Ashley Euceda-Mendoza
Washington-Lee High School
Ashley Euceda-Mendoza wasn’t interested in academics during middle school. But by her senior year of high school, she was taking four international baccalaureate classes and one A.P. class—and acing all of them.
The turning point was a trauma that left her forever changed at the age of 13. She was raped and gave birth to a baby boy. Her attacker was jailed, and Euceda-Mendoza started thinking differently about the future, with a son to raise. “I realized I had to get it together and do well in school to get into a good college, so I can give him a much better future and childhood,” she says of Liam, who turns 4 in August. Together, they live with her mom, Nelly Mendoza, who works in a deli. “She’s the one who’s taught me to be such a strong and independent person. She’s my role model and my best friend,” says the teen.
With her mom’s support, Euceda-Mendoza has been able to raise Liam and work 15 hours a week as a grocery store cashier, all while shouldering a rigorous course load at Washington-Lee. She graduates in June with a 4.1 GPA. “She’s incredibly resilient in a way many students haven’t figured out,” says school counselor Meaghan Traverse.
Euceda-Mendoza will be the fi rst in her family to attend college when she heads to George Mason University. After years of law school aspirations, she’s now leaning toward becoming an ob-gyn—mainly because she enjoyed A.P. biology so much. “The human body has always interested me and the whole process of pregnancy,” she says. “I went through it and I know it’s hard. I want to be there for women.”
As a kid, Euceda-Mendoza had few chances to travel. That’s something she hopes to change. She says she’d like to help treat women in developing countries who don’t have access to good prenatal care.
Tamara “Tammy” Lytle is a freelance writer and editor based in Northern Virginia who covers politics and anything else she finds interesting. She wrote about Arlington’s emerging tech sector in the November/December 2016 issue.