Texto en Español

Graduate Admission Letters (Direct Contact Information in this PDF)

My name is Alo Rodriguez Gregorio Ramirez, and I’m reaching out to ask for your support. I am a first-generation undocumented student from a low-income background, raised by a resilient single mother. Today, I’m honored to share that I have been accepted into graduate programs at Harvard, Stanford, and UC Berkeley, spaces I once believed were never meant for someone like me, at a time when even earning a bachelor’s degree felt out of reach.

I am currently fundraising to attend graduate school at Harvard, an opportunity that would transform not only my life, but the future of my family and my community. I have been awarded a $50,000 scholarship covering 78% of my tuition, but I still need additional financial support to make this possible.

Your support will help cover tuition. Every contribution,no matter the amount, brings me one step closer to this goal. If you’re unable to donate, sharing my fundraiser would mean just as much. All funds raised, regardless of whether I reach my goal for Harvard, will go directly toward supporting my graduate education at Stanford or Berkeley. Muchas gracias por su ayuda en verdad!

Who Am I? I come from a lineage where survival defined the boundaries of aspiration. My grandmother spent her life bent over agricultural fields in rural Mexico, harvesting unforgiving soil so her children could eat. Education was never an expectation, it was a dream, distant world never designed for families like ours.

I immigrated to the United States as a child, arriving in Azusa and La Puente, California, with my mother. As an undocumented single parent, she worked in a restaurant and a packaging factory, often seven days a week, just to meet our basic needs. Watching her labor showed me early on how the promise of the American Dream often relies on the exploitation of immigrant communities.

Growing up, I navigated language barriers, economic instability, and responsibility at a young age. By nine, I was helping raise my siblings and supporting my family. After relocating to Orange Cove in California’s Central Valley, I balanced school with working in agricultural fields and helping my mother sell tamales on weekends.

For much of my life, I carried the feeling of “no soy de aquí ni de allá.” But over time, I came to understand that I am both, shaped by immigrant resilience and grounded in the histories I carry from Mexico. Despite systemic barriers, I was accepted to UC Berkeley, where I am studying Sociology and Spanish. There, I turned my lived experience into a commitment to serve others like me. I have mentored students across all stages, supporting middle school and high school students, community college transfers, and undergraduates through programs like Berkeley’s EAOP/DCAC, Stiles Hall, Latino Education Advancement Foundation, and UndocuScholars. Whether through mentorship or bilingual research presentations in my community, my goal has remained the same: to make college knowledge accessible and create pathways where institutions have created barriers.

Through the Firebaugh Scholars Program, I conducted research on first-generation students from mixed-status families and have worked towards translating it into Spanish and sharing with my communities of Orange Cove, La Puente, and Azusa unified school districts to help families better understand the college process.

After graduating from UC Berkeley, I plan to advance my research focused on demystifying undocumented labor and scholarship through a Master’s in Education or Latin American studies. I am committed to producing work that centers undocumented voices and challenges traditional notions of who gets to create knowledge.

Through the Master’s in Education or Latin American Studies, I hope to deepen my understanding of community building, student retention strategies, and the development of an archive of undocumented epistemology, knowledge produced by and for undocumented communities. As an undocumented scholar, I am committed to ensuring that our experiences are not only included but centered within academic spaces.

In the long term, I plan to pursue law school, where I will focus on educational law and workers’ compensation law. My goal is to advocate for policies that expand access to education and protect undocumented agricultural workers, using both research and legal advocacy to serve my community. I also plan to launch a nonprofit peer mentorship program serving undocumented and first-generation high school students in the rural Central Valley, supporting them in accessing and enrolling in higher education. This work is deeply personal and rooted in my own lived experience, as I aim to create pathways that I once had to navigate on my own.

I carry my community with me in everything I do. This journey is not mine alone,it is built on sacrifice, resilience, and the belief that we belong in spaces that were never designed for us.

Thank you for believing in me and being part of this journey.

Sincerely,

Alo Rodriguez Gregorio Ramirez