Today’s Awesome Woman is Flavia de la Fuente. As many of us wonder about the fate of our world, I take heart that there are young women emerging who are energized, optimistic and excited to take on the challenges ahead. A recent graduate of UCLA, Flavia was chosen as the student speaker at the June 2010 commencement ceremony. As a student in political science, Flavia was active in a range of political issues, including the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, human rights violations in Burma, and the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, which provides a path to citizenship for undocumented college students. (1) After graduation she went to work for the Sierra Club as an organizer. When offered a choice of places to work, she chose the most challenging - Texas. "I firmly believe in going to the trenches and being where the fight is," says de la Fuente. (2) The switch from immigration reform to climate change was motivated by "But I started to think on a bigger level about what real immigration reform is, and I realized that what motivates me is that I hate it when people are forced to leave their homes due to circumstances beyond their control," says de la Fuente. "And the biggest driver of that in the future is going to be climate change." (2)
I’m looking forward to seeing where this young woman goes in the future!
(1) http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/activist-political-science-major-158367.aspx
(2) http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-10-24-happy-warrior-fighting-coal-where-its-hardest
Activist and political science major to serve as student speaker at UCLA commencement / UCLA Newsroonewsroom.ucla.eduActivist and political science major to serve as student speaker at UCLA commencement / UCLA Newsroom
