Olivia Gastelum-Perez

I am sure every body knows, I got married a semester before graduation to my childhood sweet heart Jesus Abel
Perez.After graduating in 1975 we moved to the Bay Area, where we still reside.
After 20 years or so, I retired from Macy's West, where I’m happily enjoying my families company. We have
two great sons, Erik whose age is 33 and Uriel whose 31. Both of them are Computer Science Engineers, and graduates
from UC San Diego. Uriel holds a master’s degree from UCLA. We are very proud of both of them.  I am also a grandmother
to a beautiful 6 years old granddaughter, who I adore. We will soon have a grandson to adore from Uriel.
In my kids early years I was fortunate to stay home and participated helping the community through a non-profit
organization for child care, BABEL (BAY AREA BILINGUAL EDUCATION) I also had the opportunity to travel back
home every summer and take my boys to gain the relationships with the family in Mexico, I am very glad we did that, now
that I am a grandmother I can see how satisfying it was for my mother to have her grandkids visit her.
Being part of Covell gave me the opportunity to meet so many of my companeros y amigos from so many different Countries,
that inspired me to travel experiencing different cultures. (After exploring my own culture and visiting all
of  Mexico of course)  I always remember when I was young in 4th grade, where I was fortunate to have a
wonderful teacher who would read to us about the old world, the Romans, and the Mesopotamians (Istanbul) for
example. I also have had the opportunity to explore those countries mentioned above, where I satisfied my childhood imagination.  While
traveling through Spain I had the opportunity to reunite with some of my family. My next journey will be to South America, (Chile, Argentina
and Brazil) at the end of the year.
Life has been good to me and I am grateful for that.
   Un abrazo a todos los Covelianos.
   Olivia Gastelum-Perez