Mayra Lua Reyes

Mayra Lua Reyes ('24) is a first-generation student earning a double major in Political Science and Legal Studies and a minor in Public Policy. She was born and raised in the Central Valley (Merced, CA) and is the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents.

Mayra’s lived experiences and the knowledge she has gained at UC Berkeley have shaped her career aspirations and her interests in public service. For Mayra, public service means creating opportunities and pathways to break generational barriers and increase access to economic mobility. This includes striving for greater access to various forms and levels of education, creating a pathway to citizenship for both existing undocumented population and incoming migrants, and granting workers greater power through comprehensive labor law reforms.

During her time at UC Berkeley, Mayra has served as a caseworker for the ASUC Student Legal Clinic, where she helped provide free legal research and free tax filing services, and as the President for Womxn in Politics where she helped educate and empower future leaders in public service. Mayra has also assisted self-represented litigants in family and housing law as an intern for Bay Area Legal Aid’s Housing and Domestic Violence Clinic, as well as assisted in the creation and filing of immigration petitions as a Legal Intern at Warren Law Firm, a business immigration law firm in San Francisco, CA.

After graduation, Mayra will be partaking in Democracy Camp in Washington D.C., an experiential learning program that exposes students to careers in government at the federal level. Mayra has also been selected to participate in Trials, the Training and Recruitment Initiative for Admission to Leading Law Schools, at Harvard Law during the summer. Mayra hopes to attend law school in the Fall of 2025 and become a licensed attorney to bring back a sense of humanity to working-class immigrant families. She also hopes to utilize her J.D. Degree to advance the work of public policy think tanks.