Michele Siqueiros, executive director of the Campaign for College Opportunity, is a born-and-raised Angeleno. “I grew up in Echo Park with my mother, who’s an immigrant from Mexico,” she said. As the first in her family to attend college, “I represent in many ways the opportunities that California can provide our citizens,” Siqueiros said during her Zócalo panel. “Unless we really make proactive choices to protect those opportunities, I’m not sure that our kids are going to be as well off as we are.” Read more about Siqueiros below.
Q. What do you wake up to?
A. KPCC.
Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. I don’t think I’ve heard any music today yet.
Q. What is your favorite word?
A. Mom.
Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. My children.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Chicana, smart, passionate, giving, hardworking.
Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. A lawyer.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. A pomegranate martini.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. I’m not very extravagant, but maybe our almost yearly trip to Mexico. Puerto Vallarta usually.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. Kenya.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. Same one I have now. I love my job.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. The Echo Park library. I grew up in Echo Park, so my mom didn’t let me go out very much. It wasn’t a very safe neighborhood. But if I ever asked her to take me to the library, she would drop whatever she was doing and take me. I did a lot of reading. We didn’t have books at home but there I could read almost anything I wanted.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. I’m about to buy a house in West Adams. I think that will become my prized possession.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. To work less.
Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. Probably some of my shoes. I have too many.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead with whom you would most like to have a drink?
A. President Obama would be most interesting to meet and have a drink with.
To read more about Siqueiros’ panel on California’s education gap, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.