FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – A 22-year-old Fresno State mechanical engineering student is being celebrated for overcoming barriers to work with NASA, following a story originally written by Fresno State’s Collegian, YourCentralValley.com spoke with Dana Paola Martinez Gonzalez.
Martinez Gonzalez was born in the small village of La Higuera, Municipio de Tuxpan, in Jalisco, Mexico. At the age of 13, she moved in with her aunt and her cousins in the small town of Firebaugh.
“[Firebaugh] is a small town, too,” Martinez Gonzalez said. “But my village in Mexico, even smaller than Firebaugh.”
As an immigrant, Martinez Gonzalez struggled with learning a new language and making friends at first. But she says she found friends who helped her strive for more for herself…