Ana Bonilla-Galdamez is a 2025 Living Legend of Alexandria.
“I always want to tell my students that being Latina is my strength. My roots carry the resilience. Our voices carry our power. And our future is limitless,” said Ana Bonilla-Galdamez, Living Legend of Alexandria. “Believe in you. To every young Latino, please don't ever forget that you belong in every space. Your culture is your gift.”
Ana Bonilla-Galdamez was born in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, in 1971. She remembers a happy childhood, playing with cousins. Her comfortable life abruptly ended when the Salvadoran Civil War broke out. “When the war started, we would see people dead in the streets. It was so terrible. Young men were snatched from the streets and taken either to the military or the guerrilla.”
In one powerful memory, she recalls her mother placing a white handkerchief on a stick to signal neutrality while navigating conflict zones. The war forced her family to leave a beloved life for a difficult journey that left her mother weeping, fearing her daughter would never return. "And she was right," Bonilla-Galdamez reflects. "I never went back. So it was a lot of trauma."
Bonilla-Galdamez was 12 years old when the family immigrated to the United States in December 1982. They landed in Silver Spring, Maryland. Everything was new. And strange. Bonilla-Galdamez went from a house she loved in San Salvador to an apartment in the U.S. She did not speak a word of English.
“People made fun of my accent, the way I dressed, the way I spoke, the fact that I was taller than a lot of the kids in school. I was placed in English as a Second Language program, which was not very sophisticated back in the day.” Bonilla-Galdamez thought back to those early years.
“There were situations where the teacher would ask me questions, and I just looked like a deer caught in the headlights, because I did not understand what they were saying.”
“Our voices carry our power. And our future is limitless.”
— Living Legend Ana Bonilla-Galdamez
Bonilla-Galdamez has come a long way since those early confusing years in a new country. She has transformed the trauma of her childhood into a profound, lifelong mission of service. Her journey was the forge that shaped her into a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a fierce advocate for Alexandria’s most vulnerable youth. She epitomizes the strength that comes from lived experience, relentlessly dedicating decades to the Alexandria City Public Schools since 1997 at both the high school and elementary levels.
Bonilla-Galdamez struggled with undiagnosed learning differences (later diagnosed as ADHD and dysgraphia). The confusion, anger, and sadness led her to "act out at school."
The experience of feeling unseen became her calling. Bonilla-Galdamez realized, “I wanted to become that person that I always wanted to have in front of me. Someone who believed in me.” She pursued social work, earning her bachelor’s in psychology Cum Laude from St. Bonaventure University and her Master of Social Work in Clinical Specialization in Children and Adolescents from Catholic University. Her graduate paper, "Abandono and Reunificacion: The Silent Tragedy of Central American Adolescent Immigrants," laid the intellectual foundation for her life’s work.
Bonilla-Galdamez’s professional career in Alexandria began in 1993, working as a substance abuse counselor and running HIV/AIDS prevention programs on Mill Road. She currently serves as the Family Engagement Social Worker at Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard Campus.
Bonilla-Galdamez’s most lasting legacy is seeing a problem and devising ways to fix it. She recognized unmet needs and created innovative, highly successful programs, often without funding, directive, or institutional backing, which continue to grow and empower the community today. These essential initiatives include:
Youth in Progress (YIP): A mentorship and support program Bonilla-Galdamez founded and coordinates, aimed at improving academic achievement, leadership, and personal growth for over 100 Latino and underserved youth.
LYFE (Latino Youth for Excellence): A critical prevention and intervention program designed to support gang-involved youth and reduce delinquency within the community.
Panda Soles: A shoe drive that successfully collected and distributed hundreds of new sneakers to the neediest children.
Los Padres Hacen La Diferencia: A vital program empowering monolingual Latino parents through culturally and linguistically responsive training.
Mentoring Matters: A sustained initiative that brought public service leaders from the Alexandria Police, Sheriff's Office, and the U.S. District Court together to mentor at-risk youth.
Bonilla-Galdamez’s work is built on the philosophy that "everybody has a strength." She views a struggling child not as a deficit, but as an asset waiting for direction. For youth transitioning to high school, she once told them, "In middle school, you were the passenger. Now in high school, you are the driver." Her role is to guide the kids, not judge them, fostering a bond based on shared experience and humility. "I understood what they were going through," she says, fighting back tears. "Not because I read it in a book, but it was because I went through it myself.”
Bonilla-Galdamez’s work has earned her local and national acclaim. She has been profiled by The Washington Post under the headline "By Any Means Necessary" for her dedicated work. Her formal recognition includes the 2025 National School Social Worker of the Year Award from the SSWAA, the 2015 National Social Worker of the Year from NASW, the 2025 Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching & Family Engagement, the 2025 Champion of Children Award, and the Frederic Milton Thrasher Award for Superior Service in Gang Prevention in 2010.
Ana lives in Lorton, Virginia, with her husband of 30 years, Walter Galdamez. The couple has two sons, 23-year-old Tony, and Alex, 21.
Bonilla-Galdamez’s family is her foundation, leading her to fight for her own children when the school system tried to place her native-born sons in an ESOL program. She carries that dogged advocacy into her professional life every day.
Alexandria Sheriff Sean Casey, who nominated Ana and has witnessed her work firsthand since their days collaborating at Minnie Howard, remarks: "She treats every child as if they were her own and will move mountains to ensure they are supported and seen."