Surge Alumna Niki Magtoto (OAK18) Charts a Vibrant Course 

Surge Almuna Niki Magtoto (OAK18), a member of the inaugural Surge Oakland Fellowship, has never described herself as someone who fits neatly into boxes. It’s fitting, then, that we got to talk to Niki about her cultural identity in October, a month celebrating both Latinx and Filipino Heritage. 

Niki, a San Francisco native, reflects on her backstory: “My mother's mother was Filipina and Cape Verdean, an island belonging to Portugal off the coast of Africa. My mother's father was Mexican and Irish. Both of them, California natives. My family has been here forever. My dad's Filipino. He came over when he was four. Growing up, I was all things, and I also dealt with a lot of ‘you're not enough of’ sentiment from people outside of my family.” 

Niki’s own history is as vibrant and fluid as her heritage. Growing up in San Francisco, she a product of the San Francisco Unified School District. A native English speaker living in a primarily Latinx neighborhood, Niki attended a dual immersion program, learning both English and Spanish at the same time. She even remembers hearing stories of conquistadors before hearing stories of American presidents. A traditional middle school followed elementary school, and then a public charter school. 

“I am comfortable with ambiguity. Being mixed race, but also many of the intersections and borderlands and all the things I've experienced in my life allow me to see the both-and of situations. I lived and grew up in a neighborhood in San Francisco that was very much a border neighborhood between all the folks who work for Google and Apple and then a very impoverished part of the neighborhood. 

There were Italian, Mexican, and Irish Catholic families that had been there from the turn of the century and all went to the same church. And then even being Mexican and Filipino, those cultures that are mixed with many, many indigenous Spanish, Chinese, Dutch, all these different communities. And so I am more than comfortable in situations where we are figuring out a thing together, in spite of, or because of the both-and.” 

As an educator, Niki’s roles have not been confined to traditional spaces. She’s always been someone who’s been interested in the bigger picture, thinking systemically, and wondering how decisions and policies will affect whole communities. 

In college, Niki had aspirations of becoming a writer and majoring in Ethnic Studies. Since her school didn’t offer that major, she decided to take several sociology and education courses, and eventually she became an HR recruiter for the San Francisco Unified School District, the very district she is a  product of. 

Niki would later transition to the role of policy advocate within the system, where she fought for students dealing with parental incarceration, chronic homelessness, and housing instability. She has also worked as an independent consultant. Today, Niki serves as a Senior Project Manager for the Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS). In her work with CARS, Niki partners with a team from the School Crisis Recovery and Renewal Project, which focuses on expanding the school crisis continuum of care. This means offering support to teachers, students, and families seeking to recover from a crisis. In California, it included helping people manage displacement from wildfires, and find access to resources that could help. More than anything, the program is an exercise in intentional presence. 

Niki believes that too often meaningful mentorship has been reserved for persons who fit neatly into social, cultural, and professional categories. Prior to engaging with Surge, Niki didn’t have access to mentors of color, or mentors who could help her navigate a more nontraditional and entrepreneurial path in education. That changed with her Surge cohort. 

“I continue to seek replications of the {Surge} community in other spaces, and there are no learning communities that create an environment where folks who are Latinx, Black, and Afro-Latino can be together,learn together, and from one another.” 

We are grateful for Surge Alumni like Niki Magtoto, who check the most important box: transformational leader.

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