask­ing, ‘Do we have enough to eat? Can we keep liv­ing in this place?’ ” said Mireya Valentin, a Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund (NRCF) schol­ar­ship recip­i­ent.  In her third year at East Los Ange­les Col­lege (ELAC), she is a first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege stu­dent whose roots run deep in down­town Los Ange­les. Born and raised in the heart of LA to Mex­i­can immi­grant par­ents who arrived 30 years ago, she car­ries the hopes and dreams of her fam­i­ly.

Choosing Community College: A Strategic Decision

Despite being accept­ed to many schools with­in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia and Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty sys­tems, Mireya made the prac­ti­cal deci­sion to attend com­mu­ni­ty col­lege. “Even with all the finan­cial aid I was giv­en, I could­n’t afford to pay for every­thing. So I decid­ed to go to ELAC,” she explains. “This will help me save mon­ey, get more expe­ri­ence, and get my gen­er­al edu­ca­tion require­ments out of the way. Hope­ful­ly I can do my trans­fer appli­ca­tions this year, but due to a cou­ple of class­es, I might have to wait until the end of the year.”

Her approach is mea­sured and thought­ful. “Slow and steady—that’s the way. A lot of stu­dents want to get out of com­mu­ni­ty col­lege, but I’m not in a rush because my old­er broth­er is help­ing to sup­port our fam­i­ly. That’s buy­ing me enough time to fin­ish a four-year uni­ver­si­ty degree.”

Family Sacrifice and Support

Mireya’s old­er broth­er made a sac­ri­fice for his fam­i­ly. “He was­n’t able to go to a university—he had the same prob­lem of not hav­ing enough mon­ey. We were real­ly strug­gling because of the pan­dem­ic in 2020, and he dropped out. Now he’s work­ing at a retail store, sup­port­ing our fam­i­ly that way. I am the first per­son in our fam­i­ly to be in col­lege for this long in our fam­i­ly.”

Her par­ents, though sep­a­rat­ed, both work. Her father works as a street ven­dor sell­ing fruit, ice cream, and grilled corn, and is a pri­ma­ry source of sup­port to Mireya. Her moth­er works as both a plumber and an elec­tri­cian. “She does demand­ing phys­i­cal labor and she’s very tal­ent­ed,” Mireya says proud­ly. “She wants her three chil­dren to go far. She’s open to me decid­ing to do my own thing. She trusts my judg­ment, and when I land­ed an intern­ship to learn how they make microchips, she let me stay with friends. ‘Do what you need to do,’ she told me. She puts a lot of faith in me.”

Breaking Barriers: First Flight, First Research

This past sum­mer marked a mile­stone: Mireya’s first time leav­ing Cal­i­for­nia for a two-month research fel­low­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go. “I got to work in a lab with PhD stu­dents, and for­tu­nate­ly, it was all paid for by the pro­gram. I had nev­er been out­side of Cal­i­for­nia and it was my first time fly­ing,” she says excit­ed­ly.

Finding Her Path in Engineering

“I was for­tu­nate enough to go to a career high school where we could select a pathway—either med­i­cine or engi­neer­ing. I don’t like blood, so I chose engi­neer­ing!” she says with a smile. Over four years, she explored dif­fer­ent branch­es of engineering—electrical, mechan­i­cal, and others—building a sol­id foun­da­tion for her future.

Embracing Identity with Family Love

“I came out to my mom at Christ­mas. I wrote her a note and gave her a mug. I did­n’t know at the time that I was a les­bian. The note said: ‘Mom, I might also like girls and I also might like boys. I hope you still love me. ♥’ ”

Her moth­er’s response was both prac­ti­cal and lov­ing: “She pulled me aside and said that she did­n’t care who I dat­ed as long as I got a col­lege degree. I assured her I would!”

Her father’s sup­port came nat­u­ral­ly too. When he asked if she was dat­ing her best friend, she ner­vous­ly asked, “Would you hate me if I said yes?” His response was imme­di­ate: “No.” His nick­name for her in Span­ish is “princess,” and as he told her, “You will always be my princess in life, no mat­ter who you love.”

The Impact of National Rainbow College Fund

A schol­ar­ship from NRCF has tan­gi­ble, mean­ing­ful impacts on Mireya’s dai­ly life:

Basic Neces­si­ties: “After five years, my back­pack is worn out, and I want to get the same back­pack. It is too much mon­ey for me to jus­ti­fi­ably spend. I was going to buy a super cheap one that I hoped would last the year. But now I’m able to get a bet­ter back­pack that will last anoth­er five years—I can keep it until the end of my post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion.”

Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: “Books are expen­sive, too. I’m a STEM major and the books are ridicu­lous­ly expen­sive. Last semes­ter I spent $300 on just one book. We used it only for the home­work pages—it was­n’t avail­able online. It was a very niche text­book and took a huge chunk out of my sav­ings. This NRCF schol­ar­ship keeps my sav­ings for some­thing else.”

Nutri­tion and Health: “Anoth­er big one is food. I will be able to have a bal­anced diet this semes­ter. I have to eat a lot of cheap fast food. I cook every day, but even then it’s very hard to find con­sis­tent good veg­eta­bles, fruit, and healthy stuff. I was feel­ing real­ly bad because of the processed food I was eat­ing. I did­n’t want to eat like that, but had to because we did­n’t have enough mon­ey to get good food. I will demol­ish a car­rot if you put it in front of me! Now NRCF enables me to get fruits and veg­eta­bles in my diet.”

Community Roots

Grow­ing up in down­town LA shaped Mireya’s under­stand­ing of com­mu­ni­ty. “The com­mu­ni­ty is like no oth­er. I grew up very poor, but I was only able to have as good of a child­hood as I did because my mom worked overnight shifts and the com­mu­ni­ty made it pos­si­ble. Neigh­bors would take us in while our par­ents worked mak­ing sure we went to bed on time. They would knock on our door to make sure we were ready to go to school togeth­er on pub­lic tran­sit.”

“Down­town LA is true com­mu­ni­ty. Peo­ple at cor­ner stores address you by name. If you are short 25 cents, they say don’t wor­ry about it. In the apart­ment I grew up in, there was an elder­ly cou­ple that I thought were my grand­par­ents because we were dropped off so often with them. They told us to call them grand­ma and grand­pa. I only learned in 9th grade they weren’t my real grand­par­ents!”

Giving Back Through Service

This sense of com­mu­ni­ty dri­ves Mireya’s vol­un­teer work. She and her sis­ter vol­un­teer at a food bank near Skid Row once a month, where she learned to cut hair to help unhoused peo­ple cope with LA’s heat.

“While they’re sit­ting and I’m clip­ping away at their hair, they talk about their sto­ries and their past. Most of them aren’t bad people—they just had bad luck. There can be drug and alco­hol prob­lems, but if peo­ple had to stay out­side in the sun all day and all night with no idea when your next meal is com­ing, I think it’s not sur­pris­ing that there are habits you fall into because you need to cope some­how, and that’s the only way they have. They don’t have the com­mon lux­u­ries that we have to cope with a sit­u­a­tion like that.”

Supporting Friends Through Adversity

Mireya’s empa­thy extends to her close friends fac­ing dif­fer­ent chal­lenges. One of her clos­est friends is trans­gen­der but does­n’t have the fam­i­ly sup­port she enjoys. “He start­ed tak­ing testos­terone, and before that, his fam­i­ly was in denial because he looked like a girl. They called him by his dead name and referred to him as a girl. But once he start­ed tak­ing testos­terone, they threat­ened to kick him out. He had to couch surf with friends for a week.”

The Role of Privacy within NRCF is Vital

Mireya is acute­ly aware that her fam­i­ly’s accep­tance isn’t uni­ver­sal. “I have friends who unfor­tu­nate­ly don’t have the same type of sup­port from their fam­i­ly as I do. It is very thought­ful of NRCF to have the pri­va­cy com­po­nent in case some­one might need it! It warms my heart.”

She appre­ci­ates that NRCF does­n’t demand stu­dents be “out” in spe­cif­ic ways: “Peo­ple are still queer even if they are in the clos­et! Even if they have to code switch in front of some peo­ple. With oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, you have to come out ful­ly to apply. It rubs me the wrong way!”

Though she has an amaz­ing partner—her girl­friend of one and a half years—Mireya remains aware of safe­ty con­cerns. “I can be scared to hold hands in a crowd because some­body in that crowd might be dan­ger­ous. It’s won­der­ful what NRCF is doing. Even if I don’t need the extra pre­cau­tions, oth­er peo­ple might need it. Even if it’s just one per­son, it makes it worth it!”

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Mireya’s sto­ry exem­pli­fies the pow­er of edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty. Through NRCF, she’s not only pur­su­ing her engi­neer­ing dreams—she’s build­ing a foun­da­tion to lift up her entire fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty, car­ry­ing for­ward the val­ues of resilience, com­pas­sion, and deter­mi­na­tion that have shaped her jour­ney.

Here’s how you can sup­port LGBTQ+ stu­dents:

• Vol­un­teer with NRCF 
• Donate today