About Me:

I was born in East Los Angeles, the oldest child with 3 siblings, to parents who immigrated from Mexico as adolescents. My father was the oldest of 8 boys and had quit school after 9th grade to help pick vegetables in the central valley to help support his family. My mom lost her mom at age 3 and was raised by siblings and after high school worked for Unocal as a secretary, then stayed home to raise us while working selling Tupperware and eventually returning as a secretary in our school district. I grew up in Pico Rivera, California, graduated from El Rancho High School, and earned a Bachelor of Science Chemical Engineering Degree from Stanford University, the first of my family to attend and graduate from college. I worked for Union Carbide both as an intern while in college and after I graduated from college as an engineer. I always really loved teaching, and I did volunteer tutoring , mentored students, and participated in career days while I worked as an engineer. Although I found my engineering job very interesting, I still longed for a career as a teacher. After several years, I took a leap of faith and left my job to go back to Stanford to earn a Masters in Education and get my teaching credential and have now been teaching a long time and loving every second of it.