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Chris Zepeda-Millan

Professor, UCLA

Biography

Chris Zepeda-Millan is the Chair of Labor Studies and an associate professor in the Departments of Public Policy and Chicana/o & Central American Studies at UCLA. His research focuses on issues related to social movements, immigration, and racial politics.

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Claudia Sandoval

Political Scientist, Univision

Biography

Claudia Sandoval is currently an Assistant Professor in the Political Science and International Relations Department at Loyola Marymount University. Her work focuses on Black-Latino relations, Latino political behavior. and transnational politics. Sandoval's work has been featured in The Washington Post, Latino Rebels, and Univision.  Her most recent article, "Allies or Aliens: Understanding Black and Latine Relations through Racial Naturalization, Alienization, and Certification" (2022) was published by Ethnic and Racial Studies.  Since 2020, Sandoval have served as the Sub-Secretary of Education with the immigrant hometown association, Federacion de Clubes Zacatecanos. Sandoval received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago with concentrations in American politics and race and politics.

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Emilio Amaya

San Bernardino Immigration Services Inc.

Biography

Born in Mexico, Emilio Amaya migrated to this country when he was 13 years old as an unaccompanied minor. He went through the experience of being a homeless child, migrant worker, day laborer, food worker, and union representative. He was the immigration services program for several years for Libreria del Pueblo Inc and currently serves as Executive Director of San Bernardino Community Service Center, Inc. in the Inland Empire, where he has been involved in immigrant rights defense and advocacy. His organization provides direct immigration and legal services to immigrants in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

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Esther Portillo

Advocate

Biography

Esther Portillo has dedicated her life to protecting the environment and building people power to fight for dignity and rights of immigrants across the country. As the National coordinator for the National TPS Campaign, she along with TPS holders organized against the Trump administration's termination of Protective Status (TPS) holders legal status. Portillo continues her environmental work as the Western City/State advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

She is the recipient of a human rights award from the Petra Foundation and a research fellowship with Race Forward. She was named as the 2018 Woman of the Year for California's 61st State Assembly district. Portillo holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She resides in the Inland region with her two children, Alitizel and Alfonso.

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Gustavo Arellano

Writer

Biography

Gustavo Arellano is an LA Times columnist and host of the podcast “This is California: The Battle of 187”

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Jorge C. Hernandez

Judge

Biography

Jorge C. Hernandez is Superior Court Judge for the County of Riverside. He is currently assigned to the Banning Justice center. He was appointed to the bench in July 2008. Prior to being elevated to the bench, he was an attorney in private practice in Riverside. He graduated from North High School in Riverside, California in 1981. He graduated from UCRiverside 1986. He received his Juris Doctorate from Hastings College of Law in San Francisco in 1989. He received his initial training at the Riverside County Public Defender’s Office. From 1994 to his appointment to the bench, he was a private practitioner concentrating in the area of criminal and was certified by the California State Bar as a Criminal Law Specialist. He has taught an introductory course to criminal law at Riverside Community College for the associate’s degree program in the Administration of Justice. He has taught one-day seminars at the Ben E. Clark Training Center in the area of effective police report writing. He was an adjunct instructor at Mt San Jacinto Community College for 10 years teaching Chicano Sociology and he was an instructor for Raza Studies, which was a community based course spear- headed by students. He has four sons. The oldest, Jorge, is a graduate of UCR with a BA in English and a Masters degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (T.E.S.L.) from University of the Pacific. He has been teaching English in S. Korea for the last 9 years. Francisco is also a graduate of UCR with both a B.A. in Spanish Linguistics and a multi-subject teaching credential. He is teaching 4th grade in Riverside. Diego graduated from UCR with a B.S. in Math and Masters of Science in Math from San Jose State University. He is currently living and working in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Elias graduated from UCR with a B.A. in liberal studies and is working in the area of academic support for a community based program.

A former teacher of Chicano studies, and a father of four, Jorge Hernandez is a Superior Court Judge for the County of Riverside, California—but life wasn’t always so official. Growing up poor, Jorge turned his adversity into opportunity, but it required the resilience, dedication, and hunger for achievement that was nurtured by his desire to succeed. After earning a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Riverside, he went on to earn a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and after working as a public defender, he became a sole practitioner before being appointed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008 as a Superior Court Judge. A dedicated supporter of Riverside Art Museum and now the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, Judge Hernandez is the founder of the Pachuco Ball, held every August to support programs and services of the museum. The host of Radio Aztlan on KUCR 88.3 FM, Jorge is also a lowrider enthusiast, collects Chicano art, AND has a vast collection of early Chicano music.

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Jose Medina

Assemblyman

Biography

Jose Medina served in the California State Assembly and represented the 61st Assembly District, which includes the cities of Riverside, Moreno Valley, Perris and Mead Valley.

Medina was the Chair of the Higher Education Committee[2] and a member of the California Latino Legislative Caucus. Prior to being elected to the Assembly in 2012, he was a teacher and MEChA advisor at Riverside Poly High School and a Riverside Community College District Trustee.

In 2018, Jose Medina secured $9.7 million in state funds to support the development of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry. Medina also authored the Ethnic Studies bill that passed the California legislature in 2022.

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Jose Prado

Educator

Biography

Jose Prado teaches, writes, presents and organizes nationally and internationally. His work builds on popular education strategies across schooling and in various community settings since 1986 as an adult literacy educator, community-based after-school program assistant director, bilingual educator, adult ESL instructor, as radio host, community-run literacy instructor, and as university professor of sociology. His work has been published in Mexico and the United States and is generally rooted in the cultural and educational experiences of Chicana/o and Black labor.

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Lalo Alcaraz

Artist

Biography

Lalo Alcaraz, born in San Diego to Mexican immigrant parents from Sinaloa and Zacatecas, is creator of the 21 year old nationally syndicated comic strip, "La Cucaracha." A Finalist for the 2020/2021 Pulitzer Prizes in Editorial Cartooning and winner 2022 Herb Block Prize, Lalo is also Artist in Residence at ASU, a writer, producer, and Cultural Consultant. Credits include Pixar’s COCO, Nickelodeon’s “The Casagrandes”, FOX’s animated series, “Bordertown”, and Forza Horizon 5 on Xbox. Education: BA in Art, SDSU and M. Arch from UC Berkeley, and taught Illustration at OTIS College of Art & Design.

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Laura Alfaro

Artist

Biography

Laura Alfaro is a young Salvadoran migrant, artist, with a specialty in Design. Graduated from Los Angeles Mission College in Graphic and Web Design. In 2022 she graduated with a Bachelor of arts with a focus on Illustration from California State University Northridge (CSUN). She has been a volunteer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) since 2018 and works with the popular Education program since 2022, designing popular education materials on different topics of interest to the organization, facilitating popular education and technology workshops, and since 2020 she has been part of the team for the construction, design and maintenance of the popedliberates.org website.

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Lizbeth Abeln

IE Immigration Justice Coalition

Biography

Coming soon

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Mario Perez

Professor

Biography

Mario Rios Perez is an associate professor in Cultural Foundations of Education, a faculty affiliate in Women's and Gender Studies and the Linguistics Program, and a Senior Research Associate in the Program on Latin America & the Caribbean at Syracuse University. Professor Perez specializes in the historical construction of space and race, global migration, transnationalism, and Latinx history. His book titled “Subjects of Resistance: Education, Race, and Transnational Life in Mexican Chicago, 1910-1940” is forthcoming with Rutgers University Press. He is commencing a new project that explores how the Chicana/o/x power movements have redefined institutions of higher education.

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Ralph Armbruster

Professor, UCSB

Biography

Ralph Armbruster Sandoval is Professor in the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at UCSB Santa Barbara. He is also Faculty Director of the UCSB Community Labor Project. He has published two books, on one the anti-sweatshop movement, focusing on cross-border labor organizing campaigns between U.S. and Central American unions, and the other on hunger strikes organized by Chicanx/Latinx university students in the 1990s.

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Roberto Lovato

UNLV

Biography

Roberto Lovato is the award-winning author of Unforgetting (Harper Collins), a “groundbreaking” memoir the New York Times picked as an “Editor’s Choice.” Newsweek listed Lovato’s memoir as a “must read” 2020 book and the Los Angeles Times listed it as one of its 20 Best Books of 2020. Lovato is also an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He also led CARECEN at a time when it played a definitive role in the fight against Proposition 187. Las Vegas. In addition to receiving a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, journalist Lovato has reported on numerous issues—racism, criminal justice, psychedelics and health, violence, terrorism, the drug war and the immigration and refugee crisis—from across the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and France, among other countries.

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Rosa Martha Zárate Macías

Educator

Biography

Rosa Martha Zárate Macías is originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco. She has lived in California since 1966. Retired Primary Education teacher, theologian, educator and popular organizer, singer-songwriter. Since 1970 he has been active in social movements in defense, organization and support of the migrant community in the United States. She is co-founder of Librería del Pueblo, Inc. non-profit community organization in San Bernardino, CA. For 23 years he has been a member of the binational coordination team of the Alliance of Former Northern Braceros 1942-1964. Rosa Martha is known as the Lady of Song for her musical compositions that recount the journey, struggle and hopes of the migrant community in their fight for justice and the right to live with dignity.

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Russell Jauregui

Attorney

Biography

Currently Staff Attorney with San Bernardino Community Service Center (SBCSC), a non profit organization that provides legal services in immigration law to community members of the Inland Empire. My role as staff Attorney is to represent people in removal proceedings before the Immigration Court. Our office emphasizes representing families and minors before the immigration court. Also active with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and Immigration Committee the Latino(a) Roundtable. I am currently a board member of Inland Empire Latino Lawyers, an organization that provides pro bono assistance in civil law matters, including restraining orders for undocumented women who are victims of domestic violence. Throughout my career as an attorney, always been involved in efforts to defend and empower the immigrant community, especially in the Inland Empire.

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Sara Borjas

Poet

Biography

SARA BORJAS is a self-identified Xicanx pocha and a Fresno poet. Her debut collection, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff (Noemi Press, 2019) received a 2020 American Book Award. Sara was featured as one of Poets & Writers 2019 Debut Poets. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Ragdale, CantoMundo, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, Art Omi, Storyknife, Postgraduate Writers Conference, and Community of Writers. She believes that all Black lives matter and will resist white supremacy until Black liberation is realized. She teaches at California State University, East Bay and stays rooted in Fresno.

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Sarah Rafael García

Author

Biography

Sarah Rafael García is an award-winning Chicana author, multimedia artist, and literary arts advocate raised in Santa Ana, California. As a child of immigrants and a first-generation university graduate, she knows first-hand what it means to fail and triumph in life. Her second book, SanTana’s Fairy Tales, is part of an oral history multimedia exhibition awarded by the Andy Warhol Foundation, and a required Ethnic Studies text in the Santa Ana Unified School District. García is the founder of LibroMobile Arts Cooperative and the 2023-2025 Visiting Professor of Creative Writing with the Latinx Lab at the CSUF Chicana/o Studies Department.

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Tim Z. Hernandez

Author

Biography

Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author, researcher, and performer. His books include fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and he’s the recipient of the American Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award. His work has been featured in national and international media, and in 2018 he was recognized by the California Senate for his work uncovering the story of the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon, which is chronicled in his books, All They Will Call You, and his forthcoming, They Call You Back. He’s an Associate Professor with the University of Texas El Paso’s Bilingual Creative Writing program.