Neither of my parents has ever read a book. My mother went as far as second grade. My father never went to school. Born in the U.S., and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, I sensed that growing up could be easier than my own childhood had been. At a young age, I determined to make growing up easier for other children.

I’m in constant search for how to create value in my life, my country and in the world. Connecting head and heart, a twenty-year spiritual practice in Buddhism infiltrated my worldview. It is now my worldview and serves to guide me in profound and peripheral ways, all that I am and am becoming.

As a child psychologist turned city leader, I now guide the city’s vision for children and youth in Denver. The first two decades of my life is now my business, from Head Start to providing students an equal start in college. I craft public policy and programs to make growing up easier for all children. Charting new paths and new solutions, this daughter, now a mother herself, has become a messenger of what is possible.