This I’m a Berkeleyan was written as a first-person narrative compiled from a UC Berkeley News interview with student Daniela Guadalupe Castellanos, who’s graduating this May.
This is my third year at Berkeley, but I’m graduating already. I am from northeast Sacramento, a really small town, Cameron Park, where there’s nothing really there except McDonald’s.
When I first arrived at Berkeley, I was overwhelmed by impostor syndrome. Back home, every passing smile felt like a reminder that I belonged somewhere. But here, I felt invisible. I could walk across campus, and it was as if no one noticed I was there. That loneliness cut deeper than I expected, not just because I missed home, but because I began to question whether I deserved to be here at all. However, that experience didn’t break me; it pushed and motivated me. It made me fiercely committed to building spaces of belonging and nurturing relationships with others.
In my pursuit of community, I joined LPLS, which is the Latine Pre-Law Society. The people are amazing and welcoming. A lot of the [experiences] that I thought were only me when I came to Berkeley freshman year, like, “Why am I so close to my family?,” all of them had similar experiences. They were so passionate and involved in Mexican culture, all the most beautiful parts of it. We, as the children of immigrants, are still continuing the culture and building more for future generations within places not designed for us to succeed. I want to retain my traditions and my language because those are the ties I have to my family that I work so hard to give back to.