Lucia Urdaneta is a rising third-year student at the University of Florida studying Anthropology and Latin American Studies. She is the first member of her Venezuelan family to be born in the United States and attend a 4-year university. As the daughter of a single mother who immigrated to the U.S. by herself, stories of tenacity have built Lucia’s character. At UF, she is incredibly passionate about the UF Hispanic Student Association (HSA) and serves as the organization’s Vice President of Programming. In addition to her involvement with HSA, Lucia works at the UF Center of Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement as a Student Ambassador for the Office of Hispanic-Latinx Student Engagement. Through both of her involvements in the UF Hispanic-Latino/a/x community, she aims to create events and facilitate spaces where Latino/a/x Gators can find their community and home on campus. She hopes to connect students with resources and opportunities that she wishes she would have earlier exposure to as a first-gen student. Her recent academic pursuits have been sparked by the courses she took under the Center of Latin American Studies. One of her favorite courses so far in her college career was Intro to Chicanx/Latinx History where she was taught the resilience and pivotal work of Latina labor rights activists and student organizers. Most importantly, she recognized how these stories are underrepresented in U.S. history and in popular media. As an Anthropology major, Lucia hopes to use her remaining time at UF to conduct ethnographic research on Latino/a/x immigrants and even the majority first-generation Latino/a/x students from her UF community. Looking ahead, Lucia aims to break barriers by hopefully joining the 1% of Latinos in the U.S. with a PhD. Her ultimate goal is to become a professor who highlights the histories of ground-breaking Latinos across the country and serves as a beacon of representation and opportunity for her community in academia.