Wendy Lopez attended UC Berkeley where she majored in Media Studies and minored in Human Rights. She was born in Sinaloa, Mexico and moved to the United States when she was 8-years-old with her mother and two sisters. She grew up in Los Angeles and has been living in the Bay Area for five years.

Wendy is fond of creativity and often expresses herself through art. She is passionate about visual creations and worked as a student reporter while attending Community College as well as a cinematographer at the student media organization, CAL TV at UC Berkeley. Through her media work, she discovered that she was moved by the resilience, passion, and strength of the people she interviewed. Wendy became invested in doing more social justice work to uplift the communities she interviewed, her friends, and her family members.

After graduating UC Berkeley, Wendy worked as a Social Worker at a nonprofit with a mission of finding families stable housing in San Francisco. After a year, she envisioned having a larger impact on vulnerable communities and moved on to work as a Bilingual Client Advocate where she supported low-income folks finding pro-bono legal representation.

Currently, Wendy is interested in becoming an attorney that provides holistic services to clients. This means that she intends to go beyond legal services and ensure that clients receive the individualized support they deserve. Through her direct field experience, Wendy witnessed the need for more services that extend beyond a piece of paper whether it is counseling, child care, education, food, or financial advising. Wendy aspires to create a nonprofit that brings forward her vision of legal services. She believes that in order for migrants to thrive in a new country, they must be granted the opportunity to care for all of their needs. Doing so will allow all clients a chance to live up to their highest potential and well-being.

Wendy will be working with Immigrants Rising as a DreamSF Fellow. In her placement, she will be conducting legal intakes with clients seeking immigration services, accessing their needs, and referring them out to legal organizations in the Bay Area. In addition, Wendy will be responsible for supporting development of promotional and educational materials, among many other tasks.

In her spare time, Wendy enjoys cooking for herself and others. She also paints watercolors, acrylics, and has been experimenting with oils recently. Wendy relaxes to the following activities: reading novels, shooting photography, dancing Bachata, and watching foreign films. Her favorite time of year is Spring because she organizes picnics with her friends, and sits at the beach listening to waves hitting the shore.