Yazmin Nerio is a current student at City College of San Francisco, with the intent of majoring in Computer Science. Born in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico, Yazmin immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 3. The main reason her parents move was for her older sister’s health, and to pursue a future for the whole family. Seeing the struggles and fears of her parents—from the challenges of being in a new and unknown country to living with the knowledge that at any point they might be separated as a family—is what ultimately shaped Yazmin’s perspective on the experiences of immigrants like herself.

As a first-generation college student, Yazmin is a dedicated volunteer both in her immigrant community as well as her cohort of computer scientists. She has been a member at City College of San Francisco’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and the Coders Clubs for three years. Yazmin is also a youth leader and helps her mother with evangelist ministry at their church. Both her personal experiences and witnessing the experiences of those around her has shaped Yazmin’s growing desire to help the undocumented community. She is now shadowing her auntie’s work with Faith In Action here in the Bay Area to further develop this passion.  

Yazmin is currently placed at La Raza Centro Legal for the DreamSF Fellowship. At LRCL, she assists the work of both affirmative and defense attorneys, in addition to support clients fill out immigration applications, translating documents and providing interpretation for clients. Yazmin hopes that through this experience she is able to acquire the skills and tools necessary to further her pursuit of using her computer science major as a way to easily bring resources to immigrants who do not have easy access to resources.