Sherry Aragon (she/her) is from Acoma Pueblo. Prior to joining Tewa Women United as the Environmental Justice Program Manager, she was the Library Director at the Espanola Public Library for 14 years. She holds an Associates Degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and is Leadership Certified through American Library Association.
Sherry is the youngest of ten siblings and has worked with farmers (Father/Grandfather) for many years to learn how to plant and work with seeds. Española has been Sherry’s home for the past 17 years, along with her wife (Loretta) and son (Sabastian). They have created a wonderful home which includes Miniature Nigerian goats, Royal Palm Turkeys, as well as a dog and cat.
Sherry says, “Being able to work in the community as the Environmental Justice Manager is an honor, and especially working with Tewa Women United. They have created a wonderful space here on this new campus and they have also created great programs in the community. Through the EJ Program, it will be good to inform the general public about all the upcoming issues facing the area, and New Mexico in general.”
Dakota Camacho comes from the Matao/CHamoru peoples of Låguas and comes from the villages of Tomhom, Mongmong, and Hagåtña, and descends from the Che’ and Eging clans, and they also have Ilokano lineage. Camacho was born in the lands of the Snohomish and raised in Snohomish, Swinomish, Duwamish, Muckleshoot, and Suquamish territories. They grew up in the Soufend of Seatle where they found their calling for poetry, dancing, and chanting. Amongst the Native peoples of that land, Black, Filipinx, and other Peoples working towards justice on earth, they learned of the transformative potential of culture.
Camacho arrived in Guåhan, Låguas (the Mariånas) in the year 2011, to find Matao/CHamoru language and culture teachers. Camacho became friends with Jeremy Cepeda, a fino’ håya language teacher, and Jeremy guided Camacho on yo’ña (their) language learning journey. For many years, Camacho traveled around the world sharing their dance and musical creations, and cultivating relationships with Indigenous peoples in Aoteara, Turtle Island (so-called “North/South America”), Hawai’i, and momentarily so-called Australia and Africa.
In 2019, Camacho and Cepeda started the Gi Matan Guma’ collective to give life to their ancestral language and traditions in an attempt to walk the path of ináfa’maolek (peace and equity for all living beings). Camacho started the MALI’E’ project to try and find ways to activate a Theory/Memory/Imagining of (Making) Matao [Creativity] through multi-disciplinary art. Today, Dakota is very happy to be working with Gi Matan Guma’ in Låguas and throughout the diaspora.
Ashby Combahee Ashby Combahee is the Library and Archives Program Manager at the Highlander Research and Education Center. Their work focuses on the documentation and preservation of southern grassroots liberation movements in United States. They are a co-founder of Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history. Ashby started the Southern Memory Workers Institute at the Highlander Center, which is a 5-day popular education workshop sharing skills in public history, archival preservation, documentary arts, and political strategy. They are also a research fellow with the Folk Education Association of America, focused on resourcing Black craftspeople and Black-led folk schools.
c.j Davidson (they/them) {formerly Carlton V Bell II} is a Black, Southern, queer artist, cultural organizer working across theatre, film, and new media. Their work investigates, fabulates, and documents Black queer experience and aesthetics, using storytelling as both an artistic practice and a vehicle for cultural memory, power-building, and liberation.
Across leadership roles in the arts and nonprofit sectors, c.j has raised over $2.5 million in support of artists and arts organizations led by—and serving—people living within the margins of the margins. They have produced work through Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective (Founding Artistic Director), My Black Job Productions (Producing Director), The Tank, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, and Birmingham Children’s Theatre, and Musical Theatre Factory, among others. Grounded in cultural organizing traditions, their creative and producing practice centers authentic representation, collaboration, and transformative storytelling for both stage and screen.
As a practicing intimacy choreographer, director, and producer in both theatre and film, c.j’s methodology prioritizes consent-based processes, collaboration, and embodied care. They gravitate towards modes of creation that include (but not limited to) Theatre for Young Audiences, short-form documentary filmmaking, musical theatre, and episodic content that centers marginalized communities and underrepresented narratives.
Current Roles include: Director of Development at Write It Out! (an arts organizations serving People Living HIV), Program Associate of the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund, Creative Producer at Musical Theatre Factory, FCAA Global Philanthropy Fellow, and the South Eastern Theatre Conference’s VP of Access and Opportunity.
c.j is the 2025 Second Place Winner of the STARZ + GLAAD Black Queer Creative Summit TV Pilot Pitch Competition 2025. Additional honors include being named AL.com’s Entertainer of the Year (2019); Finalist for the Barbara Whitman Award (2023) (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, 2023); Finalist for the Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency (2025); Winner of the Southeastern Theatre Conference’s Sara Spencer Award for Child Drama (2023); and Winner of the Sidewalk Film Festival Black Lens Filmmaker Award (2023).
Ínaru Nadia de la Fuente Díaz (They/Them, She/Her, Elle/Ella). Their full name is a prayer to the Universe: Ínaru Nadia de la Fuente Díaz, whose translation means “The Hopeful Feminine Spirit from the Fountain of our Days”. Their origins are from the mountainous, green and lush town of Comerío, a municipality within the “Island of Enchantment”: Puerto Rico. Ínaru is a Black Afrocaribbean, disabled and non-binary artist, educator, column journalist, storyteller, academic, activist, lawyer and history maker. They proudly hold their ancestors and past within their shoulders, as a descendant of Caribbean curanderas and as a survivor of bullying, public housing, food stamps, systemic oppression and epistemicide.
They have a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, Philosophy and Women and Gender studies from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. For their graduate studies, they obtained a Juris Doctor Degree and became a lawyer. Diverging from the usual path of taking the bar exam after finishing their law studies, Ínaru interested themselves in their current Critical Intercultural Studies PhD, where they study as a Doctoral Student while simultaneously teaching Public Speaking to Undergrad Students at the University of New Mexico.
They are the co-founder and current project manager of La Sombrilla Cuir (The Queer Umbrella), a black trans, non-binary and queer-lead organization that uses Kimberle Crenshaw's framework of intersectionality to create opportunities of empowerment for LGBTIQAP+ communities in Puerto Rico.
Chef Devynne Fuga Ah-Mai is an Indigenous Samoan chef from American Samoa whose work bridges culinary artistry and community impact. Trained in top kitchens in Boston and New York, she returned home to strengthen local food systems and preserve traditional island foodways. As founder of Samoa Food Security, she champions indigenous crops, sustainable farming, and culturally grounded nutrition. Her cooking celebrates Pacific ingredients like breadfruit, taro, coconut, and reef fish while honoring ancestral knowledge and intergenerational care. She represents American Samoa through food, storytelling, and the living traditions of the Pacific.
Darlene T. Gomez embodies the intersection of law and legacy. For more than two decades, she has navigated the intricate corridors of Indian Law with precision—representing tribes, tribal entities, corporate stakeholders, and families with a mastery earned from over 23 years of practice where history and statute converge.
Advocacy for vulnerable communities defines her career. As the nation’s only attorney offering pro bono legal services exclusively for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives (MMIWR), Darlene has transformed representation into a lifeline. She is both strategist and sentinel—crafting legal solutions while safeguarding stories that might otherwise be silenced.
Recognition has followed her impact. Among her many honors are the 2022 New Mexico Pro Bono Attorney of the Year, 2022 Outstanding Advocacy for Women Attorney of the Year, the 2023 United States Attorney General’s Award for her MMIP work, the 2025 USA Today Woman of the Year for New Mexico, and 2025 Elite Lawyer in Indian Law. Each distinction serves as a public testament to her influence rather than a personal accolade.
Her professional reach is matched by cultural depth. Rooted in the heritage-rich lands of Northern New Mexico, Darlene brings bilingual fluency and bicultural understanding to every matter she handles. She applies the exactitude of a seasoned advocate to corporate agreements in Indian Country, the discernment demanded by ICWA cases, and the steadiness required in probate matters where families face transition and loss.
Her dedication to justice has not gone unnoticed. Darlene is a two-time recipient of State Bar awards: 2022 Justice Pamela B. Minzner Outstanding Advocacy for Women Award & 2022 Pro Bono Award, recognizing her outstanding service and unwavering advocacy. Darlene has achieved numerous milestones that represent the highest honors available to legal professionals in New Mexico, earned through her unwavering commitment to advancing equity and safeguarding vulnerable communities.
Beyond the courtroom, Darlene has lent her voice and life to the public through powerful media documentaries such as We Ride for Her. Her work has illuminated the lived realities of Indigenous families navigating the legal system, and explored the intersection of law, culture, and sovereignty with unflinching clarity. These projects have not only educated audiences but have helped shift public discourse toward empathy and reform.
Through this balance of skill and service, she reshapes what legal practice can mean. In a field where precedent often overshadows people, Darlene ensures humanity remains at the forefront, proving that justice must not only be argued but actively defended.
Teresa Karolina is a Dominican and Puerto Rican Multidisciplinary Artist in training, an apprentice of movement, and a collaborative performer. Her work is based on intentionality and strategically discussing the integration of spirituality, of the spirit itself, of the body, and of our intuitions and identities, whether individually, politically and collectively. She has participated in audiovisual productions as an actress, model, "show girl," and as a coordinator, as well as a talents and production assistant in Puerto Rico and Mexico. She currently collaborates with diverse organizations, local artists, and community-based projects that seek to enhance the visibility of local cinema, art, and of Afro movements, both inside and outside the island.
Gabby Langkilde is a Samoan storyteller and the founder and executive editor of Pasefika Presence . Born and raised on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa, her love for storytelling was cultivated early in life —listening to ancient Samoan legends shared by her grandfather and later crafting her own tales for cousins, friends, and family to enjoy.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Harvard College, where she wrote “Pasefika Presence,” one of the first recurring columns in The Harvard Crimson to center Pacific Islander perspectives and issues. After graduating, she returned home to American Samoa and worked as an eighth-grade social studies teacher, and in 2023, she founded Pasefika Presence as an online, submission-based magazine uplifting Pacific Islander stories and art. Rooted in the same commitment to centering Pacific Islander perspectives as her original column, Pasefika Presence began as a way to engage her students in Pacific storytelling and has since grown into an international platform that has published two issues and received hundreds of submissions from creatives across the Pacific and its diasporas.
Gabby went on to be awarded a Fulbright U.S. Graduate Award to pursue research in Auckland, New Zealand, and received an East-West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship to complete her master’s degree in Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Today, she continues to guide Pasefika Presence while using storytelling, education, and research to empower Pacific communities and expand space for Pasefika voices.
Akilah Martinez (Glittering World Girl) is an award-winning Diné creative technologist and cultural bearer from the Navajo Nation focusing on the creation of building an Indigenous-based circular economic ecosystem that cycles off of language & culture futurism through video art and XR technology. Akilah’s a 2024 New Mexico Women in Tech Emerging Leader Award, a guest speaker at the MIT Reality Hack in Cambridge, MA and Bridge Innovation Studio UCLA. Akilah’s team, Inkovator, won 1st place for the Snap track at Stanford XR Immerse The Bay 2024 and team, Yeigo, won two 1st place Gold Prizes at MIT Reality Hack 2025.
Fabiola Méndez is a Puerto Rican cuatrista, singer, educator, and Emmy-nominated composer. Her artistic vision and original music focus on the exploration of her culture, her ancestry, and her identities.
Native to Caguas, PR, Fabiola began playing the cuatro, Puerto Rico's national instrument, at six. She got her early music training at the Antonio Paoli School of Music in Caguas and her Bachelor's in Music from Berklee College of Music, where in 2018, she made history as the first graduate to play the Puerto Rican cuatro as the principal instrument.
Fabiola's mission has always been to share and celebrate the cuatro, folk music, and collective story-telling. In doing so, she's had the honor of performing at venues such as the NPR Tiny Desk, Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, Celebrity Series of Boston, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, among many others. She has also collaborated with many local and international artists, including Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Pedro Capó, Andy Montañez, Danny Rivera, the Chicago Philharmonic, and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra.
Her recordings include Herencia Criolla (2009), Al Otro Lado del Charco (2019), Afrorriqueña (2021), and Flora Campesina (2024). In 2022, she produced her first documentary, Negrura, showcasing Afro-Latinx stories on colorism and discrimination within our communities.
In recent years, she’s had the honor of receiving recognitions such as the Quincy Jones Award, ambassador for the Puerto Rican Day Parade in NYC, the Brother Thomas Fellowship, the Whippoorwill Arts Fellowship, and the ASCAP Foundation Lucille and Jack Yellen Award. She was also nominated for a Children's and Family Emmy in the category of Outstanding Interactive Media and won the Latin Artist of the Year by the Boston Music Awards. Her music is featured on the film Beautiful, FL (Disney+), on the TV shows Alma's Way, Work It Out Wombats (PBS Kids), and Mecha Builders (HBO Max), as well as indie films, jingles, and TV commercials.
Lauryn Mills-Bohannon is a senior at the University of New Mexico and deeply passionate about art. She started her artistic journey at the age of 4 and has continuously developed her skills, working with both traditional and digital mediums, and exploring areas such as pottery, sculpting, and metalworking. Lauryn is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Arts, with a focus on Art and Ecology. She strongly believes in the power of art to drive social change and has been involved in various community outreach projects addressing issues like water conservation, erosion, racial and familial trauma, and more.
Brian Muna, Brian Muna, is an established CHamoru filmmaker on the island of Guam with over 10 years of experience in the industry. His filmmaking credits also include commercial work for corporations on the island and he has also worked abroad for projects filmed in Japan, Taiwan, and volunteered for a short-form documentary filmed in the Philippines (2017) aimed to support a non-profit organization to support funding for a children’s orphanage.
Under his company, Brian Muna Films, he has directed, written, filmed and produced short films, music videos, and documentaries surrounding issues within the island and Pacific region.
He has participated in numerous international film festivals, namely the Guam International Film Festival, where he was awarded “Best Made in the Marianas,” with one additional nomination for the films he directed: Luther (2015); Plastic Bag (2018); Madam (2015). In 2020, he was the recipient of the “Best Cinematography” award for the film Bittersweet (2020) at the Mumbai International Cult Film Festival. In 2024 Brian won “Best Short Film” at the 2024 Hawai’i International Film Festival for his documentary “CHamoru A Lost Language.”
las nietas de nonó. The artists and siblings, mulowayi iyaye nonó and mapenzi chibale nonó form the duo Las Nietas de Nonó. Working across performance, installation, video, and biomaterial sculpture, their practice engages with Caribbean collective memories, interrogating issues such as dispossession, environmental and climate injustice, and the prison and medical-industrial complexes.
In 2022, their solo exhibition Posibles Escenarios, Vol. 1 LNN was presented at Artists Space, New York, and curated by Danielle A. Jackson. The exhibition featured three immersive mixed-media installations that also functioned as performance stages, evoking neo-colonial exploitation and the silenced histories of Afro-Caribbean communities, and the development of microhistories in relation to geopolitics.
They created Ilustraciones de la Mecánica in 2016 - a multimedia installation that was later commissioned by the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018) and the 79th Whitney Biennial (2019). Their practice has been acknowledged through awards such as the Artist Choice Grant from the Ruth Foundation for the Arts (2024), the Catalyst for Change, NALAC (2023), the Latinx Artist Fellowship from the US Latinx Art Forum (2022), the Rome Prize in Visual Art from the American Academy in Rome (2022), the Just Futures Initiative from University of Pennsylvania & Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2021), a United States Artist Award (2018), the Art of Change from Ford Foundation (2017), and the Global Arts Fund from Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (2017 & 2020). Their work has been exhibited internationally, in cities such as Venice, Rome, Berlin, London, New York, Honolulu, and Canada, among others. It is also part of the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico.
In 2019, they co-founded Parceleras Afrocaribeñas, a community-based arts organization and cultural space in their hometown of San Antón, Puerto Rico.
David H. Parker (they/them) is a director, producer, screenwriter, playwright, performer, and cultural worker from Birmingham, AL. Intersectionality is also at the core of their work, with directing practices rooted in consent and wellness. They have been with the Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective for almost 7 years and now serve as one of its Co-Artistic Directors. They earned their Master of Fine Arts from UCLA and their BA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
David is grateful to claim multilocality, with roots and community in Texas, South Florida, Los Angeles, Baltimore, the Ozarks, and New York. David has directed or collaborated with Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning artists. David has also worked on and Off-Broadway; had their work reviewed in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times; trained at the Highlander Center in the footsteps of cultural organizers like Rosa Parks and Angela Davis; and recently published an interview with André De Shields in Southern Theatre magazine.
Abraham Paulos is a nationally recognized communications strategist, writer, and advocate who has spent over two decades driving the movement for human rights and immigrant justice.
His work centrally focuses on the complex intersection of immigration, race, and criminalization, with a specific emphasis on the unique challenges faced by Black migrants. Abraham currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
His career features influential leadership roles, including serving as the Executive Director of Families for Freedom. He has also been a researcher for Human Rights First and a Program Director for Life of Hope, a community-based organization serving low-income immigrants.
A powerful voice in public discourse, Abraham has highlighted systemic issues within the U.S. deportation system through his writing for outlets like Foreign Policy Association, Huffington Post, and City Limits. He has also been featured on major news platforms such as NY Daily News, Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, ABC News and NBC News.
Abraham is a Stateless Eritrean refugee born in Sudan and raised in Chicago. He holds an associate’s degree from Harold Washington College, a bachelor's degree from George Washington University and a master's degree from The New School.
MokoJumbie Yisrael Allan Petersen is a self-taught legendary MokoJumbie stilt dancer. He skillfully performs on 13’ to 15’ high stilts. He was born and raised in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. He was recruited at a young age of nine to be part of the first MokoJumbie Troupe in the early 70’s by Alvin Ali Paul. Through his passion and talent for stilt dancing, he has successfully showcased the Virgin Island’s culture across the United States and the Caribbean Islands. He has performed for the Virgin Islands Department of Tourism at Crown Bay where he welcomes tourists coming on/off the cruise ships. He has also performed for various hotels, T.V. shows, United States Congress, and others.
Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez is the President & CEO of Native Bound Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery, an initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, leading a global team in the goal to document Indigenous/Native slavery across the Western Hemisphere. Trained as an anthropologist, historian, and Indigenous slavery scholar, Dr. Rael-Gálvez has served as the former Senior Vice President of Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and as the state historian of New Mexico. A native son of New Mexico, Estevan was raised on a farm and ranch stewarded by his family for multiple generations. He received his BA in English Literature and Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MA and Ph.D. in American Cultures from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Amaury J. Rijo Sánchez (Ph.D) is an Inclusive Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of New Mexico. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he focused on transnational gender and sexualities as well as Latinx feminisms. He is the Co-Chair of the Puerto Rican Feminisms Interest Group at the National Women’s Studies Association and is currently working on developing a new research direction through organized nightlife and social dancing spaces.
Raquel Z. Rivera is a writer and singer-songwriter, born and raised in Puerto Rico. Author of New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (Palgrave MacMillan 2003) and co-editor of Reggaeton (Duke University Press 2009), she has published scholarly and newspaper articles, creative essays, short stories, and poetry. As director of the band Ojos de Sofia, she co-wrote and co-produced the concept album Las 7 salves de La Magdalena (2010), an imaginative liturgy for Mary Magdalene that weaves together Caribbean roots music genres like Puerto Rican música jíbara and bomba, and Dominican salves. A founding member of Boricua roots music group Yerbabuena, bomba music ensemble Alma Moyo, and the all-women’s percussion and vocal collective Yaya, she has also performed with Grammy nominated Los Pleneros de la 21, and internationally renowned Dominican fusion artists Luis Dias and Xiomara Fortuna. The recipient of a 2022 City of Albuquerque Urban Enhancement Trust Fund Residency for her literary work, she is presently completing her first novel The Song Cypher.
Ana Irma Rivera-Lassén, an Afro-Puerto Rican attorney, was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Throughout her career, Rivera-Lassén has been a steadfast champion for human rights, particularly focusing on issues of racism, sexual orientation, gender violence and socio-economic rights. In Puerto Rico and the Latin American and Caribbean region she has been leader and co-founder of various organizations. Her commitment to justice was exemplified in her successful challenge against discriminatory courtroom attire rules in the 1980s, setting a precedent for gender equality. Her expertise and advocacy have garnered recognition from prestigious organizations, including the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. From 2012 to 2014, she was the president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association, making history as the first Afro-Puerto Rican woman and openly LGBT person to hold the position. She has contributed to the legislative process, actively participating in assessments of bills aimed at advancing human rights and access to justice in Puerto Rico.
Her impact and dedication have been acknowledged through numerous awards and honors, including the Medalla Senatorial Capetillo-Roqué from the Puerto Rico Senate and the Martin Luther King/Arturo Alfonso Schomburg Prize. Notably, Ana was recognized as one of USA Today’s Women of the Year in 2023, further underscoring her influential contributions to society.
She was co-founder and former president of the political party Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana, elected Senator at Large in the Puerto Rico Senate, Minority Leader, and President of the Commission for Human Rights and Labor Matters, 2021-2024. Her tenure was marked by significant advancements in labor rights, defense of sexual and reproductive rights, recognizing racism and promoting the afro-descendant identity of Puerto Rico. In the 2024 elections, she was a candidate for Resident Commissioner in Washington.
Chef Pau Rocío is an Afro-Caribbean chef, culinary researcher, and storyteller whose work explores identity, memory, and resistance through food. Rooted in her Dominican, Haitian, and Puerto Rican heritage, her cuisine honors ancestral techniques, local ingredients, and dishes that have been historically overlooked due to colonization and cultural erasure.
Her approach to cooking is deeply intuitive and conscious, blending culinary practice with narrative, ritual, and community care. Through pop-up dinners, research-driven menus, and educational spaces, Pau creates experiences where food becomes a language for healing, belonging, and collective remembrance.
Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz, poet, professor, and literary critic. Upon graduation from the University of Puerto Rico, Santiago-Díaz worked as a teacher of Spanish, physical education and industrial arts, and as a librarian in Puerto Rican elementary schools. He earned a Master’s degree in Spanish from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Brown University, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of New Mexico. His teaching and research center on Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean literature examined in light of theories of race, writing and modernity; Latino-Caribbean literature in the United States; and Modern Latin American poetry. Before joining UNM, he taught language and literature in the departments of Spanish and Portuguese and African and Diaspora Studies at Tulane University, at Cambridge Community College and at St. Cloud State University. Santiago-Díaz is the author of the poetry books Árbol de plaza talado en su novena edad (Ciudad de México, Ediciones del Lirio, 2021) and Breaths (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2012), the scholarly book Escritura afropuertorriqueña y modernidad (Pittsburgh, PA: IILI/University of Pittsburgh, 2007), and articles published in academic journals and anthologies such as Revista Iberoamericana, Confluencia, Bilingual Review, Revista de Literatura, História e Memória, and Marvels of the African World: Cultural Patrimony, New World Connections, and Identities (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003). Pending publication, he has several creative projects: the poetry books Kernel and The Mollusk and the Thumb, and a collection of short stories titled El Circo.
Azadeh Shahshahani, Legal and Advocacy Director with Project South, advances a practice of movement lawyering, focused on confronting state repression and dismantling systems of surveillance, incarceration, and deportation. Azadeh has organized for two decades to protect and defend migrants and Black and Muslim communities from systemic lslamophobia, xenophobia, and anti-Black racism. She also provides support to social justice movements in the Global South, from Brazil to Palestine.
Azadeh is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of the American Association of Jurists.
She is the author or editor of several groundbreaking human rights reports as well as law review articles and book chapters focused on movement lawyering, immigrants’ rights, surveillance of Muslim-Americans, and using the international human rights framework as a tool for liberation. Her writings have appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, Time Magazine, Boston Review, Slate, and Los Angeles Times, among others.
Azadeh received her JD from the University of Michigan Law School where she was Article Editor for The Michigan Journal of International Law. She also has a Master’s in Modern Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan.
She is the recipient of the Shanara M. Gilbert Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers, the US Human Rights Network Human Rights Movement Builder Award, the Emory Law School Outstanding Leadership in the Public Interest Award, the University of Georgia Law School Equal Justice Foundation Public Interest Practitioner Award, and the Emory University MLK Jr. Community Service Award, among several other recognitions. She has also been recognized as an Abolitionist by the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University & the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives.
Azadeh served as a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School in the Fall of 2025. She also served as the Spring 2025 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow at the Northeastern University School of Law.
Azadeh gave the keynote speech at the 30th anniversary of the Rebellious Lawyering Conference at Yale Law School in 2024. She also delivered keynote speeches at the 2025 Emory Law School International Law Symposium and at the Spring Student Symposium at Brooklyn Law School in 2024. She also gave the keynote address for Peace and Justice week at Earlham College in 2019.
Paula Terrero is a Reiki Master, born and raised in the Dominican Republic, and a resident of Albuquerque since the late nineties. She has been working in the Reiki and energy healing community as an educator, practitioner and advocate of grass roots community healing work for over 30 years. She is one of the founding members of the Sacred Spring Reiki Collective and the author of “Sowers of Light,” where she shares stories of her Reiki journey.
Paula, along with Reiki practitioners from the Collective and healer friends from the community, will be creating a space for healing, connection and renewal through a Healing Circle on Saturday April 18th as part of the AfroMundo Festival 2026.
Kimora Toledo is a 20-year-old proud Afro-Indigenous woman. She is from the pueblos of Jemez and Tesuque. She is a full-time college student pursuing political science and nursing. She is also a youth advocate and has been on her advocacy journey since the age of 15. Her work is rooted in advancing equity and systemic reform, with a focus on child welfare, juvenile justice, and Indigenous rights. In 2022, Kimora helped pass New Mexico’s Indian Family Protection Act (IFPA), strengthening protections for Indigenous tribes and Pueblos across the state. That same year, she supported efforts to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) when it was challenged before the United States Supreme Court. Through policy advocacy, organizing, and community engagement, Kimora has remained committed to protecting Indigenous sovereignty and advancing justice-centered systems change. In addition to her policy work, Kimora is a youth cohort member of AfroMundo, a role she has held for nearly two years. She is deeply connected to the work AfroMundo does and values the powerful sense of community and shared mission that defines AfroMundo.
Belinda Deneen Wallace (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of New Mexico. She embraces the Combahee River Collective's shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable. She teaches classes on contemporary Caribbean and African Diasporic literatures, Afrofuturism, Queer Studies, and Intersectional and Black Feminist Studies. She is the winner of the 2022 Canadian Committee on the History of Sexuality Best Article award for her essay “Our Lives: Scribal Activism, Intimacy, and Black Lesbian Visibility in 1980s Canada.” Her writings have appeared in a number of journals, including Small Axe, Cultural Dynamics, Journal of Canadian Studies, and Radical Teacher. Presently, she is completing her first manuscript, which queers literary reimaginings of Caribbean rebellions and revolutions.
Robert Washington-Vaughns is a mixed-media visual artist of African diasporic heritage and the founder of the Black Men Flower Project, an award-winning international nonprofit dedicated to honoring the narratives, complexities, and holistic well-being of Black men and boys. Grounded in the intrinsic imperfection of nature, Washington-Vaughns invites audiences to rediscover themselves and their surroundings through floral-based installations, recycled video content, and found footage. Merging art and activism, his work spans photographic portraiture to participatory floral installations, exploring vulnerability and sanctuary while reclaiming spaces where Black males have been historically misrepresented or overlooked. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his practice centers floral activism as a catalyst for cultural, communal, ideological transformation.
Tyeshia ‘Ty’ Wilson is a Certified Impact Philanthropy Advisor, an award-winning philanthropist, giving circle expert, and a catalyst for collective action, driven by the belief that everyone is a philanthropist capable of creating positive social change.
As Senior Director of Community at Philanthropy Together, Ty leverages her lived experiences and professional expertise in community organizing and coalition building to architect partnership, programmatic and engagement strategies that connect diverse stakeholders globally. From grassroots organizers to foundation leaders, all are united in their commitment to growing the collective giving movement.
An energizing public speaker and staunch advocate for diversifying and democratizing philanthropy, Ty has spoken to thousands of people and trained hundreds through Philanthropy Together's flagship Launchpad programs. She serves as immediate past Chair of HERitage Giving Fund, the first Black giving circle in Texas, and a board member for RegisterHER, Philanos and the Women of Color in Fundraising and Philanthropy.
Ty's strategic, community leadership experience spans government, corporate, and nonprofit sectors. Notably, she previously served as Assistant to the City Manager and Chief of Staff at the City of Dallas, where she was instrumental in establishing the city's first community engagement division within the aviation department.
A proud Dallas native with deep Texas roots, Ty holds degrees from UT Arlington and UNT Dallas. Her unwavering commitment to advancing equitable, trust-based grantmaking practices was recognized with an honor on the 2022 Black Women Give Back List.
As Senior Director of Community at Philanthropy Together, she architects the organization’s global partnership and engagement strategy—from grassroots organizers to foundation leaders—all united in growing the collective giving movement.
Jamila Woods is a poet, songwriter, and performing artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her three solo albums HEAVN (2017), LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019) and Water Made Us (2023) were released by JagJaguwar Records to critical acclaim. An internationally touring artist, Jamila has been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Her writing has appeared in POETRY, Poets.org, and The Offing, and was featured in the anthology Black Love Letters published by John Legend’s Get Lifted Books. An award-winning poet, Jamila’s work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes, “It makes you wish all singers were poets."
Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer.
Tiphanie is the author of the novel, Monster in the Middle, which was published in 2021 and on numerous 'best of the year' lists. Monster in the Middle was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and is a finalist for the Townsend Prize.
Tiphanie is also the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the Bocas Prize in Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection, the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She is the author of a collection of stories, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, which won her a listing as one of the National Book Foundation's 5Under35 and the Bocas Prize in Fiction.
Her writing has won the Boston Review Prize in Fiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, an Academy of American Poet's Prize and two Fulbright Scholarships.
Tiphanie is also an outspoken activist on behalf of the Caribbean, having appeared on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and published an op-ed in The New York Times on the US response to hurricanes in the Caribbean.
Tiphanie is from the Virgin Islands and is Professor at Emory University.
