Holding the Door Open with the Working Women’s Network

I stepped into the Yale SOM lecture hall straight from my weekly Founder’s Practicum check-in, still buzzing from strategy conversations for my venture, Latinas in Nursing. My head was full of metrics and milestones. My heart was full of possibility.

And honestly, I was still carrying the energy of the prior weekend.

Hours earlier, Bad Bunny had taken the Super Bowl halftime stage, performing in Spanish and celebrating not just Puerto Rico, but the richness of Latin American identity across borders. It felt less like a concert and more like recognition. A reminder that every country, every culture, every story belongs. That we are not fragments. We are a collective.

In a moment when division feels loud, the message felt simple and powerful. Declaring that “the only thing stronger than hate is love,” Bad Bunny promoted love of culture, love of community, and love of where we come from. The kind of love that refuses to shrink or apologize. I walk into Yale with that same love. I enter every room as a proud Afro-Boricua. My culture is not something I check at the door. It walks in with me.

So it felt personal to arrive at a “lunch and learn” event hosted by the Working Women’s Network (WWN), featuring Miguel Cardona, former U.S. secretary of education and current SOM faculty fellow. It felt personal. The crowd that showed up to this event clearly understood that the topic—mentorship and leadership—is not optional but rather essential. As the kickoff to the Working Women’s Network 2026 mentoring program, Cardona reflected on his journey from the classroom to national leadership.

I was invited by WWN co-chair Paula Maguiña, a senior research finance manager at the Yale School of Medicine whom I mentor through the Latinas in Leadership Institute. Before the program even started, I had one of those quiet, proud mentor moments. Watching someone you support step fully into leadership is its own kind of reward.

The event itself felt less like a lecture and more like a conversation. Cardona shared his family’s story, his story as a first-generation Latino, a public school kid, a teacher, and eventually a national leader shaping education policy for millions. He talked about how personal and professional alignment is unstoppable: when your lived experience matches your mission, you move differently.

At one point he said, “It’s an amazing time to be an educator.” I felt that line land hard. Seeing a Puerto Rican educator talk about public schools and national policy at Yale wasn’t just inspiring. It was grounding. It was proof that Latinos belong not only in moments of celebration, but in rooms where decisions get made.

For me, public education is very personal. I am a product of public schools, and every opportunity I have today traces back to teachers who believed in me before I believed in myself.

I learned this first from the front row as a student, and later from the front of the classroom, when I joined Teach For America out of college and taught in Jersey City for three and a half years. Those years shaped me more than any title ever could. They taught me how funding formulas, accountability metrics, and policy decisions translate into lived experiences for students and families, exposed inequity up close, and showed me that while talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. Despite seeing how much needs to change in our public education system, I came away from those years understanding that education remains the most reliable engine for social and economic mobility we have. Not perfect. Not equal. But still the strongest lever we’ve got.

Sitting in that room at Yale, listening to someone who moved from the classroom to shaping national education policy, I felt inspired and validated. The path from educator to leader is not unusual. It is logical.

Educators understand people. Systems. Scarcity. Hope. We build futures for a living.

That throughline shows up in everything I do now. In workforce development. In my books. In mentoring Paula. In launching Latinas in Nursing. In my goal to create a curriculum for 3-K to third grade that introduces children to nursing and health professions early.

Because here’s what I know from experience. You cannot aspire to what you have never seen.

By the time the event ended, I kept coming back to one simple truth. Latinos belong everywhere decisions are made: in classrooms, in hospitals, in boardrooms, in publishing, in policy rooms, at Yale, and everywhere. That afternoon wasn’t just a talk. It was a reminder that my story, from public school student to teacher to nurse to founder to EMBA student, is not an exception. It is evidence of what education makes possible.

Some days the MBA consists of assignments and deadlines. Other days it feels like this. A full room. A national leader whose journey mirrors yours. A mentee leading. A venture growing. A profession worth fighting for.

Education opened the door. Now it’s our job to hold it open for everyone else.

Right now, the Department of Education is implementing new regulations that would drastically reduce the federal loan support available to students pursuing nursing degrees. If we want more representation among nurses and healthcare leaders, we must each make advocacy a responsibility and ensure that nursing education is accessible and affordable. Please make your voice heard by sharing a public comment on this issue via the American Nurses Association by March 2, 2026.