Leading up to Commencement, Anna Tresvalles knew that when she crossed the stage to receive her bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies, she wanted her 9-month-old baby daughter Tala to be with her. Anna had felt that her growing baby was her companion, after all, when she finished most of her courses in Spring 2024. It turns out that motherhood has altered her outlook — echoing and expanding on what she learned in college — so much that Anna calls herself radicalized by the experience.
That’s because being responsible for a young life changes your needs for community and all kinds of support. Being a mom, said Anna, “kind of reinforces everything that I learned at SLU. My previous experience with student organizing has helped me be more comfortable reaching out and finding community.” Anna had lived in Brooklyn, but now she and husband Brian are getting settled and comfortable in Astoria, Queens. She dove into the world of local mothers’ groups that flourish online and in person.
“A lot of the younger mothers in the groups are very open and welcoming and willing to share their knowledge — and it’s kind of reminiscent of all of these different movements that I’ve been a part of. We’re all really concerned about the future for our children and wanting the city to stay a safe and accessible and welcoming place for all children,” Anna said.
“Going through those experiences, like being pregnant in school and being a new mom in school, trying to find the people that would support you and help you, can be really radicalizing. And also empowering and shaping in a way that’s amazing.”
A People Person
Anna grew up on the Jersey shore in Toms River, N.J., where she first got interested in environmental issues and related legislation and politics. She attended LaGuardia Community College before coming to SLU in Spring 2023, and hopes to attend the CUNY School of Law in the not-too-distant future. At SLU she took part in the CSTEP Project L.A.W. program. Her husband Brian recently finished at CUNY Law and is studying to take the bar exam. He attended Baruch College as an undergraduate. On the night they first met, Anna recalled, they discovered their mutual interest in attending CUNY’s law school.
In her first year at SLU, Anna quickly got involved in student activities. She was elected as the undergraduate representative to the Academic Governance Council, and served as an SLU representative to the University Student Senate. She rallied student interest in the Climate Reality Project, which educates environmental advocates, as she had at LaGuardia too. She had an internship at the Hunters Point Parks Conservancy and worked in communications and children’s programming, calling it “a really amazing experience with local communities.”
On the home front, Anna volunteered and did mutual aid. “I’ve always been interested in helping others. I think I’m a really big people person,” she said. Helping others is why Anna wants to become a lawyer — and why she’s passionate about CUNY’s role in promoting social mobility and the “present and modern and progressive” education it offers.
She even focused her Urban Studies B.A. Capstone on the past few decades of CUNY funding and politics. With newborn in arms, she was able to complete that final requirement in the Fall 2024 semester with a course that was offered virtually, in a serendipitous coincidence. Assistant Professor James Rodriguez led the small cohort and was “so accommodating and very supportive,” Anna said, praising her other professors as well.
Being pregnant during college showed her there’s room for improvement in how CUNY handles the situation. “I think that those issues of accessibility are still a problem,” she said, and it’s an issue that any university should be aware of. “I think that finding those accommodations is still really difficult.”
In Anna’s view, “professors and staff have an obligation to know and work with students when these issues arise, because every student wants to finish their degree.”
Baby on Board
As for the small person who wore her own black robe and mortarboard cap on May 28, Anna calls her daughter “amazing and funny and sweet.”
“She’s a true Leo. She loves attention and socializing with people. She loves to interact with everybody. She really loves animals,” said Anna, noting that Tala already knows the dogs in her family and neighborhood as individuals.
Anna’s supporters at Commencement included her parents, two brothers, and a cousin who flew in from Arizona. Her parents are both from the Philippines, and Anna was born in Albany. She can understand her parents’ Bikol dialect, and is working to boost her confidence speaking Spanish.
She’s the oldest daughter among five siblings, meaning that “like, from birth, I was put in a position where I’m a fighter and organizer, and a planner and doer. Kind of bossy. Gotta get stuff done.”
What exactly she wants to get done is evolving. The traditional civil service-and-policy route she used to envision is changing, largely because of the supportive “mom community” around her.
“Just the ability to share resources with other moms and parents has been so beneficial for me and my husband. We’ve gotten so many free clothes, free toys, free accessories for her bed and things like that. It’s been a lifeline,” Anna said. “So working on that a little bit more and finding ways of creating intersectional community organizing here in Astoria would be great. Because everything goes hand in hand, especially with things like park access and the mental well-being of our kids. I want to bring together everything that I’ve learned recently.”
Since joining the ranks of parents, the world looks different to Anna. “You get a sense that everything is more connected than you were aware of,” she said. “As you get older and become parts of these different communities, you’re looking around to see who you can connect to, who can relate to you, and how to make your situation easier, and then how you can make that better for other people.”