When the Floor Falls Out: How Yovana Rosales Turned Loss into Leadership

Imagine that you are attending high school in one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Picture that you start your career in a field that you quickly realize is not designed for people like you. When disaster strikes it pushes you to a point of reckoning and transformation.

This is the story of Yovana Rosales.

Yovana Rosales’ journey was not easy. She endured plenty of road-blocks that led her to becoming the Líder she is today.

Although born in Texas, she was raised in Chicago because her Mom wanted to be closer to her family. “‘We can’t do this on our own,’ my Mom told my father. We need our community.’”

They soon left the flat, dry, arid lands baked by the Texas sun and moved to the much colder plains of Chicago. “My family ended up in Little Village. It was there that my Mom’s family had established their roots when they immigrated to the U.S.”

In the 1970s, Little Village became an enclave of Latine culture that expanded across racial, ethnic, and national identities. While she was growing up, Yovana sometimes heard her neighborhood called “El Barrio.” This term is used in the United States to denote an area with a significant Hispanic or Latine population; often one economically disenfranchised.

Yovana revealed, “I am half-El Salvadoran and half-Ecuadorian. My parents wanted me to go to a good school, so they worked…