From a young age, Britney Gramajo Barrios understood the importance of community. As the daughter of immigrant parents, she saw how hard they worked to raise four children while also supporting their family members back in Guatemala. Her parents were also always the people their neighbors would turn to in times of need.
"I owe everything to my parents," she said. "All of their experiences and sacrifices have motivated my commitment to giving back to my communities in the same way that they do.
"They always taught me to use whatever skills I might have to listen to people and just do good in this world."
Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Gramajo Barrios found many ways to give back to her community at Yale - in her residential college, Jonathan Edwards (JE); in her extracurricular work; and in her double major of ethics, politics, and economics and Latin American studies.
Throughout her time at Yale, Gramajo Barrios has become the heart and soul of JE. She worked as a college aide during her first year and soon advanced to the role of head aide, helping the administrative staff keep the college running smoothly while also cultivating a sense of belonging among the students. As a senior, Gramajo Barrios eventually became the head First-Year Counselor (FroCo), a role in which she did everything from organizing weekly Sunday dinners to helping students pick courses.
"I was really looking to make JE a home," she said.
As a first-generation, low-income (FGLI) student, Gramajo Barrios also thought it was important to give back to students just like her. At Yale, she got involved with the Office of Educational Opportunity (OEO), where she worked as an FGLI Thrive Mentor, and Matriculate, where she advised FGLI high school students.
Gramajo Barrios is committed to community empowerment inside the classroom, too. In her studies, she gravitated toward human rights and justice work, with hopes of someday becoming a human rights lawyer. Gramajo Barrios's interest in the field was catalyzed her first year at Yale. She was taking a class called "Continuities and Discontinuities of Violence in Latin America" with then visiting professor Maria Aguilar Velasquez.
The course introduced Gramajo Barrios to the long and violent history of civil war in her parents' home country. Her parents were children when the war was at its peak, but they didn't understand the extent of the violence. Through the course, Gramajo Barrios was able to educate herself and her family about that era.
"It's meaningful that my parents' stories can be told in a place like Yale," she said. "It means a lot to be able to learn about Guatemala, educate myself more, and then hopefully one day use that knowledge for good in some way."
Gramajo Barrios also pursued her interest in law outside the classroom. At Yale, she immersed herself in the campus's pre-law and legal aid community, including the Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association (YULAA), a student organization promoting human rights through legal empowerment on and off campus. When she was a sophomore, YULAA placed her with an immigrant services group just outside New Haven where she helped translate documents like birth certificates, death certificates, proof of residence, and more. And last year, she got placed with Connecticut Legal Services, the state's largest legal aid agency. She also worked a summer internship with the Federal Defenders of New York, which validated her passion for public interest law.
Gramajo Barrios also served as the social media manager of the Yale Undergraduate Hispanic Pre-Law Association (YUHPLA), a student organization with the purpose of educating and empowering Hispanic undergraduates along their journey to law school.
While law school is in her future, Gramajo Barrios was awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Brazil, a country where she studied abroad after her sophomore year. Before she leaves, she'll be doing an internship through the Sonia & Celina Sotomayor Judicial Internship Program, which places students from underserved communities in judicial internships in state and federal courts in the New York City area.
