Juan Perez

Juan Perez is currently in his senior year at San Diego State University. He was raised in City Heights his whole life. Juan grew up poor, so he grew up quickly. Growing up in a large family with little money usually meant sacrificing. He joined the Marine Corps Reserves out of high school with the aspirations of going to college sometime. Juan never went to college during his time in the service but he did do a couple of deployments. One of these deployments was to a country in the Horn of Africa called Djibouti, that was more like a vacation for someone like him, but the second deployment wasn’t so friendly. Juan was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. He considers this moment of his life as the conscious shifter, the eye-opener. It really was the spark that lit the passionate, activist, skeptic fire in Juan that had been brewing for a very long time but never burned until this event happened. Since he got out of the Marines Juan has been dedicated to being a student (a conscious one) and has been fighting against the injustices that surround him. He is doing his part in the Revolution, whether if it’s in the non-profit where he is doing counter recruitment work, or his involvement in last year’s election by becoming a district delegate for Bernie Sanders and going to Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention, or if its as simple as being conscious in the products he buys, news he passes along, music he listens to, and definitely in the career path he has chosen, nonprofit work.