“As a Chicano and son of immigrants from Sinaloa, Mexico, I’ve always been interested in serving others. Specifically, BIPOC populations facing similar barriers to my mother – who is Latina and contracted polio at a young age – and my father, an immigrant from Mexico who only spoke Spanish.
In 2006, I served as a Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce board member. This experience inspired my family and I to rediscover our roots, culture, and the Spanish language in Latino America for the next five years. While there I served as a non-profit organizational consultant for five years to national boards in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina.
Upon our return to the USA, I served in eastern North Carolina for seven years, working with Latino immigrant populations via state and county boards, representing the voices and needs of Latinos in healthcare, legal, education, housing, and substance abuse sectors.
My family and I then felt the pull to move to Washington state, where I learned of Open Doors for Multicultural Families (ODMF) in Kent, WA. Here I was honored to help develop and deliver Family Leadership Advocacy Training (FLT) for and by multicultural families with a loved one(s) with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Alongside parent advocates (graduates of FLT), I helped to lead legislative efforts to increase language access supports in Washington K-12 schools. House Bill 1153 passed with bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in April of 2022. I am also currently serving as co-chair of the Washington State Coalition on Language Access WASCLA).”