Carolina, originally from Mexicali, Baja California, migrated to the U.S. at age 12 and gradually came to understand the limitations of being undocumented. As a teenager, she faced barriers to higher education and mobility due to her immigration status, which led her to stay near home for college despite being accepted to UC Santa Cruz. Through perseverance and community support, she graduated from college and later earned a Master’s in Sociology and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In 2011, she founded My Undocumented Life, a blog that has since grown into a national platform providing resources to undocumented students and their allies. Her academic work focuses on the impact of deportation policies on young undocumented people and their families. Carolina remains committed to advocacy, teaching, and community-building to support undocumented and mixed-status families.