I Want to Change the World, Starting in My Community

“I wasn’t thinking of an MSW,” says Jésus Perez, a recipient of a School of Social Work Raise Hope Scholarship. “But I was interested in community organizing, and a friend said U-M School of Social Work was a great school, so I looked online. I liked that their Community Organizing concentration brought in Sociology. I didn’t know you could do so much with macro systems with an MSW, and the community-based initiatives sounded amazing. I thought, Okay, I’m going to do it!”

Jésus grew up in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latinx Los Angeles neighborhood, bounded by Interstate 10 to the west and South Indiana to the east. Jésus recalls little investment in the neighborhood when he was growing up and little educational attainment. Cut off from both downtown LA and East LA, Boyle Heights was “a bubble,” denied resources that other communities enjoyed.

“Since I was young,” Jésus says. “I knew I had to go to college. My mom expected it. She made sure I had materials I needed, that I was dressed nicely and had food on the table. She did everything she could to help me succeed.”

Most of Jésus’s high school friends wanted to stay in the neighborhood after graduation. He grins. “I took that as a challenge. I wanted to prove them wrong. I would go super far away, out of my comfort zone.” So off he went to Humboldt State University near the Oregon border, eleven hours from home.

At Humboldt, Jésus was helped further by the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (MEChA) a national organization providing higher education mentorship to Chicanx students while keeping them grounded in their culture and history. “The hardest thing,” Jésus says, “is to hold onto your cultural and neighborhood identity and be successful in school.”

But Jésus did both, and he had a revelation. “I started caring about where I came from. I got interested in working with communities. I began to take leadership positions in MEChA, and so it was engraved in me the idea of giving back. I saw that an MSW was the best way to do it.”

As for the future: “I want to be in a position where my decisions are influential, like on a city council, and be a bridge for community members. Everything I have learned at U-M, I can put to use serving communities.”

“Without my Raise Hope Scholarship, I would not be here,” he says. “Taking out big loans was not an option for me or my family. Scholarship donors are bridging the gap for people like me who otherwise would not have access. Thanks to my scholarship, I got my MSW at the number one school of social work, and I want to give back.

“I appreciate this special opportunity, and I am grateful for everything the School and the program has given me or my family. Now the task is how to make it accessible for other people. I want to help give people access to the opportunities such as I had at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.”