Yesenia Jimenez (she/ella) is a passionate advocate dedicated to abolishing poverty and building equitable systems. She is a former Legislative Assistant for the Assembly Public Safety chair, Assemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr. (AD-59) and served as a Senate fellow for then Senate Budget & Fiscal Committee chair, Senator Holly J. Mitchell (SD-30).
Yesenia has worked with a number of advocacy groups including the Western Center on Law & Poverty, the Center for Law and Social policy, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and the International Maya League where she has elevated the intersections of racial injustice and poverty, criminal justice, and indigenous rights. Through her work in research and advocacy, Yesenia has been able to influence local, state, and federal policy and has been invited to provide her personal testimony at the state and congressional level. She has gained national recognition for her advocacy on college student hunger and work against school lunch shaming policies.
Originally from South Central Los Angeles, Yesenia moved into the Ramona Garden Housing Projects in Boyle Heights where her pursuit for social, racial, and economic justice grew. Yesenia graduated from Pasadena City College and later graduated from the University of California, Davis where she gained two bachelor’s degrees in Political Science – Public Service and Communication. Through the California Senate Fellowship, she completed a Public Policy and Government certificate from Sacramento State University.
She is an alumni of two prestigious fellowships, the California Senate Fellowship Program and the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship. In her free time, Yesenia serves as an elected board member of the Feminist Democrats of Sacramento. Yesenia identifies as Guatemalan-American and is a descendant of the Maya Q’anjob’al.