Editor’s Note: After winning the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Colombia, Felipe returned to the US, filming a documentary with Road Trip Nation over the summer and then became a California Senate Fellow in Sacramento. In fall 2015, he traveled to the United Kingdom to begin graduate school as a Marshall Scholar.
The California Capital Fellows Experience
I am a Senate Fellow for Senator Richard Pan who represents the greater Sacramento area. I staff Dr. Pan on the Senate Education Committee because he is a voting member of the committee. I also staff issues in Banking & Financial Institutions and Transportation & Housing. In addition, I manage six bills for Senator Pan. This means that I am responsible for ensuring that these six bills successfully make it through the legislative process. I am responsible for helping craft the language in the bill, engaging stakeholders throughout the process, managing all support and opposition on the bill, and working to gather support from other legislators on the bill. This is a unique experience because we, Fellows, are in the belly of the beast in Sacramento. This has been formative for my career in public service and has also clarified my perspective on how government can facilitate or stagnate progress for Californians. At the same time, it has demonstrated the value in engaging a broad network of stakeholders for the sake of ensuring a comprehensive policy solution to a complex social problem. I have also learned what leadership can look like in the face of adversity and strong opposition. This experience has also reinforced my passion for public service and broadened my understanding of how all sectors of our society can work in concert to solve various policy challenges. As a fellow, I am able to observe and be a part of the unique public policy process in California under the mentorship of senior staffers who step out of their way to help you. The mentorship is the most enriching aspects of the fellowship because the culture in “the building” is to help fellows grow, learn from their mistakes, and help propel us to be effective public servants in government or in our communities.
This knowledge and experience will play a vital role in my studies at the University of Bristol and Oxford because I will contribute a unique understanding of California public policy to the classroom. California is the 7th largest economy in the world and home to more people than some countries. My understanding of social policy at this macro-level will compliment my learning of social policy in the international context.
While in Sacramento, I also serve on the Student Development Council for United Latinos, which focuses on increasing opportunities in key areas such as STEM, policy, business, education, and health for K-16 students from underrepresented regions in Sacramento. I also teach, and helped develop, the “Know Your History Institute”, a history course on the plight of African and Latino people in America, for Improve Your Tomorrow, a Sacramento based non-profit that provides mentorship, tutoring, and support for high school boys of color who are at risk of dropping out. I also serve as the Internship Coordinator for the Improve Your Tomorrow Capitol Internship Program which places ten junior and senior boys of color in legislative offices to serve as interns and provides the interns with educational seminars, brown bags, and career exploration trips meant to develop foundational communication, analytical, and professional skills. Finally, I am also founder and Vice President of the California Renters Caucus with the California Young Democrats, an organization that focuses on increasing the availability of median and affordable housing through policy and community initiatives.
Filming Road Trip Nation: First Generation
During the first couple months of my Fulbright, I started to plan for the upcoming year because I knew that the year in Colombia would go by very fast. So I started to research opportunities in California and opportunities abroad. I ended up finding two great opportunities that I knew I wanted to participate in. One of these opportunities was with Road Trip Nation, a California-based production company that provides the opportunity for young people to travel across the US in an RV interviewing leaders under a common theme. In particular the “First-Generation Road Trip” caught my attention because it reflected who I was, a first-generation college graduate out in the real world trying to figure it out. I and three other first generation students from other states were selected to travel across the USA to film a documentary of interviews with inspirational first-generation American leaders, like US Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, and singer-songwriter and actor John Legend. In total we drove a total of 3,851 miles from Los Angeles to New York City and interviewed a total of 19 leaders. This was an amazing opportunity to ask leaders, who were also the first in their families to attend college, questions that we always wanted to ask. We also had to drive a 35 foot RV from Los Angeles to New York with only a day of training, and we had to live in the RV for five weeks with five other people (including the director and videographer). This was one of the most challenging things I ever had to do because I had to live with five other people in a cramped RV but also because the trip required a lot of soul searching and required us to ask a lot of difficult questions of ourselves. Throughout the road trip, I grew close to the other road trippers, and we became like family. Also we received important and powerful advice from other leaders across the country like Alejandra Ceja, the Executive Director of the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Alejandra said that we must “Dare to dream,” that we must dare to be bold to pursue our true passions and live in service of others. Throughout the trip we received valuable mentorship that helped clarify our vision and provided us with the motivation to take the next step in our lives, which for me was pursuing the Marshall Scholarship.
The special aired on PBS in spring 2015 and can be viewed for free here: http://whynotusfilm.com/.
Felipe Hernandez answers student questions at the screening of the Road Trip Nation documentary Why Not Us? on April 14, 2015