My name is Alisa. I am currently an undergraduate student in my 2nd year. For the past two years I have worked in my student government, advocating for greater access for marginalized people of all backgrounds. I was an Organizing Director and Legislative Director at UC Santa Cruz where I lobbied in Sacramento, Washington and in my own school and home communities of Santa Cruz and Los Angeles for a more accessible, inclusive America. In the middle of my sophomore year, I experienced a hate crime, one that went misreported. In that experience, I had to report the incident to the police, which was confusing as a child of immigrants and Hispanic woman. This experience forced me to look at the ways in which other areas of the law are inaccessible, to people who look like me, and people who do not. Through this traumatic experience, I found I brought my knowledge to my work, and worked hard to ensure my team was advocating for people from all walks of life to change laws. Last year, I advocated for a bill that would require hate crimes to be more comprehensively reported on campuses across the nation. It garnered support from representatives across the board, and we were eventually able to get two representatives to promise to both help co-sign the bill and introduce it in the next cycle. This triumphant feeling after experiencing this issue in my life helped me finally feel empowered and heard. In that moment, I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life helping champion success for those who have been unheard by the legal system by becoming a lawyer. In addition to the positions I held above, I also held a position at the Disability Resource Center at my university, working as a case manager for students with disabilities. I direct them to which resources they need, and check their accommodations are being met. In this position, I saw how so many students were denied their accommodations at the workplace, and in school. Many professors and classrooms were uneducated about how to effectively and legally adhere to accommodations. This gap meant so many students with disabilities were left behind in their education, and in my personal experience, I saw how so many Hispanic/Latine students were left even further behind. My parents fought so hard to bring me to a country where education would be more accessible for their children, and I saw my story reflected in many of the students stories they told me. I knew that I wanted to become a disability rights lawyer, so I could continue to advocate and demand access for disabled people across the state, so that they could access the same rights I was lucky enough to receive. This scholarship would make it possible for me to complete my undergraduate degree in Legal Studies and pursue an extracurricular education in American Sign Language, so that I can have another language available to communicate with clients in my future work as a disability rights lawyer. Being a Mexican-American woman, I have faced so many financial challenges to get to school. My mother is a single mother, a Mexican immigrant who is the sole caregiver for my sick grandmother, and so I am the sole provider for my own education. This scholarship would allow me to continue to show up for communities as my best self, to continue to be the entirety of who I am at work, school and when advocating for others. I hope to continue to be in community and provide community, both professional and personally.