73
represented health professionals through mentoring,
career exposure, and leadership development. She
serves on a variety of higher education advising com-
mittees and has extensive experience advising and
working with students interested in health and medical
careers. Nelly contributed to the Medical School portion
of E4FC’s The Life After College Guide.
Blanca Hernandez attended Contra Costa and Dia-
blo Valley colleges before transferring to the Univer-
sity of California, Davis where she received a B.A. in
Chicana/o Studies. While at Davis, Blanca co-founded
Scholars Promoting Education, Awareness and Knowl-
edge (SPEAK), a student organization committed to
political activism for immigrant rights and educational
justice. After graduating from UC Davis, Blanca re-
turned to her hometown of Richmond, CA where she
continues to serve her community and organize for edu-
cational justice both statewide and nationally, helping
to co-found the Bay Area DREAM Act Coalition (BA-
DAC). In 2009, she helped organize an entirely grass-
roots bike ride (Tour de DREAMs) from Los Angeles to
Berkeley as a means to help undocumented students
fundraise for their education. In 2010, she helped
organize another entirely grassroots-funded caravan trip
from California to Washington D.C. as part of national
strategy to bring together students from across the
nation to conduct legislative advocacy and outdoor
demonstrations for the Federal DREAM Act. Today, she
serves on the board for the Chicana/Latina Foundation
and volunteers as a member of the Case Analysis team
with Educators for Fair Consideration (E4FC).
Bill Ong Hing is a Professor of Law at the University of
San Francisco and Professor Emeritus at the University
of California, Davis School of Law. He teaches Immi-
gration Policy, Rebellious Lawyering, Negotiation, and
Evidence. Throughout his career, he has pursued social
justice by combining community work, litigation, and
scholarship. He is the author of numerous academic
and practice-oriented books and articles on immigra-
tion policy and race relations. His books include Ethical
Borders—NAFTA, Globalization and Mexican Migration
(Temple Univ. Press 2010); Deporting Our Souls—Val-
ues, Morality, and Immigration Policy (Cambridge Univ.
Press 2006), Defining America Through Immigration
Policy (Temple Univ. Press 2004), Making and Re-
making Asian America Through Immigration Policy
(Stanford Press 1993), Handling Immigration Cases
(Aspen Publishers 1995), and Immigration and the
Law—a Dictionary (ABC-CLIO 1999). His book To Be
An American, Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of
Assimilation (NYU Press 1997) received the award for
Outstanding Academic Book in 1997 by the librarians’
journal Choice. He was also co-counsel in the prece-
dent-setting Supreme Court asylum case, INS v. Car-
doza-Fonseca (1987). Professor Hing is the founder of,
and continues to volunteer as General Counsel for, the
Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco. He
serves on the National Advisory Council of the Asian
American Justice Center in Washington, D.C.
Sergio Lara is a graduate of the University of California,
Berkeley where he majored in Sociology and obtained a
minor in City and Regional Planning. His moral compass
has led him down a path of social justice and positive
social change. He has advocated for immigrant rights at
local, state and national levels. He is a strong, longtime
supporter of undocumented students in higher educa-
tion and equal access for all. Most recently, he has
engaged in grassroots organizing within the Promotora
Network (Community Health Workers) to better orga-
nize the Latino community in Central California. Sergio
aspires to continue onto graduate studies and be at the
forefront of social justice issues as he is greatly influ-
enced by his humanitarian outlook on life.
Mario Lio is Chinese-Peruvian and immigrated to the
United States from Peru when he was 12 years old.
After only one year at Robertson Middle School, he
ranked seventh place in his eighth grade class. He then
went on to Oceana High School, where he was valedic-
torian of his graduating class. He graduated from UC
Berkeley with a degree in Civil Engineering in 2010.
He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in construc-
tion management at Cal State East Bay this year. In his
undergraduate years, Mario joined Rising Immigrant
Students in Education (RISE), an undocumented stu-
dent group at UC Berkeley, and Asian Students Pro-
moting Immigrant Rights through Education (ASPIRE),
an Asian undocumented student group. When he first
joined ASPIRE, he was amazed by how many Asian un-
documented students showed up, but he soon learned
that most students were “closeted cases,” meaning
they were very secretive about their immigration status.
Determined to change that, Mario mobilized students to
speak out publicly against the deportation of DREAMer
Steve Li last year. He and other ASPIRE students also
organized phone banks almost every day for several
weeks in the lead-up to the Senate vote on the DREAM