Biography
This biography was written in Spanish and appears here in translation.
Griselda Guevara Cruz is Ña'a Davi (Mixtec), with roots in Oaxaca, Mexico. She comes from a family of farmworkers who spent many years working in the fields and orchards of the Yakima Valley and on fruit farms in western Washington, Oregon, and California.
The daughter of monolingual Indigenous immigrant parents, Griselda is a first-generation U.S. citizen and one of the first people in her family to receive a formal education.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Whitman College and her master's degree at the University of Texas at Austin, and she is an alumna of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
Before joining the Migrant Education Program at Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Griselda worked at a nonprofit organization. There she developed and carried out a regional engagement and outreach plan focused on expanding higher-education opportunities for young people in Washington State through key partnerships, targeted strategies, and activities.
Earlier, she worked in the U.S. Congress and at federal organizations, always focused on serving students who face many barriers.