Administration
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Pablo Alvarado
As a youth, Pablo Alvarado was raised in a village lacking running water and electricity. Working since he was five years old, Pablo spent several years as a day laborer in the United States, giving him first-hand knowledge of what it means to live and work at the lowest rung of society. This knowledge has stayed with him as he has dedicated his life to reducing the suffering of migrants in the United States. Pablo believes that if you protect those at the bottom of our society all of us are lifted.
Pablo co-founded the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California in 1991, Los Jornaleros del Norte day laborer band in 1996 and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network in 2001. He has won numerous awards and recognitions, including receiving the Next Generation Leadership Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, which recognizes entrepreneurial, risk-taking and fair leaders who seek to develop solutions to major challenges of democracy. In 2004, Pablo was also recognized by the Ford Foundation’s “Leadership for a Changing World Program.” In August 2005, TIME Magazine named Pablo among the 25 most influential Hispanics in the U.S.
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John Arvizu
For the past 20 years, John has dedicated his energy to serving immigrant rights organizations and building national infrastructure to push for equity and inclusion of migrant worker communities. He is a co-founder of NDLON, joining the team in 2004 to provide leadership for the internal development of NDLON’s Admin, Finance and Development Departments. Previous to this position, John worked for CHIRLA from 2000-2004 as the Day Laborer Center Program Manager – and also served as a college intern at CHIRLA from 1997-2000. John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from Pomona College and was a recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in 1999-2000 to study Popular Art, Memory and Identity of Indigenous Movements in Latin America.
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Ishell Linares-Soto
Ishell joined NDLON as Co-Director of Development in 2017. She brings great passion for nonprofit work and over a decade of fundraising and communications experience in areas including donor communications, event planning, individual donor relations, and public relations. As an immigrant herself, NDLON’s mission is one that she holds close to heart. Ishell holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from California State University, Fullerton and a Master of Public Administration from California State University, Northridge.
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Marco Loera
Marco Loera has been NDLON’s Director of Art & Technology since 2018 and is in charge of providing technical support, network administration, web/video/graphic design, and administration of NDLON’s online activity through social media, campaign websites, and online advocacy tools. A major part of his work is developing relationships and collaborations with artists to produce creative work that uplifts NDLON’s campaigns and programs. Marco’s interests lie in the use of art and technology as a tools for social change. He studied Art (BA) with a minor in Ethnic Studies at San José State University and Electronic Art (MFA) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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Nadia Marin-Molina
Nadia Marin-Molina is Co-Executive Director of NDLON, leading the Workers Centers and Workers Rights areas of work. Nadia brings years of experience in the struggle for immigrant workers rights. She created and led NDLON’s disaster response initiative, to successfully train thousands of day laborers after Hurricane Sandy and build the capacity of NDLON’s member organizations. She also spearheaded programs to protect the health of nail salon workers and to prosecute criminal construction contractors while at the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. She received national coverage for her work as Executive Director at the Workplace Project, fighting hate groups and anti-immigrant legislation on Long Island, New York. Nadia received her JD from New York University School of Law and her BA from Brandeis University.
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Gonzalo Mercado
He previously served as the executive director of El Centro del Inmigrante and founder of La Colmena Community Job Center in New York. Gonzalo has over 15 years of experience working with low wage immigrant workers and their families through community development, grassroots organizing and the incubation of worker centers. He has been instrumental in the creation of key municipal and statewide initiatives to advance the rights and inclusion of the most vulnerable workers in New York. At NDLON, he leads the organization’s international initiatives and coordinates the Corridors for Justice in Labor Migration Network.
Gonzalo serves on the board of directors of the North Star Fund and La Colmena Community Job Center. He studies Business Management at Touro College and is a graduate of the Institute for Non Profit Management at Columbia University. He is also a Mel King Transnational Economic Democracy Fellow at MIT CoLab.
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Chris Newman
Chris Newman is the Legal Director & General Counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) based in its Los Angeles office. He has worked with day laborers since 2002, and was hired as NDLON’s first attorney in 2004. Since then, he has helped develop and coordinate NDLON’s work to defend and advance day laborers’ civil, workplace, and human rights. Before working at NDLON, he was the founding coordinator of the Wage Clinic and Legal Program at El Centro Humanitario para los Trabajadores, a day laborer worker center in Denver, CO. He is the recipient of an Academy of Educational Development New Voices Fellowship and is a Transatlantic Forum on Migration and Integration fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Denver College of Law.
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Salvador G. Sarmiento
Salvador Sarmiento coordinates campaigns and legislative efforts for the 50-member National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), accompanying local, state and national efforts in defense of immigrant and workers rights. Prior to that, he served as Advocacy Officer at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights (RFK Human Rights), collaborating with activists in Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the US Gulf Coast.
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Cal Soto
Cal Soto is the Workers’ Rights Coordinator at NDLON, organizing labor campaigns for the national network. Cal joined NDLON in 2015 from LatinoJustice PRLDEF Southeast, where he helped launch the Rights Restoration Project as a Ford Foundation Legal Fellow. By partnering with NDLON’s local worker leaders and labor centers, Cal uses his legal training to add to the capacity and technical knowledge of grassroots movements to end wage theft, ensure worker safety, and increase job stability. He spends his time away from NDLON producing and writing music, and looks forward to the day when everyone can enjoy the fruits of their labor free from fear and exploitation.
Staff
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Loyda Alvarado
Loyda Alvarado Renteria rejoined the NDLON team as the DALE Campaign Director in 2019. Prior to that, Loyda worked for the OSHA Training Institute Education Center (OTIEC) at California State University Dominguez Hills, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California, culminating in over a decade of organizing and educational experience with day laborers, migrants and safety professionals.
Since 2011, Loyda’s main focus has been working under OSHA’s Directorate of Training and Education Programs. She served as the National Safety and Health Project Coordinator for NDLON. Loyda lead a team effort on successfully acquiring and managing OSHA’s Susan Harwood Capacity Building Grants from 2011 to 2016. She led the inception, development and continuation of the safety and health project working directly with several community organizations, safety and health institutions and OSHA representatives throughout the US to provide leadership, training, technical assistance and assure the usefulness of appropriate worker health and safety trainings that addressed different literacy levels, socioeconomic limitations, immigration status and the importance of workers participation and power to demand better working conditions. In 2017, Loyda left NDLON in 2017 to oversee an OSHA Training Institute Education Center where she gained invaluable experience in developing and implementing internal policies and procedures to ensure transparency of tasks and expectations from staff and faculty.
As an immigrant herself, Loyda has first hand experience of the injustices that communities face on a daily basis. It is her mother, who exemplified strength, resiliency, love and compassion for Loyda, which led to her commitment and love for the community to stand against injustices even through adversity and pain. Loyda graduated from California State University Los Angeles with a Bachelor Arts Degree in Television, Film and Media Services with an option in Journalism and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Health. She is also a member of Los Jornaleros del Norte.
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Julieta Aragon
Julieta is the Minimum Wage Outreach Coordinator in the city of Pasadena, CA. Her office is located in the Pasadena Community Job Center (PCJC). Julieta became involved with the PCJC after being a part of a campaign at her child’s school—a 90% Latino, low-income school—when the Principal was removed and a new one was imposed without input from teachers or parents. Through her experience in that campaign, she became aware of the power dynamics between the district administration, teachers and school parents but it also empowered her to understand the power that school parents and the community hold to impact change not just in the school but in the larger community as well. Julieta’s role and leadership in that effort led her to continue her work by joining NDLON’s team in Pasadena.
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Emily Gaggia
Emily Gaggia joined NDLON after 13 years of working as the Educational Director at Casa Latina, a day labor center in Seattle, Washington. Emily has implemented and managed a variety of adult educational programs for day laborers and household workers, including ESL classes, Technological Literacy classes and a community language exchange program which brings together Spanish and English speakers to build bridges through language instruction. Emily attributes much of her personal and professional growth to the day laborers and household workers at Casa Latina and is honored to continue her work alongside the day labor community.
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Debora Gonzalez
Debora is from Guatemala City, Guatemala, and spent the early years of her life observing her Mother’s community work in the rural zones of Eastern Guatemala. This experience informs her passion for working with vulnerable communities and for Health and Safety. She is graduate of the Guatemalan Institute of Social Security as an Auxiliary Nurse of Surgery.
Debora arrived to Rhode Island in 1994 and worked in various factories, developing skills assembling and soldering jewelry and handprinted shirts and paper. In 1999, she moved to Connecticut and created a small house cleaning business. In 2008, she became part of Grupo Quetzal where she remains active today. In 2010, she began volunteering in a project which became known as Neighbors Links Stamford, eventually becoming Site Hiring Manager and Co-Founder of the organization. In 2014, she joined NDLON’s Board of Directors and joined the Women’s Caucus as Vice President and ended up as the Board of Director’s President.
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Omar León
Omar León is a former day laborer. Omar worked for over eight years with the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA). During the first two years, he worked as a Coordinator at the community job centers. Soon after he became a lead organizer. He was involved in organizing several campaigns including the AB 60 Driver’s License in California. Later on, Omar became a Manager of the day laborer program in Los Angeles. As Manager of the day laborer program, he was in charge of the organizational and administrative work of six day worker centers (West LA, Hollywood, Downtown, Harbor City, Cypress Park & Pasadena). In 2008, Omar León started working at NDLON as a Workforce Development coordinator. In recent years, Omar has been providing support to worker centers across the country to increase the employer job recruitment and to improve employer-day laborer relationships.
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Jorge Torres
Jorge Torres was born in Quito, Ecuador, where he had his first experience seeing inequality, particularly in the way indigenous people were treated. In New Haven, CT, Jorge started to get involved with Unidad Latina en Acción, a community organization that works against wage-theft, provides educational and leadership opportunities, and community empowerment. For over 10 years Torres has personally worked with families in deportation proceedings. Jorge has also done community radio, and makes films and documentaries related to migrants and social justice. Currently he is an East Region Coordinator with the NDLON.
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Luis Valentan
Luis Valentan is originally from Mexico City. He immigrated to the United States in 1991 with the intention of seeking a better life. Since arriving to the US, Luis has lived and experienced the different stages of anti-immigrant laws like Proposition 187 in California and SB1070 in Arizona. As a day laborer for nearly ten years, Luis saw firsthand how these laws affect the community. These experiences led him to start his work as a community organizer, helping to organize the Latino community in Arizona to fight against the policies and abuses of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and SB1070, a law that did terrible damage to many families, including his own. Luis brings over eight years of experience organizing in the day labor community and has worked for numerous projects and organizations such as Promise Arizona, Neighborhood Committees, Voces Mobiles, IDEPSCA’s Day Labor Project and Voces Jornaleras at KPFK Radio before joining NDLON.
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Manuel Vicente
Edgar Manuel Vicente Camberos is originally from the municipality of Zacoalco de Torres, Jalisco, Mexico. He graduated with a Bachelors in Communication Sciences of ITESO (Jesuit University of Guadalajara). Passionate about social causes and struggles, this is the path that has guided his life in the last decade of his life. He immigrated to the USA in 2015, building and structuring the first Mexican Indigenous radio station outside Mexico that deals with and addresses the injustices that are targeted against the immigrant community. Manuel believes in the motto, “an informed community is a community less manipulatable and one that has the tools and ability to fight back.” This is why he believes in the creation of communication spaces where we can exercise and enforce our rights as a people and at the same time serve as a social and community integration tool.