Jennifer Godinez

Age: 32

Background: Grew up in Elgin, Ill., oldest of three children (Vincent and Natalie) of two Mexican immigrants: Antioco Vicente Godinez is a welder, and Margarita was a stay-at-home mom until starting work as a store clerk. Her parents tried to place equal emphasis on heritage and new homeland. "We used to read to her in English and Spanish," said Margarita, "and my husband always played music in English and Spanish. The Carpenters and Julio Iglesias, they grew up with that."

Her name: "She was born in the United States, and I wanted her to have an American name," said Margarita. "I wasn't going to name her Juanita. Jennifer O'Neill was so beautiful, I think maybe I picked it up from there."

Education: First member of her family to attend college, earning a B.A. in sociology from Drake ("a great place to learn how to be competitive") and a master's in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Accolades: La Prensa de Minnesota newspaper named her "Leader of the Year," and the Minnesota Hispanic Chamber of Commerce dubbed her one of its "25 on the Rise."

On her office walls: A print of Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," depicting a black girl named Ruby Bridges walking to school in New Orleans in 1960, with the torsos of authority figures ("to me, that's institutional") and a racial epithet scrawled on a wall. And a sheet of off-white paper on which some local high-school kids painted green hands reaching upward and the word "DREAM" in large letters.

Spare-time pursuits: Past board member at El Colegio Charter School, Loring Nicollet Bethlehem community center, and Achieve!Minneapolis. Current board member of the Latino Economic Development Center and the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs Alumni Board.

Guilty pleasure: "I still watch MTV. I was there when it was born. There's a youth culture in the United States that is so global, and MTV is a big part of spreading that."

Hero: Author and Princeton professor Cornell West. "There's an art to the language around the issues minorities are facing," she said. "I like the fact that he always uses the word 'love.'"

The future: "I can't see myself working necessarily in government, but I am working with government. I won't run for the school board, because the work I do now can have a lot more influence. Maybe someday, there will be a call to leadership, something in politics."