Felice Parish
Bachelor of Arts in Theatre

Felice Parish’s mother, abandoned by her crack addict husband, long ago moved her family from South Central Los Angeles to Pomona to escape gang violence. But a few years later, Parish and three others were in a car outside a Pomona movie theater when shots were fired. Parish’s boyfriend was fatally wounded.

“It made me even more determined to go to college and get away from the violence,” said Parish, 26, of Pomona. Parish enrolled at CSUN, where she studied to become an actress. On campus, Parish appeared in many plays. Off campus, she worked with four actresses in the American premiere of Athol Fugard’s “My Life” at the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood. Peter Grego, a CSUN theatre professor, directed the play.

An unplanned pregnancy in 1998 complicated things for Parish, but she kept attending school—and last year gave birth to a baby boy, Elyjiah. “I never really contemplated abortion or adoption…. My mother didn’t give me up when times were hard,” said Parish.

Parish’s current boyfriend proposed to her during Christmas 1999. And in February 2000, Parish learned she had been accepted into Harvard’s prestigious American Repertory Theater for graduate school.

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