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Ana Rasquiza
Community Activist

Ana, 17, is a 4.15 GPA activist ready for graduation from Cordova High School in Rancho Cordova, California. She is the editor of the high school newspaper; sits on the district’s Health Advisory Panel; received a scholarship for travel to Japan; and won the Outstanding Youth Leadership 2004 award from the Cordova Community Council. One of her proudest achievements is being the student representative whose input help build the Cordova High School Student Union, a gathering place for students to go after school.


Favorites

Web site:	www.translator.com
Software:	MS Word
Technogadget:	Digital Camera Olympus D550
Movie:	The Cradle Will Rock
Book:	Phantom Tool Booth
CD:	Presidents of the United States of American II

What is the Student Union?

The Student Union is a facility at Cordova High School developed by a group called the Cordova High Collaborative. The Collaborative is made up of community members, teachers, district members, students and parents. Our goal was to find the funding and the interest for a facility like this on campus.

The Student Union itself is like a youth center, where about 60 kids go every day. Right now it’s just open to students at Cordova High School, but hopefully it will be open to all middle and high school students in Rancho Cordova. The idea for the Student Union was to help our community be a safer place to live. We hoped that if there was a place for the students to go that was safe after school, they would also choose to go there because they enjoyed being there.

What is your role at the Student Union?

I don’t really have an official title. I am the student voice. I wouldn’t say that was my official title but most of the meetings that were held wanted to have students that could be there so that it wasn’t just a bunch of grown ups deciding what youth wanted. So I did things like help lead focus groups that consisted of parents, students and teachers. When we were first trying to get the grant we held focus groups to help us decide what students needed to help the community become a better place to live. From the focus groups we got the idea for having a place like the Student Union.

How did you get involved in this type of activist work?

I’ve always been interested in the field of politics. I wanted to do public policy for a while and politics. I have sat on the site council and different district boards before and during my freshman year. My sophomore year they created the Collaborative. They called up my mom and said they needed a parent to help start planning it but they did not have a student yet. She joined the board and then they realized that there were a bunch of grown ups talking about what students needed and so they invited me and I bought some people along.

What motivates you to do this type of work?

I enjoy it. I like the people who I work with. I felt really good working at the Family Support Services last summer. They helped me to understand where I was going in the future, because I don’t really know. I’m only 17. The people are diverse. They are doing things that are helpful. It’s a good place for me to go because I enjoy it. There are a lot of adults that I’ve met there that have influenced my decisions about where I want to go and what I want to do.

What advice would you give to other students who want to become involved in the community?

I feel like I kind of fell into it because I started doing things that I was interested in. One thing led to another and I realized I was doing a lot of stuff. My advice to students is this, find something that you are interested in and then go out and do them. When I started out doing this, I didn’t set out to help build a Student Union, I did it because it interested me.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

Uh oh. You sound like my parents! Four years from now I will be graduating from college, hopefully. Five years from now, in the work force. I don’t know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. I kind of have an idea. Eventually I want to go to law school and work in public policy. Five years from now…

What is your personal philosophy?

My parents told me the best thing to do is to keep your options open. If you keep your options open you can do whatever you choose to do instead of whatever you have to do. The best thing to do is not exclude any options because probably if you say you’re not going to do something, that’s the thing you’ll end up doing.

Do you have a hero?

I have a lot of people who have influenced me. My parents, Linda Burkholder of the Family Support Services and Christine Faulkner, my counselor at the high school.