“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), Mireya 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.

Community College: A Strategic Decision

Despite accep­tance to most Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia and Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus­es, Mireya chose com­mu­ni­ty col­lege for prac­ti­cal rea­sons. “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.”

The NRCF schol­ar­ship has become cru­cial sup­port, help­ing fill gaps that tra­di­tion­al finan­cial aid does­n’t cover—textbooks, sup­plies, and dai­ly neces­si­ties like food that can derail deter­mined stu­dents.

Privacy Matters

Mireya appre­ci­ates that NRCF does­n’t require stu­dents to be “out” to receive sup­port. “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. 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 a 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!”

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.

Embracing Identity

“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. 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. 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.”

Real Impact

The NRCF schol­ar­ship makes con­crete dif­fer­ences in Mireya’s life:

“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.”

Per­haps most impor­tant­ly: “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.”

Looking Forward

Grow­ing up in down­town LA, Mireya learned the mean­ing of community—neighbors who cared for her fam­i­ly, cor­ner store own­ers who knew every­one by name. That spir­it of mutu­al sup­port dri­ves her vol­un­teer work at a food bank near Skid Row, where she learned to cut hair to help unhoused peo­ple cope with LA’s heat.

Through NRCF, Mireya is pur­su­ing her engi­neer­ing dreams while 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