CAROLINE MENJIVAR MAIN PHOTO

Menjivar grew up in San Fernanco Valley, where her mother cleaned private homes and her father worked as a waiter at a Studio City country club. Menjivar recalled attending Encino Charter Elementary School, a public school in the high-priced suburb of Encino, CA. She immediately felt out of place, she said. “I was going to an affluent school where my classmate’s homes were big and they had big screen TVs,” Menjivar said. “That’s when I started [wondering] why my classmates had so many cool things, big houses, expensive things and we didn’t? As a kid, you don’t know what all that means. You just know that the inequity doesn’t feel right.”