ALIANZA AMERICAS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Vice - President
- Executive Director of CARECEN
Abel Núñez is executive director of CARECEN in Washington D.C., with extensive experience in management and fundraising for organizations, as well as a history of community activism. Prior to CARECEN, he was the associate director of Centro Romero in Chicago, IL, and was primarily responsible for day-to-day operations, fiscal management, program administration, and communications. Before he moved to Chicago, he worked in D.C. for the Latino Civil Rights Center. From 1998 to 2000, he was also on the staff of CARECEN, serving first as its citizenship and civic participation project coordinator and later as its deputy director. At the national level, he has served as an advisor for the Salvadoran American National Network (SANN) since 2008. He is one of the original founders of the "Residency Now" campaign, which was launched in January 2012 to urge for permanent legal residence for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua with Temporary Protected Status. He obtained his degree in business administration from Hofstra University in Long Island, New York.
Job Titles:
- Director of Lila LGBTQ Inc
- Executive Director of Lila LGBTQ, North Carolina
Alex Córdova is currently the director of Lila LGBTQ Inc., integrating art such as painting, dance, and theater as a path to healing the social aggression suffered by the LGBTQ+ community, in addition to the traditional programs of prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Alex is from El Salvador and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1989. Alex has been an activist for the LGBTQ+ community for many years as a worker and founder of groups such as Hermanos de Luna y Sol, Padres Gay, Teatro LGBTQ+, Santi Project, and Sida Por Vida. He has worked many years in public health for HIV and AIDS prevention, and in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic . After moving to Durham, North Carolina in 2006, Alex created the LGBTQ program Bolero Pequeño Teatro Latino, a theater that features work on LGBTQ+ themes and immigrant experiences.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor
- Senior Advisor to
Amy Shannon serves as a Senior Advisor to Alianza Americas, providing strategic and programmatic analysis and guidance. She has worked extensively in philanthropy, both as a consultant and as a program officer in the Environment Programs at both the C.S. Mott Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where she researched rural financial systems, sustainable enterprise, and social marketing. Amy has lived and worked extensively in Latin America, and now resides in Arizona.
Job Titles:
- America 's Associate Director of Operations
- Associate Director of Operations
Annette Uriostegui serves as Alianza America's associate director of operations. In this role, Annette seeks to give administrative support to her team while finding innovative ways to sustain and maximize organizational capacity. Before joining Alianza Americas in June 2020, Annette's leadership and organizational management come from managing legal offices and community-based non-profit organizations both in her hometown of Melrose Park and Chicago. After being enlisted in the Army National Guard for 8 years, Annette received a Bachelors in Gender and Women Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. As someone whose family has been impacted by the broken immigration system in the United States, her personal experience as a Mexican-American daughter of immigrant parents is what has always rooted her work in social justice and advocacy with an emphasis on human and immigrant rights.
Job Titles:
- Somos Salud Project Director
Bruce Tyler is the Somos Salud Project Director at Alianza Americas, managing the organization's national health initiatives. He currently oversees two federal grant projects funded by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). In this role, Bruce works with Alianza's member organizations to develop and implement health education and outreach strategies that address health inequities impacting Latinx and Latin American immigrant communities. Bruce has extensive experience working with immigrants and refugees from Latin American countries. In his previous experience Bruce helped manage a child nutrition program for farmworker families in the Rio Grande Valley under La Unión del Pueblo Entero (formerly United Farm Workers) in San Juan, Texas. During his time in Boston Bruce helped refugees from Central American countries obtain official refugee status by supporting their application process through INS. Most recently, Bruce worked at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) as a professor teaching Latin American Studies, Mexican Studies, and Latin American Environmental Studies. Bruce holds a Master's degree from the Universidad de Guadalajara, where he completed fieldwork among artisanal fishing communities in Jalisco, Mexico. He is ABD in Development Sociology from Cornell University, and is currently completing a MPH in Community Health Sciences at UIC.
Job Titles:
- Associate Executive Director
Carolina was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and brought into the United States by her mother in 1994. She is a 2011 graduate of Richfield High School. Carolina is a DACA recipient who is currently studying communications at Normandale Community College while working full-time as the communications director for COPAL. In addition to her recent founding of the Mírame | LOOK.AT.ME project, Carolina is a community activist who has contributed her time and talents to organizations such as Youth Frontiers, Youth Link, Sharing and Caring Hands, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and Saint John's University since she was a teenager. Carolina is very passionate about her family and friends and engaged in her jobs, her education, and Mírame. But she is also interested in connecting with others who share her interest in social justice.
Job Titles:
- Health Latinx Peer Support Specialist
Cindy Garcia is the Mental Health Latinx Peer Support Specialist at "AIDS Alabama and Alabama Latino AIDS Coalition" where she connects Latinx persons who live with HIV / AIDS with social services in Birmingham, Alabama. She was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Salinas De Hidalgo, SLP Mexico. While living in Alabama in 2011, she became an activist when HB56 went into effect, a law that criminalized undocumented migrants in Alabama. Cindy focused her efforts on protecting children whose parents were arrested and deported. Cindy also founded the Immigrants Alabama Movement (I AM), the first all-volunteer group in Birmingham, AL. I AM fought against discrimination against immigrants in the state.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director for Strategy and Development
Dulce Dominguez is originally from Ixtapan de la Sal, Mexico, and immigrated with her family to the United States at the age of 2 years old. Dulce is now a DACA recipient and has worked in the Lake County, Illinois community as an advocate for immigrant families. She is a co-founder for a grassroots initiative in Northern Illinois known as the Center for Immigrant Progress, working to engage Latino and Immigrant Youth to gain leadership skills and advocate for immigrant rights. She first joined Alianza Americas in 2018 as part of her graduate internship in policy and research, where she spearheaded two research projects focused on the health and safety of outdoor immigrant workers. Dulce obtained a Bachelor's degree in Social Work from Northeastern Illinois University and a Master's Degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. As the associate director for strategy and development, Dulce is charged with leading the organization's institutional support and partnerships to continue growing Alianza's impact.
Elmer Romero represents CARECEN in Houston, Texas as the director of strategies and partnerships. He has recently worked as an educator working as a program manager at the Houston Center for Literacy. Previously, he developed programming and oversaw local and federal contracts and grant implementation for Baker Ripley/Neighborhood Centers, Inc. in Harris County. Before moving to Texas, he was the director of education for CASA Inc. of Maryland,. He has a degree in journalism from the University of El Salvador and a diploma of advanced studies in popular education and community development from the University "Antonio Ruiz De Montoya," the Jesuit University in Perú. Before moving to the U.S. in 2000, he worked in his home country of El Salvador for 15 years as the director of publications for Asociación Equipo Maíz, El Salvador, one of the most prestigious education non-profits in Central America. He used popular education methods for adult education that are grounded in a vision for participatory democracy.
Elyssa Pachico leads communications strategy and press outreach at Alianza Americas. She has over 10 years experience in journalism, research, advocacy and human rights in the United States and Latin America.
Throughout her career, she has specialized in helping mission-driven organizations expand their impact through innovative and results-oriented communications strategies. Prior to joining Alianza, she supported and led communications at the Washington Office at Latin America. She has also led programs at the International Center for Journalists and InSight Crime. She has an MA in journalism from America University. She grew up in Cali, Colombia, and is currently based in Medellín.
Erick Garcia serves as Alianza Americas and Presente.org's Senior Technologist. He is originally from Veracruz, Mexico and migrated to the United States at 11 years old. He graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelors in Computer Science in 2011. After becoming DACAmented in 2012 he chose to continue powering up and growing the Latinx online organizing community because he believes that significant social change can only happen with our communities at the forefront who have the potential to overcome adversities. He was selected as one of the Voqal 2019 fellows to pursue his #GameTheSystem project, which sought to be a first of its kind, web-based, mobile-ready gamified action dashboard for grassroots organizing that leverages existing interactive organizing platforms and utilizes mobile technology, texting, email and social media. As the Senior Technologist for both Alianza Americas and its digital organizing powerhouse, Presente.org, he is helping upgrade digital and translocal organizing infrastructure, aimed at engaging and building leadership and participation of Latinx and immigrant communities.
Job Titles:
- Director of Illinois Workers in Action
Giselle Rodriguez is an immigrant woman from Nayarit, Mexico, and is 25 years old. Currently, she is the director of Illinois Workers in Action (IWA) and is the Director of Education at the Center for Immigrant Progress. Giselle's passion is advocating and organizing for immigrant and workers' rights, specifically for immigrant youth. She received her bachelor's degree in Social Work from Northeastern Illinois University in 2019. In 2020 she received her Master's Degree from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. Giselle has a wide range of experience working with nonprofits focused on immigrant advocacy, education, workers' rights, and survivors of sexual assault. Giselle believes that through advocacy, education, organizing, and leadership development we can empower our young immigrant communities. Giselle's most important goal is to make higher education more accessible to young immigrants and to educate migrant workers about their rights. As an immigrant herself, Giselle believes that education should be accessible to all students.
Job Titles:
- Youth and Farmworker Program Director for the American Friends Service Committee Florida Program
Guadalupe De La Cruz serves as the youth and farmworker program director for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Florida program. She leads AFSC Florida's mutual aid work by bringing food, cash assistance, COVID-19 testing, and personal protective equipment (PPE) to hundreds of farmworkers and their families in Homestead, Florida. She is also a tri-chair of the Florida Coordinating Committee for the Poor People's Campaign. Guadalupe has been a tireless advocate and educator for immigrant families and farmworkers in Homestead, FL for the last 10 years, organizing as part of a worker-led movement for labor rights, higher wages, and better working conditions. Guadalupe has been instrumental in building an influential youth-led immigrant movement and winning local victories, such as shutting down the Homestead Detention Center for Immigrant Youth in 2019. She is a co-founder of Seeds of Resistance, which is a program that focuses on addressing the needs of immigrant youth by fully integrating art, ancestral knowledge, political education, agro-ecology, and trauma-healing work to the local immigrant justice movement.
Job Titles:
- ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR for PROGRAMS
Helena Olea currently serves as Associate Director for Programs at Alianza Americas. She is an international human rights lawyer with advocacy and litigation experience before intergovernmental bodies and governmental agencies. Helena is an attorney authorized to practice law in Colombia, with an L.L.M. from the University of Notre Dame. She has over 12 years of teaching and research experience on human rights, migration, refugees, and gender. She has also worked for non-governmental organizations in Colombia and Chile. Helena has dedicated her professional life to the human rights of migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, and women, combining advocacy and academia.
Job Titles:
- Data and Support Resources Manager
Based in Chicago, IL, Jonathan joined the Alianza Americas team in November of 2021 as the Data and Support Resources Manager for the Somos Salud project. In this role, Jonathan helps manage, process, report and analyze data for two federally funded projects. Jonathan has previously worked on a campaign promoting a series of immigrant rights legislations and as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he obtained both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Latin American and Latino Studies. Jonathan hopes to use his deep understanding of Latin American and Latino history and his commitment to humane policy to help carry out Alianza Americas mission and help the Somos Salud project address health disparities in the Latino community.
Job Titles:
- Casildo Executive Director of Familias Unidas En Acción, New Orleans
- Executive Director of Familias Unidas
Juana Leticia Casildo is the executive director of Familias Unidas en Acción in New Orleans. Originally from Honduras, she worked as an investigative detective for five years. In 2004 she was forced to leave Honduras to protect her life and the lives of her family members and moved to New Orleans in 2005. In 2007, she gained her first experience in the fight for social justice by working with the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice as part of their Congress of Day Laborers. Alongside other community leaders, she recently started an organization called United Families in Action (Familias Unidas en Acción) in 2018, where she was selected as executive director. The organization seeks to organize, empower, and train immigrant community members, keeping in mind the founders' own experiences as impacted families.
Job Titles:
- Treasurer
- Executive Director of the Central American Resource Center
Lariza Dugan-Cuadra is the executive director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) of northern California, an organization that provides direct services and is involved in community development and advocacy to help create a flourishing and vibrant Latinx community in San Francisco, the Bay Area. and beyond. Lariza has almost two decades of experience in designing and implementing community development initiatives that educate and improve the lives of children, families, and immigrant communities in San Francisco and the Bay Area. She earned a B.A. in humanities with an emphasis on community development and a minor in racial justice studies, as well as a certification in early childhood education. She attended City College in San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and New College of California. She is proudly Nicaraguan-Irish, raised in Managua and currently living in San Francisco's Mission District.
Luis López Resendiz is currently CIELO's Indigenous interpreter program director; he is a Ñuú Savi. He is committed to taking the struggle for the respect of the rights of Indigenous peoples to spaces where Indigenous peoples are not represented and to make visible their migration to the United States. He graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a B.A. in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. He is a poet whose work has been presented at the Center for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley. Mr. Resendiz has been featured in La Jornada, la Trinchera , KPFK, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and El Excelsior. Currently, he is a host on Tu'un Dali Podcast, a podcast for and by Indigenous people.
Job Titles:
- Director of Presente and Associate Director for Digital Impact
Matt Nelson is the Colombian-born, Midwestern-raised Director of Presente.org (now part of Alianza Americas) and the Associate Director for Digital Impact at Alianza. Prior to his work at Presente and Alianza, Matt served as the Organizing Director at Color Of Change. He has co-founded several cooperative enterprises in multiple Midwestern cities, including a Pizzeria in Milwaukee's Southside. He is a long-serving community organizer and campaign strategist who was featured in the first major book on the Ferguson Uprising, "Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion". He contributed to the book, "Welcome to the Revolution: Universalizing Resistance for Social Justice and Democracy in Perilous Times" as well as, "If We Want to Win: A Latine Vision for a New American Democracy" and is an editor of, "Turnout! Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency" (Routledge 2020), EmergencyElection.org. He is finishing a new book on how Latinx organizing and cultural power is reshaping U.S. politics (Routledge 2022).
Job Titles:
- Climate Justice Organizer
Melanie Minuche joined Alianza Americas as the organization's Climate Justice Organizer in November 2021. In this role, she is helping develop and drive the organization's climate justice agenda through a transnational, migration, and racial justice lens. Before joining Alianza America, Melanie worked with asylum-seeking unaccompanied migrant youth from West Africa, Central America, and Southeast Asia, many of whom were fleeing gender-based violence, political persecution, and climate displacement. Melanie graduated from Loyola University of Chicago with a Bachelor's degree in Social Work and a minor in Communication/Advocacy and Social Change studies. As a daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants, Melanie's passion for advancing human mobility and migration rights stems from envisioning a world free of borders and rooted in community.
Mirtha Colón is originally from Honduras and has lived in New York for almost 40 years. She currently serves as president of Hondureños contra el SIDA (Hondurans Against HIV/AIDS), an organization that promotes healthy practices and education about HIV / AIDS in both New York City and Central America. She also serves as president of Organización Negra Centroamericana (ONECA), an organization based in Central America with headquarters in Bluefields, Nicaragua. ONECA fights for human rights and social justice and seeks to improve the quality of life of Latinos, Central Americans and, in particular, of Central Americans of African descent.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director for Network Power
- Trainer, and Campaign Strategist from Miami
Nancy Treviño is a community organizer, trainer, and campaign strategist from Miami, Florida. She is the Associate Director for Network Power at Alianza Americas. Prior to her role at Alianza Americas, Nancy worked alongside dozens of grassroots community organizations across the U.S., collaborated with national and international human rights organizations, and continues providing strategic organizing, digital, and communications support to advance social justice movements. She has trained dozens of activists across the country, won multiple local and national human rights campaigns, and is a contributor to the book, "Turnout! Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency."
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Executive Director
Oscar A. Chacón is a co-founder and executive director of Alianza Americas. Before stepping into his current role in 2007, Oscar served in leadership positions at the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the Boston-based Centro Presente, and several other community-based and international development organizations. Oscar has also served on multiple advisory committees to national and international processes including the Civil Society Consultation process associated with the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the World Social Forum on Migration. Oscar is a frequent national and international spokesperson on transnationalism, economic justice, the link between migration and development, migrant's integration processes, human mobility, migration policies, racism and xenophobia; and U.S. Latino community issues.
Rita Marcela Robles lives in Mexico City and joined the Alianza Americas team in October 2021. She has a law degree from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with a specialty in international migration from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte. She also completed a master's degree in Defense and Promotion of Human Rights at the Autonomous University of Mexico City and studied critical theory on African issues including children and gender rights. Rita has collaborated in organizational processes with workers who have sought to democratize their unions in Mexico, has participated with groups in defense of the land and territory and over the last ten years, she has been dedicated to the defense and promotion of human rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.
Job Titles:
- President of Women Working Together USA
Rosana Araujo was a co-founder of Women Working Together USA, a member of Alianza Americas and the Domestic Workers Alliance, where she is president. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Rosana Araujo attended la Universidad de Cultura Popular to earn a degree in arts and culture. She has been an activist from a young age and has participated in student movements against the Uruguayan dictatorship. She participated in the "landless" and "homeless" movements as well as movements for women's rights as one of the founders of Comuna Mujer. She participated in several education and health efforts within the Montevideo government and was a UNICEF volunteer as part of the "Integrating the Excluded City" project. In December 2002, she immigrated to the United States. In 2007, she joined the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) and has also collaborated with the Miami Workers Center, Sisterhood of Survivors, and other organizations in Miami --participating in hundreds of campaigns for the rights of immigrants, survivors of domestic violence, and displacement. Araujo served as vice president of the board of directors of Miami Workers Center and WeCount! In 2009, she was a correspondent for the Uruguayan radio El Prado FM and in 2014 she was the founder of the "Entre Nosotras Compartimos" program.
Job Titles:
- Strategic Narrative Manager
Sara Ritchie currently serves as the Strategic Narrative Manager at Alianza Americas. She steps into this role after five years in Guatemala working with locally-led community development projects, primarily in rural, Indigenous communities. Her experience with non-profit organizations extends to the U.S.-Mexico border where she worked in communications for a humanitarian aid organization supporting migrants and refugees. She combines her background in communications and work in Central America and Mexico to now accompany member organizations and migrant communities who are part of the Alianza Americas network.
Job Titles:
- Social Worker
- Membership Organizer
Based in Chicago, IL, Sarah is a transnational social worker with a desire to promote humane migration policies throughout the Americas through strategic organizing and building collective power. Sarah received her Bachelor's degree in Social Work from Creighton University and now holds a graduate degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice with a specialization in Global Social Development and a Graduate Certificate in Latin American and Caribbean studies. Sarah spent two years living and working throughout Latin America promoting human rights and now serves as Alianza America's Membership Organizer. In this role, she supports member organizations through grassroots and digital organizing, capacity building, and legislative advocacy.
Job Titles:
- Individual Donor Engagement Manager
Ximena Leyte Escalante is originally from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico and immigrated to the United States with her mother when she was eight years old. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Master of Arts in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago's Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Ximena first joined Alianza Americas in 2019 as part of her graduate internship in social policy and research. She later joined the team as a development consultant in August of 2021, before transitioning into her current role. Ximena supports the management of Alianza's development efforts by writing and coordinating grants, strategizing individual fundraising, and helping manage the organization's institutional support and partnerships. Above all, Ximena values working in community with people and is passionate about helping advance the fight for social equity and justice for migrant communities across the Americas.
Job Titles:
- National Campaigns Manager
Yanira Arias joined the Alianza Americas team in August 2014 to coordinate the network's response to the detention and stigmatization of thousands of Central American children and their families at the U.S. southern border. In December of that same year, she became Alianza Americas' new national campaigns manager. A native of El Salvador, she brings more than a decade of experience in the field of public health, with special expertise in community mobilization and participation, community organizing, and capacity building to address health disparities and social justice issues. From 2003 to 2012 Yanira was part of the Latino Commission on AIDS in New York, where she served as Director of Community Organizing for the Latinos in the Deep South. In that role, she led the development and implementation of the Dennis deLeon Sustainable Leadership Institute for emerging leaders in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Yanira graduated from the University of El Salvador in 1996 with a degree in journalism.
Yareliz Méndez-Zamora serves as Secretary on the Alianza Americas Board of Directors, and is also currently the TPS program coordinator at the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC). Born and raised in Florida, she was inspired by stories of immigration from her family to become an activist for migrants. Her family is originally from the land of lakes and volcanoes: Nicaragua. She graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in literature and history and a specialty in Latin American Studies. Recently, she graduated from the University of Miami with a master's degree in education, with a focus on communities and social movements. She is involved with Latinas Rebels, was the coordinator for the Latin@ Diaspora in the Americas Program, student government senator at the University of Florida, an intern at the public defender's offices in Broward, an ambassador to La Casita, a contributor to the Huffington Post, and more.
Job Titles:
- Leadership and Capacity Building Manager
Zorayda Ávila is originally from Zacapu, Michoacan, and now lives in Chicago. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Morelia University and a certificate in sexual education from the Mexican Institute of Sexology in Mexico City, as well as a graduate degree in citizen integration politics from the University of Valencia. Before joining Alianza Americas, Zory served as executive director of Casa Michoacan, a cultural and educational center in Chicago. She is a board member of the Network of Mexican Leaders and Organizations and a member of the Transnational Women's Collective (Colectivo de Mujeres Trasnacionales). Zory's focus areas are in mental health and human rights, with a particular focus on building women's leadership and strengthening the capacity of immigrant women as community leaders.