Anny Patiño was born and raised in El Limón, Jalisco, México. At the age of 10, they migrated to the United States with their family and started a new journey in California’s Central Valley. They are now a student at the University of California-Berkeley, majoring in Cognitive Science and pursuing a minor in Education.

As an undocumented immigrant, Anny experienced first-hand the subtle ways in which an undocumented status paralyzes people from advocating for themselves. Consequently, Anny was drawn to become more involved in their community and became an active member and leader in Rising Immigrants Scholars through Education (R.I.S.E). Becoming R.I.S.E’s Graphic Design & Marketing chair, Anny experienced a transformational growth which motivated them to further explore opportunities to grow both as a leader and as a learner.

To continue advocating for their community, Anny is now part of the 2018 DreamSF Fellow cohort placed at Pangea Legal Services. The organization’s mission and vision resonates with Anny’s values and ideals: that human culture on earth be a culture of encouragement, community and stewardship of the planet and each other. Anny will be assisting Pangea’s deportation defense legal services team through translation, interpretation, country conditions research, document filing, and accompanying clients to appointments at ICE and USCIS.

Anny understands that everything they do from the heart eventually serves a purpose, which is the reason they are excited to hold a Seal of Biliteracy from the State of California which recognizes linguistic mastery in English and Spanish. With this, Anny can employ their bilingual skills to help prevent the removal proceedings of a community member.

During their free time, Anny enjoys spending time in nature. Anny also enjoys doing Taekwondo. It was in Mexico where they  started and learned the taekwondo tenets “Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit.” For this reason, they have been able to break many barriers!