GOOD FOR MORALES

I met Yaneki Morales at the Canyon Lodge Coffee Bar. I was immediately drawn to her easy-going, confident attitude and magnetic personality. Morales banters with her employees and makes a mean caramel macchiato. 

But what strikes me most is her quiet intelligence. It’s reflected in the individual relationship she cultivates with every employee at Canyon, and her ability to memorize each of their coffee orders.

All that, and she’s married, pregnant, and 20-years-old.

Morales was born and raised in Bishop to Mexican immigrants. She still lives in a house with her mother and three brothers. Morales started working as a cashier at Canyon Lodge when she was 17, where her mother had been working since 2005.

“My mom is really just my rock,” Morales said. “Even when I’m having a bad day, she will always support me and listen. I really love working with her.”

Morales quickly climbed the ranks in the food and beverage operations at Canyon. Towards the end of her first season of work, she started working in the coffee bar. At 19, she became the supervisor.

“Canyon has offered such great stability for me and my family,” she reflected.

Stability wasn’t always a given for Morales. Her parents moved with her oldest brother from Escuinapa, Mexico, to Bishop in 2003. Two years later, Morales was born. Her father was addicted to drugs, leaving her mother to raise Morales and her three brothers alone. 

When Morales was 11, her 16-year-old brother was diagnosed with kidney failure. Her mother frequently traveled with him to Los Angeles and San Diego for treatment, and the responsibility for her two younger brothers fell on Morales.

“I had to mature,” Morales said. “But it was good for me.”

Morales’ mother didn’t qualify for government funded child-care programs, due to her immigration status. When her mother left Bishop to care for brother, Morales looked after her other siblings alone.

“It was a lot, helping to raise my younger brothers,” she said.

High school posed a new set of challenges for Morales. When the pandemic hit during her freshman year at Bishop Union, her mental health spiraled. She was diagnosed with bipolar depression.

“It was a really hard time for me,” she recalled. “I turned to food a lot … I was a bigger girl.” 

When class began again, Morales was relentlessly bullied. The boys in her gym class, she said, were particularly awful.

“Kids are mean,” she remembered. “There were not a lot of people I could trust, or let into my circle, because I didn’t know what their intentions were. I didn’t know if they wanted to be my friend, or if they were just making fun of me.”

By her junior year, Morales had enough. One day, she fought back, and broke a metal lacrosse stick over a peer’s back. Morales withdrew immediately from the school before she could be expelled.

Morales subsequently finished her high school education at Palisade Glacier High, a continuation school in Big Pine, where she graduated six months early. The program she entered was aimed specifically towards high-risk teens in Inyo County, assisting them with the transition into college and the workforce.

The difference between her experience at Bishop Union and Palisade Glacier was stark. In Bishop, Morales felt her teachers simply didn’t care about her. They never stepped in to halt the bullying. But at Palisade, it was a different story.

“When I went to Palisade, they were so open to hearing my story and listening to my battle with depression,” she said. “They let me do school from home and finish my work.”

The following summer, Morales went back to her mother’s hometown of Escuinapa, Mexico for a four month stint. There, on the beach, she met her future husband, Jordi. The pair instantly hit it off.

“I didn’t know someone would love me for what I looked like,” she said. 

Morales knew Yordi was the one, but she also knew she couldn’t marry him after only four months of dating. She returned to the Bishop and to making lattes at the Canyon Coffee Bar. Her coworkers included several J-1s, international short-term employees, many of whom were students.

“They were all really intelligent,” Morales said. “They were part of my inspiration to start community college.”

Morales enrolled in the social studies program at Cerro Coso Community College in Bishop. Her goal was to become a social worker, and work specifically with Dreamers, like her older brother.

“I come from an immigrant family,” she said. “There’s nothing I would have loved more than to help other immigrant families.”

But at $250 per class, the classes at Cerro Coso quickly became too expensive. Her mother’s immigration status prevented her from qualifying for Federal Student Aid (FASFA), and Morales dropped out.

The following summer, she returned to Mexico. In October, Jordi proposed.

“I had never trusted a man so much and been so in love,” Morales said. “I said yes.”

In November of 2025, the pair married. In December, she found out she was pregnant. Though the pregnancy was unplanned, Morales is excited.

“There is nothing I would love more than being a mom,” she said. “Thinking that I could start over, without all the trauma … we went through a lot as a family. Bringing a child into the worldwith a healthier and happier family, was such a beautiful thought on my end.”

Her son, Julian, is due in August. After his birth, Morales plans to re-enroll in school, and pursue her dream of becoming a social worker.