Antoine Lona was born in the city of Gary, Indiana on October 31, 1973. His mother and father are both from Guanajuato, Mexico, but met in the United States. He is a first generation American. His mother tells him that when he went to kindergarten, he only spoke Spanish. Now Spanish is his second language. As a child he was taken to Mexico many times and those are his most cherished memories. He was raised in northwest Indiana and has been in Chicago since he was 17 years old. He has spent approximately three years living outside of the United States in various locations in Latin America: 1) Hermosillo, Sonora; 2) Catemaco, Veracruz; 3) Antigua Guatemala; 4) San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He studied anthropology at Loyola University Chicago and graduated with a bachelor’s in science. He has now spent more than 15 years working with the immigrant community of Chicago for various nonprofits and private institutions. He is privileged and honored to work in the immigrant community and is grateful to participate in the Alianza Americas leadership project to be able to better serve and lead.

Based in Chicago, Illinois, 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.

Juan Carlos Hernández is the immigration program coordinator for the Chicago Religious Leadership Network (CRLN). He is a teacher and journalist by training, but an activist at heart. He has been involved in immigration-rights work through his teaching, reporting, and film production. He was the associate producer of the 2010 award-winning film Immigrant Nation!, a film which captured the sentiment of activists and people working for immigrant justice in and around Chicago. As a member of Old St. Patrick’s Church, he was part of the JustFaith program, first as a participant and then as facilitator. The year-long program is rooted in Catholic social teaching, as well as cross cultural and interfaith work for justice.

Alma Olavarría Gallegos joined Access Living in April 2022 as the Latinx and Immigrant Community Development Organizer; she also works as the staff liaison for Cambiando Vidas. She holds a bachelor's degree in critical theory and social justice, and has organized around race equity, anti-gentrification, and environmental justice. Prior to joining Access Living, Alma worked at Pegasus Legal Services for Children as a paralegal and training organizer, where she worked closely with monolingual Spanish-speaking families in New Mexico to obtain legal support. Alma has also assisted in the implementation of a class action lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles for racist gang injunctions. She worked to forge connections between the law firm and community stakeholders, and collected and disseminated information regarding settlement benefits. Alma enjoys dancing, farming, and learning about cyber security and privacy.

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.

Susana Salgado Ortiz is a DACA recipient and a leader in her community. She was born in Mexico City and came to this country at the age of eight. Since she came to this country, she has been living in the most diverse neighborhood in Chicago, Rogers Park. This experience has helped her appreciate diversity within communities. She works for Centro Romero, a nonprofit on the north side of Chicago. She has worked in all of program areas at Centro Romero. Currently, she is the youth program director and oversees all the outreach programs at the organization, including the eviction education project, Know Your Rights, New Americans Initiative, and the Community Navigators program.She graduated with her Bachelor’s in Psychology with a minor in Human Development and Family Life Studies. She likes to play soccer and enjoys spending time alone painting or reading a book. She loves nature and loves to walk in the spring and fall.

Veronica Nabor is from Mexico but grew up in Chicago in the Rogers Park neighborhood. She is the oldest of four siblings and has a daughter that is almost three years old. She is currently the Youth Program Specialist at Centro Romero and is a teacher for 6th-8th graders. Being a good role model is very important to Veronica because she knows that there are many kids watching her and that they look up to her. In her free time she likes to do different kinds of art, such as painting and crafting. She also enjoys running from time to time. She is very excited to be part of this leadership training because she knows that it will expand her knowledge and she will learn new things that she can then teach to others.

Patricia Bakle is 62 years old and was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She graduated with her bachelor's degree with a major in psychology and a minor in recreation studies. She lived in the Colombian Caribbean for 12 years, leading ecological and social empowerment projects with the island community, as well as artistic, recreational, and cultural projects with children and youth. Patricia returned to Bogotá and was a parks coordinator for the senior citizens program of the District Institute of Recreation and Sports. She worked as a consultant for the European community in a social program aimed at supporting young people in the city of Bolivar. A week after Alvaro Uribe was elected president of Colombia, she traveled to Corn Island, Nicaragua, and stayed there temporarily. Afterwards she lived for two years in Costa Rica, where she joined International Feminist Radio. In 2004 she became a volunteer at Centro Romero; in 2005 she was the first Americorps volunteer at Centro Romero; she later coordinated women's leadership groups and supported domestic violence groups. For seven years since 2007, she was the resource coordinator at J.G. Whittier Elementary School; since 2013 she has been part of an NGO called Rohayhu Paraguay that supports rural schools in Paraguay. Since 2017 to date she is the manager of the domestic violence program at Centro Romero.

Gerardo Garcia is a 44-year-old immigrant from Veracruz, Mexico. Gerardo is a labor rights consultant with Illinois Workers in Action (IWA). Gerardo has over 12 years of experience advocating, organizing, and educating workers about their rights, especially immigrant workers in and around Chicago. Gerardo graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Universidad Veracruzana in Veracruz, Mexico.

Sandra Diaz is a Latinx DACA recipient born in Mexico. She migrated to the United States when she was five years old and was raised in Houston, Texas. She graduated from Houston Community College with an associate's degree in networking and computer administration. In 2017, when the DACA program entered a state of limbo, Sandra and her family were forced to make another move to Illinois. Soon after she began working for a local nonprofit that helped immigrant families and became more involved in the community. During her time there she implemented a civic engagement program that aims to elevate the voices of those traditionally underrepresented in civic duty, and has participated in projects that aim to involve action through storytelling. Along with five other immigrant women and daughters of immigrants, she created the Center for Immigrant Progress, a grassroots organization focused on social justice and immigrant rights. They are working to fill in the gaps in their community by serving undocumented and first-generation high school students, college students, and young professionals and their families to navigate various systems in their communities.

Jennifer Karen Cano Salgado was born in the United States in the state of New Jersey on February 27, 1999, and is the second of three children. Her mother is from the state of Guerrero, Mexico, and her father is from the state of Mexico, Mexico. A couple of months after her birth, her parents decided to move to Mexico state, where she spent most of her life and where her younger brother was born. She did most of her schooling in Toluca, Mexico. After graduating from high school, she studied English for one year before moving to Chicago, Illinois. Upon her arrival to Chicago, in April 2018, she began studying and working at the same time. In May 2021 she graduated with honors from St. Augustine College with an associates degree in psychology. A year before graduating, she started working as a work-study student at Centro Romero where she is currently the coordinator of the public benefits program. She is happy to be able to help people who, like her when she arrived in Chicago, did not know how to access resources.

Melody Padilla is attending the University of Notre Dame as a QuestBridge scholar. She will be a sophomore this fall and is triple majoring in theology, anthropology, and Latino studies. Melody has used her knowledge from the classroom and applied it to her volunteer work by spending her Wednesdays with La Casa de Amistad, an organization dedicated to uplifting the Latino community in the Michigan area. Melody Padilla is currently spending her summer interning at Alianza Americas with the Somos Salud team through the Notre Dame’s Institute of Latino Studies Cross Cultural Leadership Program.