David Hinojosa
As a child in his native Ecuador, CU-Boulder senior and humanities major David Hinojosa remembers seeing a double-amputee sitting on a 2’x2’ plank, his knuckles bruised and bloody from having to navigate Quito’s gritty streets on his hands.
“It was then that I decided that I wanted to devote my life to justice, so that nobody would ever have to go through that,” Hinojosa said.
It took hard work for Hinojosa to get to CU and be in a position to make a difference: he did not speak English until the 4th grade. But once on campus, he was impressed by CU’s breadth of academic offerings, and he threw himself into a variety of activities devoted to helping people and communities reach their potential.
In CU-Boulder’s intensive INVST Community Leadership Program, Hinojosa helped bridge the gap between students and immigrant workers on campus. Through an honors course, he explored structural violence and prejudice against Latin American immigrants. And he earned prestigious Norlin and Van Ek scholarships while working as many as three jobs at once to pay for an education his family cannot financially support.
Scholarships and grants are an essential catalyst to helping Hinojosa—who aims to merge his desire for social justice with the path of medicine—achieve his dreams. “I would not be able to attend college without them,” he says.
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