As the national debate about comprehensive immigration reform begins to heat up, activists across the country must begin strategizing now about how to organize around this key issue. Join Netroots Nation for a discussion on the role online and offline activists can play, particularly on a local level, in the upcoming battle to pass CIR. How can we ensure that our techniques are effective and how can we personalize this federal fight on a local level and engage activists in our own communities? Strategist Jenifer Fernandez Ancona will moderate this discussion about how online and offline activists can work together locally in the coming months to ensure that when the battle heats up nationally, we're ready to fight. Panelists include Paul Hogarth of Beyond Chron, activist Bobbi Lopez, Christopher Punongbayan of the Asian Law Caucus and Favianna Rodriguez of Presente.org.
Organizing locally: Using new media to win on immigration
Hosted by Netroots Nation
World Affairs Council, 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco
Date: January 13, 2010
Time 6 p.m.
Free. RSVP is requested to help us manage crowd size. Click here to reserve your spot.
Cohosted by the Good Ol' Girls, Presente.org and America's Voice
Jenifer Fernandez Ancona is a strategist in the progressive movement, with a focus on multi-racial coalition building, fund raising and strategic communications. She is currently an advisor to the Roosevelt Institute and Presente.org. Jenifer was previously a senior advisor to Steve Phillips and Susan Sandler, where she was responsible for communications and messaging to a broad network of progressive donors. Jenifer has also served as a top legislative aide in the California State Assembly, and was a news reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Dan Ancona, and their cat, Oscar.
Paul Hogarth is a lawyer and community organizer at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, a non-profit in San Francisco that also publishes Beyond Chron, voted the Bay Area's Best Local Website in 2008. Paul is Beyond Chron's managing editor, where he covers City Hall, affordable housing and marriage equality. He is a former elected member of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board and almost filed to run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors this year. Paul has appeared on CNN's "Blogger Bunch" to discuss Prop 8 and is a frequent guest on Bay Area radio shows about local politics.
Barbara Lopez is an immigrant from Mexico City, raised in the southern United States, and who for the last nine years has worked in San Francisco with immigrant families. She was the Youth Program coordinator for La Raza Centro Legal, worked as a paralegal at the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, and now coordinates a family outreach program in the Tenderloin where immigrant families run community lead campaigns on immigrant, safety, and housing rights. For the last year, she has worked with the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee, a collaborative of 35+ organizations working on local immigrant rights issues that has brought hundreds of individuals to city to speak on behalf of immigrant rights, particularly the rights of children. She is a current vice-president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and an elected delegate to the SEIU 1021 COPE.
Active in the Asian American community for over a decade, Christopher Punongbayan is currently the Deputy Director of the Asian Law Caucus, the nation’s oldest legal civil rights organization promoting the rights of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. In 2004, he was a recipient of the Ford Foundation New Voices Fellowship where he served as Advocacy Director for Filipinos for Affirmative Action. He currently serves on the boards of directors for the South of Market Community Action Network and Public Benefits Attorneys, and has provided non-profit management oversight to a number of LGBT, youth and API advocacy organizations in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Favianna Rodriguez is an artist, entrepreneur, and organizer who has helped foster resurgence in political arts both locally and internationally. Named in 2008 by UTNE Magazine as one of the country's leading visionary artists, Rodriguez is renown for her art work dealing with social issues such as war, immigration, globalization, and social movements, as well as for her leadership in establishing innovative institutions that promote education and engage new audiences in the arts. In 2009, Rodriguez she helped found Presente.org and its sister organization Presente Action after recognizing the need for Latino communities to make better use of technology-based organizing techniques. Since April 2009, Presente's campaigns have brought national attention to hate crimes against Latinos, anti-immigrant violence and most recently, the historic nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.
