From a young age, Lucero Morales’ parents instilled in her the importance of a higher education. Seeing the spark for knowledge they’d set in her had caught fire, they fanned the flames and offered to support her financially while she went to college. Her high school was considered “low performing” and many of her friends were the first in their family to go to high school. Of her graduating class, she was one of five students to get into a UC and one of only two to get into UC Davis.

I was born in a small town called Murrieta, California, but soon afterwards moved to an island village off the coast of Belize known as San Pedro Town. A fishing village popular with tourists for its laid back environment and beautiful weather, I grew accustomed to that lifestyle before I moved back to the states around the beginning of my middle school years.