Graduate Spotlight: Mimi Pascual
Minerva “Mimi” Pascual will graduate from City College this year with a Bachelor’s degree in Theater. Mimi, with her huge smile, has a bubbly personality and an incredibly positive outlook on life. She came to CCF immediately after her release from prison in 2019 and has since taken every opportunity we offer to develop her educational, career, and activism goals.
“I had gone to college before prison, but where I was incarcerated, they only offered vocational training - and I had to fight for that,” says Mimi. “I always knew I wanted to go back to school, but I just didn’t know how,” she remembers. While incarcerated, Mimi enrolled in a cosmetology vocational program in prison, which she finished with the support of CCF once released as a stepping stone to a 4-year Bachelor’s degree in Theater. “When I joined CCF, I just thought I would get some help with my college application and then do everything else on my own. I didn’t know about the financial help or mentoring, or other programs,” Mimi says. Since then, Mimi has taken advantage of all that CCF has to offer.
“I joined the WISH program because I wanted the chance to meet other women and develop my advocacy. I learned that there are so many ways to elevate your advocacy, including presenting it through my theater, writings, and presentation, I want to elevate what I stand for and what I want to fight for.” she beams.
“Then, I joined the Career Advancement Program. I didn’t want to just do a resume; I wanted to develop myself. My career coach Janelle has been helping me grow and find my true self. And my academic counselor Angela has always been there for me, and she’s doing her Master’s degree too - so she can relate to me and guide me in my next steps.”
Now, Mimi is combining everything she’s learned from her time in CCF’s academic, career, and advocacy programs to plan her next steps. “I’m sure that I want to incorporate my activism into what I’ve learned in my degree,” she’s decided.
“I’ve been doing work with the group Educate Don’t Incarcerate to record interviews about criminal justice reform, and learning to do media editing and producing. Moving forward, I don’t want to just be the hair and makeup artist. I want to be the one who coordinates the entire aspect of the projects. I want to shoot PSAs, produce Activists Theatre work, and write about my activism work, and that’s how I want to marry my two passions,” she plans excitedly. “CCF helped me explore avenues that I hadn’t considered before.”
So what’s next for Mimi? She’s taking advantage of the COVID-19 social distancing measures to plan for her future.
“I’ve been confined before, but this time I have gadgets!” she exclaims. “This pandemic is a starting ground for the whole world, and since I just came home, this is a good chance to restart with everyone else. I’ve been spending my time recording content with Educate Don’t Incarcerate, so it’s making me think about a Master’s degree in Film, and I’d like to stay at City College and work with CCF. I want to produce, record, and put my work out there to fight for prison reform.”
In the meantime, Mimi is sharing everything she’s learned about college with her son, who is a junior earning his undergraduate degree. “Not that many programs explore what I’m going through - the family dynamic of having both my son and me in college. We have our study dates together and help each other now, but I wasn’t there when he was applying to college. I parented him from prison, but I wasn’t able to show my son how to navigate the college process. I couldn’t say ‘this is how you fill out a TAP application, or this is how you fill out a college application.’ I want to break the chains of our children going through the same things we went through, and I want to extend the help that’s been given to me to our kids. I want to fight for the kids the way CCF fights for us.”
Mimi and her son both feel passionate about providing support to families like their own. “I am offering my services and my son’s services to anyone who needs help or to vent,” she says with a smile.
And for women thinking about pursuing their education, Mimi’s advice is: