On a sunny summer morning in Sacramento, Janet Mendoza-Partida was walking from her office at the California Department of Education along tree-lined streets to the state Capitol, a thoughtful young woman explaining why she feels divided between two worlds.
Her parents are Mexican immigrants who raised their children in Watsonville — her father a farmworker, her mother a childcare provider. Even a few years ago, before starting studies at UC Berkeley, Mendoza-Partida said she could not see far beyond the agricultural community where she grew up and dreamed of being a teacher.
But this summer, through the Cal-in-Sacramento fellowship offered by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS), she has had an entry-level role in California education policy. Her career dreams have expanded, and so has her sense of what might be possible in the years ahead.
“Cal-in-Sacramento, providing me this opportunity to be here and to understand what people do here, and to work here myself — it’s beyond where I ever thought I would be,” she said. “I could have never seen myself being where I am today.”