Speakers (G-H)
Emmanuel Gallardo-Sanidad is the proud son of Mexican migrants, Emmanuel was born in California. His family moved to Phoenix in 1992. Emmanuel is an Arizona State alum and studied to be a Spanish secondary teacher. He was a front desk agent and the union shop steward at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown hotel. In 2015, he established the immigration and worker center for UNITE HERE! local 11 in AZ and Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy, a BIA accredited organization.
Juan Gallegos immigrated to the United States at the age of 12. He Attended the University of Nebraska, pursuing a Bachelors of Multimedia, and a minor in Spanish. In 2009, Juan started volunteering in support of the DREAM Act. He came out publicly as undocumented in support of Executive Action in 2010. He is now the Director of Legal Services and Civic Engagement at the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.
Carlos Garcia is the Executive Director of Puente Human Rights Movement, a grassroots migrant justice organization in Phoenix, Arizona. Puente was formed in 2007 in response to the first 287g agreement between police and federal immigration agents in Arizona. Puente’s community work includes the Alto Arizona campaign, lifting up human rights in the wake of the Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law SB1070, the No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice (Undocubus) and the Bazta Arpaio campaign, which helped lead to the ouster of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Isabel Garcia, a fourth-generation Tucsonan, is a longtime human rights advocate and organizer with Coalición de Derechos. As a criminal defense attorney, and as the Director of the Pima County Legal Defender’s Office from 1992 to 2015, she has fought against the injustices in the criminal justice system and the incarceration of our communities. Isabel has championed migrant rights, and has fought against the militarization of the US/Mexico border, bringing international focus on policy-driven death along US/Mexico border.
Adriana Garcia Maximiliano is the Manager of Alumni Programs at The New American Leaders. Her immigrant experience has shaped much of her journey. It currently influences her leadership in recruiting and training progressives all over the country to run for office. Adriana has led various political and issue-based campaigns and organizations in Arizona. She serves on the board of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Alumni Phoenix Chapter, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, and Unlimited Potential. She’s proud to be an alumna of Grand Canyon University, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and The New American Leaders.
Cristina Garcia is the Membership Mobilization Manager at Alianza Americas, a network of immigrant-led organizations. In 2017, she pioneered work bridging migration, climate change, and trade policy in the Americas. Cristina began her career in nonprofit management at Erie Neighborhood House in 2005, where she served in a various leadership positions, among them Director of Adult Programs. participated in the Latino Policy Forum’s Nonprofit Leadership Program in 2013. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Robert Morris University and a Master’s degree in Social Policy from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
Emily Gelbaum is the Training Director for the National Partnership for New Americans. Emily leads NPNA’s Training and Capacity Building Program to empower grassroots immigrant leaders and build organizational capacity within NPNA’s immigrant coalitions and labor union partners for immigrant and worker-led service delivery. Emily coordinates NPNA’s team of state-based Program Coordinators and Community Navigator Trainers across the country and develops and leads trainings to build the scaled implementation of Naturalization, DACA, Eligibility Screenings, and Deportation Defense services for hard to reach immigrant communities.
Rosalind Gold is the Senior Director of Policy, Research and Advocacy with the NALEO Educational Fund, where she has worked for 28 years as an advocate for the organization’s Latino civic engagement efforts. She has extensive expertise in immigrant integration, redistricting and the Census. She serves on the National Institute on Money in State Politics’ Board of Directors, and as Chair of the Future of California Elections Board of Advisors. Ms. Gold received her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Alejandra Gomez began organizing as a response to Arizona's anti-immigrant law SB1070. Since then she has mastered her skills in her state as a result of working with Promise Arizona, Organizing for America, and the Adios Arpaio campaign. Alejandra brought her knowledge to the national stage as the Deputy Organizing Director at United We Dream during the immigration reform push of 2013 and 2014. Nevertheless, the fight for justice has always been at home for Alejandra, and in 2015 she returned to working on local issues as the Co-Executive Director at Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA). At LUCHA she directs a team of organizers and advocates who are making an impact on immigration, workers' rights, and civic engagement efforts. Most recently, her and her team were part of a coalition that took the infamous Sheriff Arpaio out of office and brought the state of Arizona a higher minimum wage. Her vision, experience, and efforts have made Alejandra a leader at the forefront of the changing political landscape in Arizona.
Angel Gonzalez is a Campaign Coordinator for the Civil Rights and Community Affairs Department of the United Food and Commercial Worker International Union, which represents 1.3 million workers.. Mr. Gonzalez gives legal assistance to members and their communities to help them become United States citizens and understand immigration laws. He is a disabled veteran, having served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm during the Persian Gulf War. Mr. Gonzalez earned his B.S. from The Pennsylvania State University and his J.D. from The University of Puerto Rico Law School.
Melonie Griffiths is the National Kinship Manager for BAJI’s Black Immigration Network. She is an immigrant from Jamaica who lives in the Boston area. Her work as a community organizer began in 2008 at City Life/Vida Urbana. As lead organizer, she anchored national bank negotiations, shared the anti-displacement organizing model and coordinated mass mobilization and housing occupations. In 2013 she became the Organizing Director at Mass Jobs with Justice. She joined the Black Immigration Network steering committee in 2015. She has always been committed to prioritizing projects that open up access to leadership development and resources for the Black community.
Alfredo Gutierrez was born in Miami, AZ. He attended ASU, but ended college after leading a student strike to protest the abuse of laundry workers who supplied the university. He was an organizer with the UFW, and helped found Chicanos por la Causa and Valle del Sol in Phoenix. He was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Fellowship in its inaugural year. In 1974, Gutierrez, at 25, was elected to the State Senate and served as Majority or Minority Leader for 14 years. He worked for several years in public relations and lobbying. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002. Today, he works as a private consultant, speaker and teacher, and continues to advocate for public schools and immigration reform. His book, To Sin Against Hope: How America Has Failed Its Immigrants; a Personal History (Verso Books) was published in 2013.
Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez is a Senior Member of the Illinois Delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now in his twelfth term, he is an experienced legislator and energetic spokesman on behalf of his constituents in Illinois’ Fourth District in the heart of Chicago. Rep. Gutiérrez is nationally recognized for his tireless leadership championing issues of particular importance to Latino and immigrant communities. He has been at the center of every major legislative debate on immigration reform and immigration issues for more than a dozen years. He played an instrumental role in advocating for executive action by President Obama to provide deportation relief to long-term undocumented immigrants and their families. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – and a series of executive actions announced in 2014 – are partly the result of Congressman Gutiérrez’s consistent and persistent advocacy in Washington. Married and both a father and grandfather, Rep. Gutiérrez was born and raised in Chicago to parents who had themselves migrated to Chicago from Puerto Rico in the early 1950s. He previously served as an Alderman in the City of Chicago, a teacher, social worker and cab driver, among other diverse experiences.
Dr. Raul Gutierrez is a community pediatrician in the Bay Area of California for La Clinica de la Raza's School Based Health Centers and a clinical instructor for the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He also serves as an executive committee member for the Council on Community Pediatrics with the American Academy of Pediatrics and is on the steering committee of the immigrant health special interest group. He recently co-organized a symposium exploring how health care providers can better advocate for immigrant families.
Lydia Guzman is currently with Chicanos Por La Causa. Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, she started registering her community to vote at 17. In 1994, as president of La Raza of the Antelope Valley, her program assisted more than 8,000 individuals applying for US Citizenship. Lydia then moved to Arizona, and was Voter Outreach Director for the Arizona Secretary of State, then Arizona State Director for Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Outreach & Education Director for the Clean Elections Institute. She’s the recipient of several awards, has been in publications both local and national and has presented on voting rights and voter engagement on local and national platforms.
Nicole Hale was born and raised in Arizona. She is a first-generation graduate from Arizona State University with degrees in Global Students and Justice Studies. Her organizing experience is far and wide. She has led a successful union campaign as a hotel worker, organized massive direct actions with Fight for $15, built teams of young people that registered over 8,000 people to vote, and mobilized the vote against Sheriff Arpaio. Nicole now works as one of two youth organizers at Arizona Center for Empowerment. She focuses on leadership development, political education, and civic engagement.
Mohamed-Shukri Hassan is the founder and Executive Director of The New American Development Center, a Nashville non- profit dedicated to empowering refugees and immigrants through advocacy and civic engagement. He is the former Director of the Welcoming Tennessee Initiative. He currently serves on The Mayors’ New American Advisory Council and sits on the board of directors of The Nashville International Center for Empowerment, TIRRC, and is a Founding member of American Muslim Advisory Council. Mohamed is a graduate of Tennessee State University with a M.A in leadership from Lipscomb University.
Viridiana Hernandez (Viri) was moved to action after the passage of anti-immigrant law SB1070. Viri has felt the hardships and fear in being undocumented and lives with the daily fear of family separation. Viri co-founded the Latino Student Union, an organization that provided scholarships, support and a network to Latino students. She also co-founded a successful team of students (Team Awesome) who elected some of Arizona’s most progressive and active elected officials. Today, in her positions as Executive Director of Center for Neighborhood Leadership, Viri continues to fight for human rights and social justice by developing new leaders to create systemic changes through policy shift and civic engagement at the local level.
Claudia Franco Hijuelos is a career diplomat. She served as Consul General of Mexico in Vancouver, British Columbia, Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, and as Minister in charge of Political Affairs at the Mission of Mexico to the European Union, having contributed to the negotiations leading to the Mexico-EU Strategic Partnership. She was promoted by the President of Mexico to the rank of Ambassador in 2017. She has taught at several universities in Mexico, and published articles on Mexican foreign policy topics related to energy, civil society, and NAFTA’s Labour agreement. She has a Master’s Degree in US Foreign Policy from Johns Hopkins University, and an undergraduate degree from El Colegio de México.
Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning news anchor and reporter who covers America’s untold stories and highlights today’s critical issues. She created the Futuro Media Group, an independent nonprofit organization producing multimedia journalism. As the anchor and Executive Producer of the Peabody Award winning show “Latino USA,” distributed by NPR, and anchor and Executive Producer of the PBS show “America By The Numbers with Maria Hinojosa,” both produced by Futuro Media, she has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape in America and abroad. Her 25-year history as an award-winning journalist includes reporting for PBS, CBS, WNBC, CNN, NPR, Frontline and CBS Radio and anchoring the Emmy Award-winning talk show “Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One.” She is the author of two books and has won dozens of awards, including four Emmys, the Studs Terkel Community Media Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Ruben Salazar Lifetime Achievement Award. She is currently the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul University in Chicago.
Joshua Hoyt was a co-founder of the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) in 2008, and became its first Executive Director in 2014. NPNA membership includes 26 of the largest immigrant coalitions in the U.S. Under Joshua’s leadership NPNA has advocated for a national approach to immigrant integration, resulting in the first ever White House Convening on Immigrant and Refugee Integration and nine National Immigrant Integration Conferences. Joshua has been an organizer for almost 40 years, including 12 years leading the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He is the co-chair of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition.
Jesse Hoyt is the Director of the Healthy Illinois Campaign. HIC is working to pass legislation that will provide healthcare for undocumented immigrants in Illinois. Prior to the campaign he worked as a community organizer where he worked on campaigns to win driver’s licenses for 250,000 undocumented immigrants in the state of Illinois and to pass legislation preventing private corporations from building for profit immigrant prisons. He has also worked as Field Director on local and statewide political campaigns in Illinois.
Thomas Huddleston leads migration research at the Brussels-based Migration Policy Group (www.migpolgroup.com). His expertise are integration and citizenship practices, family reunification and education. He chairs the EU migrant education network (SIRIUS) and meetings of the NGO Platform on EU Migration and Asylum. MPG promotes best practices, learning and innovation across Europe and other major destinations: Migrant Integration Policy Index (www.mipex.eu), EU Equality Law Network, EU Integration Website and new Transatlantic Migrant Democracy Dialogue with NPNA.
Alvaro M. Huerta, Staff Attorney at National Immigration Law Center. Alvaro M. Huerta works to defend and advance the rights of low-income immigrants and their family members through litigation, administrative advocacy, and community education. His practice includes litigation on due process, equal protection and civil rights, and challenging anti-immigrant state legislation. He also helps state and local advocates ensure that immigrants and their families can obtain access to health care and economic supports.
Dolores Huerta is a labor leader and community organizer. She has worked civil rights and social justice for over 50 years. In 1962 she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union. She served as vice-president and played a critical role in many of the union’s accomplishments for four decades. In 2002, she received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship which she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). DHF is connecting groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters; advocate for education reform; bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities; advocate for greater equality for the LGBT community; and create strong leadership development. She has received numerous awards: among them The Eleanor Roosevelt Humans Rights Award from President Clinton in l998. In 2012 President Obama bestowed Dolores with The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
Meagan Hume is the Policy and Advocacy Associate at HIAS, the global Jewish refugee protection agency. With 130 years of refugee protection experience, HIAS operates in 12 countries and 20 cities within the United States. A proud alumna of AmeriCorps’ Health Corps program, Meagan connected refugees in Philadelphia to health care. Meagan has a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College and a Masters in International Development (MDP) from the University of Minnesota.