Impact. > 2020 top ten > Ana Karen Betancourt Macias

Ana Karen Betancourt Macias

Community Service

  • College of Arts and Sciences
  • Sociology
  • Vancouver, Washington

Involvement

Co-founder of the Betancourt-Macias Family Foundation Scholarship, founder and director of Seeds for Liberation mentorship program; lead organizer for the Clark County Latino Leadership Youth Conference; vice president of diversity for the Washington Student Association; director of legislative affairs for Associated Students of WSU Vancouver (ASWSUV) for 2018-2019; vice president for ASWSUV for 2019-2020; president of WSU Vancouver Collegiate League of United Latin American Citizens; vice president for Youth for the Southwest Washington League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council; winner of a 2019 Distinguished Woman of the Year Award for WSU Vancouver; and the student representative of the WSU Vancouver Council on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Favorite WSU experience

Creating a campaign for a bill that will provide undocumented students with the ability to get funding through state-supported, low-interest loans. I came up with the idea of an orange ribbon with a monarch butterfly attached to it to signify migration and how beautiful it is. I also worked with undocumented students across all of the WSU campuses to come to Olympia and testify. In February, I testified before the Washington State legislature in support of the bill, SB 6561. For more than a year, I worked with a team to develop and advocate for the bill. It took a village. The bill was signed by Governor Jay Inslee in early April. It takes effect July 1, 2021.

Future plans

I’m already working on another bill for undocumented students in the state of Washington. And I’m planning to apply to Harvard University for my master’s degree. I’m not giving myself another option. I’m taking a year off to study for the GRE and get all my paperwork and recommendations ready. I want to study higher education and leadership to pair with my sociology degree and come back to Vancouver. This is my home. This is where the community has embraced and supported me. I’m from La Paz, about an hour north of Cabo San Lucas. I came to Vancouver just before I turned 10. I am undocumented. I am 100 percent open about my status. If anything, I like it when people know that I’m undocumented and that I was able to accomplish all of these things. I’m also a single mom. One thing that really drives me is my son—and being able to let other single mothers know that even though we have kids, at the end of the day, we write our own stories. It is up to us. I want everybody to know: yes, I’m a single mother; yes, I’m undocumented; and yes, I’m graduating from college and planning to go forward with my education.