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Four years before Omotara Oloye ’21 was born, her parents immigrated from Nigeria to the United States. “They moved in hopes that they could give their children a better life,” Omotara says. “My parents knew that in order for their children to have a better life, for their children’s children to have a better life, going to college would level the playing field.”

Aaliyah Karunaratne ’21 got her first taste of Berkeley when she was a high school student in Pittsburg, California. Her school’s cross country team often ran through the UC Berkeley campus for practice, and Aaliyah fell in love with the city.

Neither of Aaliyah’s parents attended college. “There weren’t expectations put on me to go to college,” she recalls. While her aunts invested time taking her on college tours and campus visits, Aaliyah recalls that the pressure on her to attend college was predominantly self-made.

On Sunday, October 6, the Cal Alumni Association Chinese Chapter partnered with the Berkeley Chinese Alumni International Association (BCAIA) and other UC Berkeley alumni and student organizations to co-host the Berkeley China Summit. The Berkeley China Summit 伯克利中美峰会 (“BCS”) is an annual all-day conference held on the Cal campus to build relationships between business leaders and investors in China and the Bay Area and encourage innovation in technology, engineering, and business.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Xavier Serrato ’04 knew that going to college might be a long shot. He was raised by his mom, who emigrated from Mexico and cleaned houses to support Xavier and his two sisters. Beginning at age 14, Xavier worked to help put food on the table for his family.

Xavier was an excellent student, but the cost of a college education was daunting. “College seemed impossible,” says Serrato, who is now the founder of two tech companies. “The question was always on my mind—how am I going to pay for college?”

Growing up in Norwalk, in Southern California, Gabriela Galicia ’09 knew she was college-bound, but assumed she would attend a school nearby. Then during her junior year of high school, while participating in a program for high-achieving students from low-income, first-generation college families, she went on a college tour of the Cal campus.

People never expected much of Itzel Cortes Tena ’18 where she grew up, she recalls. She grew up in Salinas, California, a predominantly agricultural community where endless fields surround the center of town. Her mother works in the fields, and her father works in a packing plant.

In a six-part series, we highlight a few of the moments, movements, and people that made their mark on Cal’s LGBTQ+ history. We move through the decades, beginning in an era of secrecy and continuing through today.