Ileana was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas to a Mexican family that previously lived along the border of U.S. and Mexico. In high school she had the opportunity to go on a service trip to Peru where her passion of travel, culture, and justice began. She wanted to be a Catholic missionary in El Salvador but began focusing on politics and social-economic justice as she worked through her undergrad. Eventually she realized that the only way to enact systemic change was to become political, which is something the Catholic church shields itself from being in public. After she received her BA in Human Geography and Sociology from Sam Houston State University in 2021, she moved to Dallas, Texas for two years. In Dallas Ileana was a community/youth organizer for two political nonprofits that primarily work with Latinos and migrants. Her credits her experiences, both as a Catholic missionary and political organizer, as a foundation for her interest and research in graduate school.