Emiliano Rosas

Chair of the West Sacramento Parks, Recreation, and Intergenerational Commission and Community Engagement Coordinator, PRO Youth and Families

This story is part of our June 2024 issue. To subscribe, click here.

This story is part of our June 2024 issue. Click here to subscribe.

At 22 years old, Emiliano Rosas understands the importance of empowering youth. His career began with an unpaid internship with the California State Assembly at age 14, an opportunity he stumbled across by following his curiosity. He called the office of Assemblymember Kevin McCarty and asked if internships were available.

“I had an interview and boom, that was that. But not a lot of youth know that that is available,” Rosas says. He hopes that will change as more young people are civically engaged.

“I think it’s so important for young professionals especially to know that there’s always a seat at the table, ensuring that we have more diversity in our cities and our boards, our commissions and our elected councils.”

“I think it’s so important for young professionals especially to know that there’s always a seat at the table,” he says, “ensuring that we have more diversity in our cities and our boards, our commissions and our elected councils.” He sees it as young professionals’ responsibility to “bring more innovative solutions to address those longstanding issues that have always been around, and no one has been able to kind of figure out.”

Rosas is a “proud product” of east Yolo County, specifically in the Broderick and Bryte neighborhood in West Sacramento, where he now serves as chair of the West Sacramento Parks, Recreation and Intergenerational Commission.

Emiliano Rosas enjoys an agua fresca at the Thursday Bodega Days farmers market at Cesar Chavez Park.

He also serves on Yolo County’s Juvenile Justice Commission, has advised Sacramento’s chief of police and Sac Kids First on youth advisory boards, and coordinates community engagement for Sacramento nonprofit PRO Youth and Families. At his first paid job, while in high school, he recruited youth facing barriers to employment for the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act Program at Yolo County Children’s Alliance. At the age of 18, he managed a large afterschool program for the City of Sacramento.

“Public service has always been instilled in me at a young age,” says Rosas, who recalls attending teacher union demonstrations and handing letters to legislators at the Capitol with his grandmother, who worked for the California Teachers Association.

After all he has already accomplished, Rosas still has plenty of dreams for the future. He hopes to one day serve on the West Sacramento City Council “to continue to be a policymaker, a change agent, shaping and really growing the direction of the city that grew me and that helped raise me.”

Rosas says he was “raised by a village,” which includes his single mom, grandmother, and many aunts and uncles in a tight-knit community on the north side of town, where he is now contributing to the Bryte Park renovation project through his role as chair of the Parks and Rec commission.

“I would love to think that I’m contributing to making a better tomorrow for young people that are in West Sacramento,” he says. “I have two younger siblings. I want them to have a beautiful city to live in with beautiful parks, with good streets, with just overall good community.”

Rosas will graduate in October 2024 with a bachelor of political science from Southern New Hampshire University, where he studies online. In his free time, he volunteers as the field director for Christopher Cabaldon’s California Senate campaign and is a member of the Rotary Club of West Sacramento. When he’s not working or volunteering, he can be found relaxing at home binging his favorite shows like CBS’ “Blue Bloods,” surrounded by his family and his two shih tzu mix dogs, Bean and Bailey.

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