The Central Valley Scholars Woman of Color Scholarship recognizes exemplary Women of Color in the Central Valley who have faced numerous obstacles in their journey to understand their positionality and identity while pursuing an education. Our scholarships are created with the central belief that every student is worth investing in and aim to choose recipients based on their identity, need, and potential for growth; aspects often overlooked by other educational institutions. 

​

Our society is greatly divided across gendered and colored lines, meaning Women of Color become one of the most marginalized in our society. This scholarship was created to recognize the discrepancy in experiences to higher education many Women of Color face while also reflecting on how one’s intersectionality can be a place of empowerment and growth. Women of Color is a general term used to describe women-identifying folks who carry cultural and ethnic identities that are not solely white. For purposes of this scholarship, we define women as all who experience life through the lens of women in body, spirit, and identity, in present, future and fluid. Trans women are women, and as long as they meet our other requirements, they are eligible to apply to this scholarship. 

​

We recognize that within the term of Women of Color, there is also great variation in accessibility to institutions and upward mobility. An example of this can be seen in the gender wage gap, a data point used to show how devalued Women of Color are for their labor and showing differences of anywhere between 10-40% amongst ethnic groups (Center for American Progress). There is a need for nuance to show the complexities within blanket terminologies such as “Asian woman”, a term encompassing ethnographic groups from nearly 50 countries, or “Latinx woman”, an umbrella term for an identity that holds several different racial & ethnic groups within it. This scholarship’s questions were designed to do just that – to add complexity, identity, and stories full of soul behind a monolithic term that fails to have that.