Success Stories
The San Francisco School Alliance will be sharing success stories of individuals whose lives have been touched by our initiatives and projects.
Our first story begins with the Maisin Scholar Award initiative…
This past Fall 2010, the Maisin Scholar Program was pleased to have Isabel Martinez*, a sophomore at San Francisco State University, as an intern and resident AB540 expert. Currently an International Relations major with a minor in International Business, it has been a long hard road for Isabel and her family. Immigrating to the United States from Guatemala, the Martinez’s settled in San Francisco and Isabel began attending 5th grade at Hillcrest Elementary. She went on to Horace Mann Middle School and then on to graduate from Leadership High School.
Isabel has advice for other students in the same position. “Never give up and find all the available resources to succeed until you find a dead end.” Isabel isn’t stopping with her sage advice. During her internship with the Maisin Scholar Program, Isabel completed a semester-long project in which she compiled a checklist for AB540 students, which will be coming soon to the Maisin Scholar website.
Isabel’s activism doesn’t stop there either. Since enrolling in SFSU, she has been an active member of the campus organization Improving Dreams, Equity, Access and Success (I.D.E.A.S.) whose work is focused on educational equity and social justice for undocumented students. I.D.E.A.S.’s primary focus is on the passing of the Dream Act, which Congress has failed to pass twice in the last decade. The bill would provide non-resident students who graduate from US high schools, are of “good moral character,” arrived in the U.S. without documentation as minors, and have been in the country continuously and without documentation for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment, the opportunity to earn permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years at a four-year institution of higher learning.
The San Francisco School Alliance is proud to support the Maisin Scholar Program and its dedicated students, such as Isabel, in working towards a community that we can all truly call “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
*Not her real name.