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Harvard Law School Latino Alumni Reunion and Latino Law and Public Policy Conference: |
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Bios
THURSDAY
Forum Speaker at Kennedy School of Government
Henry G. CisnerosHenry Cisneros is Chairman of the CityView companies, community-building firms dedicated to producing workforce homes in America’s cities. CityView’s mission is to work with the nation’s leading homebuilders to create “villages within cities,” priced within the range of average families, designed to honor community traditions, and financed to provide homeownership options for residents of the nation’s cities. In order to complete that mission, CityView identifies sites, plans neighborhoods, organizes and develops land, and finances the building of homes.
From 1997-2000, Mr. Cisneros was president and chief operating officer of Univision Communications, the Spanish-language broadcaster which has become the fifth-most-watched television network in the nation.
From 1993 to 1997, Mr. Cisneros served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, Secretary Cisneros was assigned America’s housing and community development portfolio. He is credited with initiating the revitalization of many of the nation’s public housing developments and with formulating policies which have contributed to today’s record homeownership rate.
Prior to joining the Cabinet, he was chairman of Cisneros Asset Management Company, a fixed income management firm operating nationally.
In 1981, Mr. Cisneros became the first Hispanic-American mayor of a major U.S. city, San Antonio, Texas. During his four terms in office, he helped rebuild the city’s economic base and spurred the creation of jobs through massive infrastructure and downtown improvements, marking San Antonio as one of the nation’s most progressive cities.
In 1984, Mr. Cisneros was interviewed by the Democratic Presidential nominee as a possible candidate for Vice President of the United States and in 1986 was selected as the “Outstanding Mayor” in the nation by City and StateMagazine.
He has served as president of the National League of Cities, chairman of the National Civic League, deputy chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, board member of the Rockefeller Foundation, and presently as National Chairman of the After-School All-Stars. He is also a member of the boards of Countrywide Financial, a Fortune 500 company which is the nation’s prime originator of home mortgages; Live Nation, an urban entertainment company; and Avanzar Interior Technologies, an automotive technologies company.
Mr. Cisneros holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Texas A&M University. He earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, a Doctorate in Public Administration from George Washington University, and has been awarded more than 20 honorary doctorates from leading universities. He served as an infantry officer in the United States Army.
He has also has been the author, editor or collaborator of several books including: Interwoven Destinies: Cities and the Nation; Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy; and Casa y Comunidad: Latino Home and Neighborhood Design.
FRIDAY
Succeeding in Private Practice: A Comparison of Legal Careers In-House and in Law Firms
Ferdinand Alvaro, Jr. (moderator)
Mr. Alvaro leads the Northeast Corporate Practice Group at Adorno & Yoss, the nation’s largest minority-owned law firm. He has devoted most of his career to counseling businesses and to the execution of complex business transactions both as an attorney and a businessman. From 1981 to 1984 he worked as an associate at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, where his practice focused upon the representation of small, high technology companies and venture capital firms. His subsequent positions included the management of the acquisition and investment activities of a Fortune 500 company and a Senior Consultancy with the Corporate Finance Group of Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte & Touche). Most recently, he was Vice President, Commercial and General Counsel of BOC Process Systems, a major division of The BOC Group. In that capacity, he managed a global legal function and led a legal, financial and technical team that closed financing transactions, acquisitions, venture capital investments, strategic alliances and joint ventures in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. From 1997 to 1999, contemporaneously with his duties at BOC, Mr. Alvaro served both as the chief executive and chairman of the finance committee of the Cantarell Nitrogen Company (“CNC”), a consortium of U.S., U.K., Mexican, German and Japanese companies organized to develop a $1 billion infrastructure project in Mexico. During his tenure with CNC, he opened, staffed and managed its first offices in Mexico and addressed a variety of regulatory, political and local community issues, the resolution of which permitted the successful launch of the project. He also led a multi-sponsor CNC team that completed one of the very few successful limited recourse financing transactions closed with respect to Latin American projects that year. Over the course of his career, Mr. Alvaro has served on the boards of directors of United States, Chilean, Columbian, Mexican, and Venezuelan companies. He presently is a member of the Governing Council of the Boston Bar Association, the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission and the Massachusetts Latino-American Advisory Commission.
General Attorney & Assistant General Counsel, AT&T Services, Inc., San Antonio, TX; BBA 1973, MPA 1975 University of Texas at Austin; JD 1981, Harvard Law School.
Filiberto AgustiFil Agusti is a partner with the Washington, DC office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he has practiced law for over 28 years. Mr. Agusti specializes in complex commercial finance and restructuring transactions and litigation, both domestically and internationally. He has represented lenders, major equipment manufacturers, surety insurers, equity investors, foreign governments and the US government, electric utilities, developers, and other participants in such matters. His expertise includes a broad range of sophisticated financial transactions, particularly workouts and bankruptcy reorganizations and including asset-based financing. Mr. Agusti has also represented financial institutions and other participants in litigation relating to such matters, including numerous international arbitrations.
Mr. Agusti is the co-author of International Business Law and its Environment, a textbook now in its sixth edition, used in over 100 colleges around the world. He is a frequent lecturer on corporate legal issues in both English and Spanish. He has authored articles for the Harvard Law Review, International Finance & Treasury, Natural Gas, and other publications. Mr. Agusti comments on legal issues on camera for Univision and CNN en Español. Mr. Agusti has served on Steptoe’s Executive and Compensation Committees for several terms.
Away from the office, Mr. Agusti is the General Counsel to a number of nonprofit organizations including the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras, the Center for a Free Cuba, Of Human Rights, a Cuban human rights advocacy group, and the Aschiana Foundation, a group supporting Afghan street children. He sits on the Advisory Boards of the Hispanic Bar Association of DC and the Andromeda Health Center, a mental health facility for underprivileged Hispanics.
Jonathan D. Avila Jonathan D. Avila serves as Vice President -- Counsel, Chief Privacy Officer of The Walt Disney Company in Burbank, California. Mr. Avila supervises data privacy law counseling and compliance for the domestic and international operations of Disney’s offline and online businesses. Prior to joining Disney, Mr. Avila was General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer of Mvalue.com, Inc., a venture capital-funded Internet company. Mr. Avila also has served as Litigation Counsel to CBS Broadcasting, Inc., where he represented CBS in privacy litigation related to CBS’ news broadcasting activities. Prior to joining CBS, Mr. Avila practiced with the Los Angeles office of Latham & Watkins. Mr. Avila began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge W. Eugene Davis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Mr. Avila serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and has served as a member of the Governing Committee of the Forum on Communications Law of the American Bar Association. Mr. Avila was a member of the Advisory Group to the California Office of Privacy Protection with respect to its Recommended Practices on California Information-Sharing Disclosures and Privacy Policy Statements (SB 27). Mr. Avila also serves on the Board of Directors of the Imagen Foundation, a non-profit entity devoted to fostering positive portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment media. Mr. Avila is the author of “ Food Lion and Beyond: New Developments in the Law of Hidden Cameras” published in the Winter 1999 issue of Communications Lawyer.
Mr. Avila graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, and received a J.D. from the Harvard Law School in 1984. Mr. Avila also holds a diploma from the University of Salamanca (Spain).
Cristina Hernandez-Malaby Cristina Hernandez-Malaby is a member of the Firm’s commercial litigation group, focusing on securities and other complex litigation. She has extensive experience representing her clients in federal and state securities disputes, including prosecuting and defending securities fraud class actions, Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and broker/dealer disputes. Most recently, Ms. Hernandez-Malaby has successfully represented defendants in Rule 10b-5 class actions in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the Northern District of California. She also successfully represented a broker-dealer in a non-competition dispute in Wisconsin state court, and successfully represented a client in a breach of fiduciary duty/minority oppression case in New York state court. She also has experience in white collar criminal law, defending her clients in racketeering, bribery, and fraud prosecutions in federal courts. Ms. Hernandez-Malaby’s practice also includes representing clients in professional malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty disputes.
Ms. Hernandez-Malaby is a member of the bar in Massachusetts and Wisconsin. She graduated cum laude from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1992 and from Harvard Law School in 1995, where she was Editor in Chief of the Harvard Latino Law Review from 1993-1994. Ms. Hernandez-Malaby is the author of "The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 And Its Impacts On Class Action Defense," Hispanic National Bar Association Convention, October 2005. She is a board member of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra and a Trustee of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum Foundation.
Carlos J. Spinelli-Noseda Carlos Spinelli-Noseda, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, is actively involved in the firm's Latin American practice, and has broad and extensive experience representing issuers and underwriters/dealer managers in public and private international offerings of equity and debt securities, including hybrid capital securities, restructurings and in mergers and acquisitions matters. A significant portion of Mr. Spinelli-Noseda’s practice involves sovereign issuers, and he is regularly engaged in debt offerings by several Latin American nations as well as the structuring and execution of exchange offers by sovereigns (of which he has done over sixteen to date).
Mr. Spinelli-Noseda graduated from Yale College (B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1991) and from Harvard Law School (J.D., cum laude, 1994). He became a partner of the Firm in 2003. He manages the Firm’s Visiting Lawyer program, which was founded in 1949 and has over 250 alumni from over 40 countries.
Mr. Spinelli-Noseda is recognized as a leading corporate and finance lawyer in Chambers Global: Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers 2007. He is involved with a number of notforprofit and foreign policy organizations, including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council of the Americas.
Mr. Spinelli-Noseda, who is of Argentine origin, speaks Spanish, French and Italian fluently and is proficient in Portuguese.
Latinos in the Service of our Judicial System
Hon. Yvonne Esperanza Campos (moderator)
Judge Campos was appointed to the Superior Court of the State of California in October 2003 by Governor Gray Davis. She presides over a criminal trial department in the nation’s third largest trial court, San Diego County, serving in the South County Division, in Chula Vista, California.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Campos served as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in the Southern District of California from October 1995 to October 2003, serving as a Deputy Chief in the General Crimes Section. A nationally recognized federal narcotics prosecutor, she has received numerous awards from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration. In 1994, Judge Campos was awarded a White House Fellowship by President Clinton and served on the staff of Attorney General Janet Reno at the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D. C. Prior to that, Judge Campos was an attorney in private practice specializing in real estate transactions, land use and environmental law with the California law firms of Morrison & Foerster (Los Angeles) and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison (San Diego). Immediately upon graduation from law school, Judge Campos served as a Senate Fellow with the California State Senate (Sen. Gary K. Hart) in Sacramento.
A graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D. 1988) and Stanford University (A.B. 1985 With Distinction), Judge Campos is a member of the California Judges Association (CJA), California Latino Judges Association (CLJA), California Women Lawyers (CWL), the San Diego County Bar Association (SDCBA), Lawyers Club of San Diego, and the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association (SDLRLA). She previously served on the California Task Force on Court Facilities, the Immigration and Naturalization Service Citizens’ Advisory Panel, pro bono Staff Counsel to the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (the Christopher Commission), and as a member of the Board of Directors of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA). A native Californian, she has hiked Mt. Whitney (tallest mountain on the lower 48 states), and she enjoys reading, traveling, photography, hiking and spending time with her husband, their two children and the family dog.
Hon. Laura A. CorderoLaura A. Cordero was appointed in 2005 as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She is currently assigned to the Family Court where she presides over domestic relations, juvenile delinquency and abuse and neglect matters. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Cordero served as Executive Assistant United States Attorney for External Affairs at the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. In that capacity, she was responsible for coordinating an extensive community engagement network, involving a full range of community-based programs and initiatives for youth and adults specifically aimed at reducing violent crime in the District of Columbia. Ms. Cordero first joined the United States Attorney’s Office in 1993, where she prosecuted a wide variety of criminal cases. During her tenure at the United States Attorney’s Office, Ms. Cordero received numerous commendations including being named United States Attorney’s Office Senior Litigation Counsel and receiving the United States Attorney’s Award for Creativity and Innovation. Ms. Cordero originally joined the Department of Justice in 1991 under the Attorney General’s Honor Law Graduate Program, where she was assigned to the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division. Prior to that, Ms. Cordero served as law clerk to the Honorable James A. Parker of the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. Ms. Cordero earned her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1988, and a B.A. degree in Political Science and Mathematical Science, with highest honors, from DePaul University in 1985.
Hon. Federico Hernández Denton
On June 14, 1985, Federico Hernández Denton was sworn in as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, and since 1988 he has been the Chairman of the Board of Bar Examiners. On August 9, 2004, he took the oath of office as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico after being appointed by the Governor of Puerto Rico and confirmed by the Puerto Rico Senate. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the Puerto Rico Bar Association and the American Bar Association.
He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966 and received his Juris Doctor from Harvard University in 1969. He began his career as a lawyer in 1969, when he worked as Legal Advisor to the President of the University of Puerto Rico until 1970. He then began to teach Commercial Law at the University of Puerto Rico and became Director of the Business Research Center (1969-1972) and of the Consumer Institute (1970-1972) of the Faculty of Business Administration. In 1972, he was appointed by Governor Luis A. Ferré as member of the Special Governor’s Commission on Puerto Rico and the Sea. From 1973 to 1977, he held the office of Secretary of Consumer Affairs under the administration of governor Rafael Hernández Colón. From 1977 to 1985, he taught law at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law, became Director of the Clinical Program (1981-1984), and eventually became Dean of the Law School (1984-1985). From 1978 to 1980, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Puerto Rico Bar Association. He was also a member of the Boards of Directors of the Puerto Rico Legal Services Corporation (1982-1985) and of the Santurce Legal Office (1984-1985). From 1983 to 1985, he chaired the Advisory Council of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Bill that established a Uniform Administrative Procedures Code in Puerto Rico.
He is the author of numerous articles that were published in professional journals and reviews. He is married to attorney Isabel Picó Vidal, and they have a son, Federico Rafael.
Ricardo H. HinojosaRicardo H. Hinojosa was born in Rio Grande City, Texas, in 1950. Valedictorian of his senior class at Rio Grande City High School, Judge Hinojosa graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas at Austin in 1972. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1975.
Subsequent to graduating from law school, Judge Hinojosa was selected by the Justices of the Texas Supreme Court to serve a one-year term with the Court as a Briefing Attorney assigned to Justice Thomas Reavley. He then returned to his native Rio Grande Valley of Texas to join the law firm of Ewers & Toothaker in McAllen, where he became a partner in 1979. In 1983, Judge Hinojosa was appointed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and has now served as a judge for nearly 23 years. In 2003, he was appointed Commissioner of the United States Sentencing Commission. In 2004, he was appointed Chair of the Commission.
While in private practice, Judge Hinojosa served as a member and Chair of the Pan American University Board of Regents and as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellows. Since taking the bench, Judge Hinojosa has served as a Chair of the Texas Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, as President and Chair of the University of Texas Ex-Students’ Association, as a member of the Magistrate Judges Committee of the Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit, as a member of the Committee on Defender Services of the Judicial Conference of the United States, as a member of the Advisors Group to the Model Penal Code: Sentencing Project for the American Law Institute, as member of the Budget Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission.
Judge Hinojosa has received numerous awards, including the “Outstanding Young Texas Ex Award,” the “Top Hand Award,” and the “Distinguished Alumnus Award” all from the University of Texas at Austin Ex-Students’ Association, and the “Distinguished Service Award” from Pan American University.
Hon. Philip R. “Phil” Martinez
Phil Martinez is a native El Pasoan born nearly a half-century ago. He attended local public schools, graduating from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1979. After graduating from law school, he returned to El Paso where he practiced law with the Kemp, Smith law firm for eight years.
He was elected to a judicial position at the age of 32 and has continued in public service since that time. He has served as Judge of County Court at Law No. 1(1991), Judge of the 327th Judicial District Court (1991-2002), and currently serves as the United States District Court Judge in the El Paso Division of the Western District of Texas (2002-present). He enjoys the distinction of having been appointed to different judicial positions by both Democratic and Republican elected officials (Governor Ann W. Richards and President George W. Bush).
Judge Martinez has been active in numerous professional and community organizations throughout his professional career. He is a frequent lecturer and author for legal education conferences, and has received numerous honors and awards. He is married to the former Mayela C. Ruiz, a woman “better than he deserves,” and has been blessed with two great daughters.
Luncheon Speaker
Joseph A. Garcia In August of 2006, Joseph A. Garcia became the 13th president of Colorado State University - Pueblo. Mr. Garcia earned an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Colorado (1979) and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School (1983). He also has studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and at Oxford University.
Garcia's diverse professional background includes extensive legal, governmental, and management experience. He has served on the Governor’s Cabinet as Executive Director of one of Colorado’s executive branch agencies and has served in the federal government as the regional director of one of the chief federal agencies, representing the White House and a cabinet secretary in the six Rocky Mountain States. Garcia has taught as an adjunct professor and has lectured in classrooms at CU-Colorado Springs and CU-Denver. From 2001-2006, he was president of Pikes Peak Community College.
Garcia has twice been selected as Hispanic Business Magazine's "Hispanic Legal Elite" and as "President of the Year" by the Colorado Community Colleges State Student Advisory Council. Colorado Springs NAACP also named him "Outstanding Administrator in Higher Education" in 2004.
Throughout his career, he has been an active community volunteer and board member for numerous non-profit organizations. He joined the board of directors of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority from 1994-1999 under then Gov. Roy Romer. Gov. Bill Owens appointed him again in 2001. He currently serves as chairman. Recently, he was invited by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education to join the presidents of Metropolitan State College of Denver and the Community College of Denver to represent Colorado at the National Leadership Summit on Advancing College Readiness in Washington, D.C. last month.
Garcia is married to Dr. Claire Garcia, professor of English at Colorado College. They have four children.
HLS Latino Alumni in the Media and Entertainment Industry: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?
Antonio Gonzalez Mora (moderator)
Antonio Mora is the co-anchor of CBS 2 Chicago’s 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM newscasts, with Diann Burns. Antonio is also the host of Eye on Chicago, CBS 2’s Emmy-Award winning public affairs program that airs every Sunday at 10:30 AM. Antonio began anchoring at CBS 2 Chicago in March, 2002 after working for ABC News for eight years. He is the first Hispanic to serve as a lead anchor at a network-owned station in Chicago, and the first Hispanic male to anchor a regularly-scheduled national broadcast news show.
Antonio served as news anchor and substitute host for Good Morning America from 1998 until 2002. He joined ABC in 1994 and reported for virtually all of ABC News’ broadcasts, including Nightline and 20/20, covering news from more than a dozen countries on four continents. Prior to joining ABC News, Antonio worked at KTTV-TV in Los Angeles, Calif. (1993-94), WTVJ-TV in Miami, Fla. (1992-93), Telemundo’s WNJU-TV in New York, N.Y. (1991), and Univision’s WXTV in New York, N.Y. (1989-91).
Antonio has been recognized for excellence throughout his career, receiving awards for reporting, anchoring, interviewing and commentary. His many honors include two Peabody Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award, a national Emmy Award, seven local Emmy Awards and a Silver Dome. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Vice President of Broadcast for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He is a member of the boards of trustees of the Goodman Theatre, the Chicago Children’s Choir and the Latin School of Chicago.Antonio began his career as a corporate attorney for Debevoise and Plimpton in New York. He received his L.L.M. from Harvard Law School in 1981 and a J.D., summa cum laude, from the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas, Venezuela in 1980. Mora received honorary doctorates from Our Lady of Holy Cross College and Ursinus College. Antonio is a native of Havana, Cuba. He and his wife, Julie, have two children and live in Chicago.
Alfredo Barrios, Jr.Alfredo attended Harvard College (’91) and Harvard Law School (’94) before joining the Los Angeles office of O’Melveny & Myers, where he was a corporate litigator for five years. In 1999, he took an extended leave of absence to do something he’d never done before: screenwriting. After about a year of writing several screenplays, he landed a manager and job on the CBS Supreme Court show, “First Monday.” From there, he went on to write and produce on several other shows, including “Law & Order” and, most recently, Fox’s “Justice.” Alfredo lives in Glendale, California, with his wife, Lisa, and their two boys, Little Fredo (aka Alfredito) and Diego.
Raul PerezRaul Perez is a partner at Fox Spillane Shaeffer LLP, an entertainment and litigation boutique law firm in Century City, California. Raul graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994 and from Harvard College with a major in Government in 1990. While at Harvard Law School, he was the co-chair of La Alianza and the Vice President of the Law School Council.
Raul has represented a variety of clients in the entertainment, media and communications industries. As an associate at Manatt Phelps & Phillips, he worked with such recording artists as Sheryl Crow, the Eagles, Cher, Barbara Streisand, and Xzibit. At Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, he worked with TLC, Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson. At Fox Spillane Shaeffer LLP, he has continued to represent such artists as Paulina Rubio, and has expanded his area of expertise by representing Vivendi Universal Games, one of the premier game developers in the country. His firm also represents Sony, NBC Universal, Focus Features and a number of other film and television production companies on a variety of matters. Raul is currently a member of the Recording Academy.
In addition to having a strong transactional background in entertainment law, Raul is also a sought after trial and litigation attorney. He currently represents Dow Chemical Company in product liability matters, and is outside counsel to the Cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach in their efforts to implement groundbreaking environment legislation. He also served a six-month assignment as the Assistant Special Interim Legal Counsel to the City of South Gate as part of an effort to restore integrity and good government to the scandal-plagued City.
Raul also believes in the concept of a citizen lawyer, and has devoted his time to a number of causes. He was the past president of the Latino Lawyers Association, and served on the board of directors of the Latino Theater Company, Padres Contra El Cancer, Girls Inc., and the Chicano Youth Leadership Project.
Raul's other passion is baseball. He manages his own amateur baseball league, the California Angels. Raul is married to Leticia Gomez and has a 16 year old daughter, Cristina.
Rita Morales Patton is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California at Davis where she majored in International Relations. She received her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1988 and served as the Managing Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal while there. Ms. Morales Patton is currently the head of the business and legal affairs department for Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California.
Prior to joining Cartoon Network, Ms. Morales Patton served as SVP of Programming and chief legal officer for SiTV, a start-up English language Latino-themed cable network targeting the 18-34 year old Latino/Multicultural demographic. Before being tapped to help launch SiTV as its first head of Programming, Ms. Morales Patton had an extensive career as a television and feature film transactional attorney and had formed her own Programming and Business Affairs Consulting firm where she helped launch the start-up network College Sports Television (CSTV)(currently in more than 52 million households). Prior to setting up her own consulting firm, she served as Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Oxygen Media, Senior Counsel in the Original Programming Department of HBO, and as Assistant General Counsel in the Theatrical Legal Department of Warner Bros. Pictures.
Following her graduation from law school, Ms. Morales Patton spent several years in private practice as a corporate attorney with Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg and Phillips and as an entertainment transactional attorney with the boutique entertainment firm of Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown, where she represented A-list talent in the television and film industry. Ms. Morales Patton was raised in central California and currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband (Roger Patton, HLS ’88) and her five-year-old daughter, Remedios. She is an avid antiques collector, interior design enthusiast and architectural historic preservationist, and currently sits on the Board of the Historic Preservation Overlay Zone for her neighborhood, Lafayette Square.
David MoralesDavid Morales is the founder of TH Media, a diverse media holding entity consisting of entertainment and production companies. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994, and received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1990.
In 1994, David began his career on Wall Street with the investment bank Goldman, Sachs, where he managed investment portfolios for wealthy families in Latin America. David later joined Morgan, Stanley in 1997 and moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil where he helped start that bank’s private wealth management operations.
Beginning in 2000, David left the financial world and began operations in media, focused primarily in television. In Brazil, a production company David founded produced several original comedy series for Brazilian broadcast TV , “Mano a Mano” and “Jornal Feliz,” the first-ever American-style sitcoms to air in the country. As part of this effort, David brought to Brazil noted veterans from the Hollywood comedy world (such as Debbie Allen - “A Different World,” “Fame”) to train local professionals in writing, directing, and production techniques.
In 2005, TH Media’s Los Angeles-based production outfit created several award-winning pilots for US television, focused exclusively on English-dominant and bilingual Hispanic audiences. TH Media’s diverse development slate paid off in 2006 with its first order for an original TV comedy series, “Pitbull’s La Esquina.” David is the Creator and Executive Producer of this series, which will debut in 2007 (May 9 th) on NBC-Universal’s Mun2 , a nationwide cable channel focused exclusively on delivering programming to young bicultural audiences.
In addition to TH Media, David and a partner currently manage a family office investment fund for a retired Goldman Sachs partner. The fund focuses on global emerging market investments, and David travels frequently to India, China and Africa to monitor the fund’s holdings. David and his wife Estela have 3 children, two boys and a newborn baby girl.
Highlighting our Commitment to Community
José Javier Rodríguez (moderator)
José Rodríguez graduated from Harvard Law School in 2006. He came to law school after three years in Senegal with the Peace Corps as a small business advising volunteer. At Harvard José was an active member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where he headed the creation of a wage and hour practice, and was a volunteer with Centro Presente, a membership organization advocating for the rights of recent immigrants. While in law school, he interned with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund in Los Angeles, the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City and the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Florida and in rural Mexico. José also served as submissions editor for the Latino Law Review and was active in La Alianza. Eager to return to his hometown, José is back in Miami. Now an attorney at Florida Legal Services, he is supported by a Skadden Fellowship (06-08). José is initiating a project which provides legal support around wage issues to community groups who are organizing low-wage workers. He currently represents several groups of workers who work in industries plagued by a veritable epidemic in unpaid wages.
Upon joining the Brothers of Holy Cross, a religious order in the Catholic church, Brother Dooling’s life-goal was to be of service to others. From 1962 to 1984, he taught in and administered at various Catholic high schools in predominately minority populations. Upon graduating from Harvard Law School n 1988, he along with classmate David Lopez, started the San Antonio Community Law Center, a tax exempt organization that provides legal services to the working poor. Brother Dooling was born in Denver, Colorado and raised throughout the Southwestern United states. Brother Dooling’s involvement in community affairs and life work has focused on issues of education and social services to low income and minority populations.
Maria ImperialMaria Imperial is the Executive Director of the City Bar Justice Center. The City Bar Justice Center, the 501(c)(3)affiliate of the New York City Bar, provides legal services to those who cannot afford such assistance by harnessing the resources of the legal profession. Prior to heading the City Bar Justice Center, Ms. Imperial spent ten years as the General Counsel/Associate Director of Safe Horizon (formerly known as Victim Services) in New York City, which is the largest victim services provider in the United States. At Victim Services, Ms. Imperial created the Domestic Violence Law Project. Ms. Imperial has authored a number of articles on victims issues and domestic violence. She is on the Board of Pro Bono.Net, My Sister’s Place in Westchester County and a member of 100 Hispanic Women in New York City. Prior to joining Victim Services, Ms. Imperial worked as an associate at O’Melveny and Myers law firm. She is a graduate of Harvard College, the Robert Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Harvard Law School.
Hugo MoralesHugo Morales is the Executive Director and co-founder of Radio Bilingüe, Inc., a Latino owned public radio network with six network stations and over one hundred affiliates in the U.S., Mexico and Puerto Rico. He is a Mixtec Indian who came to California as a child to pick crops with his family and grew up in a labor camp in Healdsburg, California. He is a graduate of Harvard College and received a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Mr. Morales is the first Chicano to hold both an undergraduate and law degree from Harvard. During his undergraduate and graduate years, Mr. Morales was a community activist, leading a movement for Chicano/Boricua Studies at Harvard, as president of Boston’s MEChA and by founding the first bilingual Chicano/Boricua radio show in Boston.
Mr. Morales has been an strong advocate of public access for community radio stations for communities of color and an active proponent of cultural services for local communities. In 1994, he was a recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In February 1999, the Alliance for Public Technology awarded Mr. Morales the Susan G. Hadden Pioneer Award for ensuring equitable access to information for the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. and Mexico. In May 1999, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting honored Mr. Morales with the Murrow Award, public radio’s highest distinction.
Nancy RamirezNancy Ramirez is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice (LACLJ), a nonprofit community law office that provides free legal services to indigent residents of Los Angeles County. Prior to becoming the Executive Director, she was a Managing Attorney for the Consumer Unit at the LACLJ where she represented victims of fraud including financial elder abuse, real estate fraud, door-to-door sales fraud, the unauthorized practice of law and identity theft. She is the former chair of the Advocates for Consumer Justice, a coalition of government and nonprofit consumer advocates and attorneys representing various communities throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. In addition to her work in the consumer unit, Nancy has represented clients in their family law and public benefits matters. She has been with the LACLJ since 2001.
Prior to joining the LACLJ, Nancy was a voting rights attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) from 1991-1997. She was the Director of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez’s Orange County and Washington D.C. offices and Director of Outreach for California’s 2000 Census Campaign. In addition, she taught legal writing at the University of Southern California Law School in 2003-2004.
She is a 1990 graduate of Harvard Law School and 1987 graduate of U.C. Berkeley. She sits on the Personnel Commission for the City of Monterey Park. She is married to David Garcia, attorney for Southern California Edison Company, and has two stepchildren, Kevin, 17 and Vanessa, 15.
Latino Alumni in Government: Leadership in Public Service
Juanita C. Hernández (moderator)
Ms. Hernández is a graduate of the Harvard Law School in 1985 and received her Bachelor of Arts, cum laude from Harvard University in 1982. She is licensed to practice law by the State Bar of Texas and the District of Columbia. Ms. Hernández is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; and all four United States District Courts in Texas. She is Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. She focuses her practice on litigation matters in the Office of General Counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Previously, Ms. Hernández was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, served in the Justice Department as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and was a litigator practicing in large law firms in San Antonio. She clerked for the Hon. William Wayne Justice, then Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. She is active in numerous professional and bar associations at various levels.
Lisa Castañon Lisa A. Castañon, HLS '91, is an Assistant Regional Counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle, Washington, specializing in regulatory and litigation matters for Superfund cleanups and cost recovery under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). She has worked in both the San Francisco and Seattle EPA offices over the past 14 years. Prior to working for EPA, she was an associate at the law firm of Orrick Herrington and Sutcliffe in San Francisco. Lisa graduated from the University of California, Davis, in 1986. She is past president of the Washington State Hispanic Bar Association. She is married to another environmental attorney, Cliff Villa. They enjoy living in the Pacific Northwest with their two children, Olivia, 5, and Julian, 2 1/2.
Ted CruzTed Cruz serves as the Solicitor General of Texas. He is the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas and, when appointed, was the youngest Solicitor General in the United States. Ted has authored over fifty U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented twenty-six oral arguments, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court. For three consecutive years, he has won the Best Brief Award by the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), for the best merits brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, 2004, and 2005. In addition, he currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas Law School, where he teaches U.S. Supreme Court Litigation.
Ted previously served as Domestic Policy Advisor to President George W. Bush, as Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as the Director of Policy for the Federal Trade Commission. He has been named by Newsweek magazine as one of 20 young Hispanic Americans on the rise, named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 best rising-star litigators in America, honored by Harvard Law School as a Traphagen Distinguished Alumnus, and twice named by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in America. He graduated cum laude from Princeton University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a Primary Editor of the Harvard Law Review and a founding Editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review. In 1995, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Luttig on the Fourth Circuit, and in 1996 as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the Supreme Court of the United States. He is the only Hispanic in history to have clerked for the Chief Justice of the United States.
Jessica R. Herrera-FlaniganJessica R. Herrera-Flanigan is the Staff Director and General Counsel of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Previously, she has served the Committee as Democratic Staff Director and Chief Counsel. In the 108 th Congress, she served the Select Committee on Homeland Security as Counsel for cybersecurity, privacy, and infrastructure protection matters.
Before joining the Select Committee, Ms. Herrera-Flanigan served as Senior Counsel with the Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she led a team of prosecutors who specialized in cybercrimes and was one of the government’s leading experts on critical infrastructure protection, electronic evidence gathering and related procedural and Constitutional law, and international issues. She served as vice-chair to the U.S. Delegation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ("OECD") Experts Group, which produced the 2002 “Guidelines for the Security of Information Systems and Networks: Towards a Culture of Security.”
Prior to joining Justice, Ms. Herrera-Flanigan was with Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C. where she practiced communications, intellectual property, and energy law. Ms. Herrera-Flanigan also has served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., as well as an adjunct professor at the Washington College of Law at American University and at the American Military University.
Ms. Herrera-Flanigan is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a past President and on the Advisory Council of the Hispanic Bar Association of D.C. and has twice been named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the U.S. by Hispanic Business magazine. In 2005, she was named “Cybersecurity Woman of the Year” by the Women’s High Tech Coalition.
A native of Port Arthur, Texas, Ms. Herrera-Flanigan received her JD from Harvard Law School and her BA with distinction in American Studies from Yale University.
Ana Maria Martel is Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California, a position she has held since October 1996. Her assignments have included violations of immigration law and litigating bankruptcy and general commercial matters.
Ms. Martel has also served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, and the District of Arizona. Prior to her work as Assistant U.S. Attorney, she was an Associate at Brown & Bain, P.A. in Phoenix, Arizona from 1981-1987.
With a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from the College of Holy Names in Oakland, California, Ms. Martel entered Harvard Law School in 1973. She was awarded a J.D. in 1976. A devoted public servant, Ms. Martel has held various positions beginning with her stint as Assistant Director, Office of Presidential Appointments at the White House. She served as a Special Assistant to the Director for Economic Development, Community Services Administration, as well as Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (formerly HEW). Prior to her work at Brown & Bain, Ms. Martel served as Deputy Director, Compliance and Enforcement Office for Civil Rights, Department of Health and Human Services (formerly Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
James Vigil, Jr. James Vigil, Class of 1989 is a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of State Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) with responsibility for the Intellectual Property Rights Crime, Cybercrime and Cyber Security portfolios. James is a native of California, where he worked for Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D- Los Angeles). A graduate of UCLA, James arrived at State in 1998 through a Presidential Appointment as a Special Assistant to the INL Assistant Secretary.
Prior to State Department, James worked seven years at the Department of Justice, where he was an Assistant to the Associate Attorney General, a Trial Attorney in the Voting and Criminal Sections of the Civil Rights Division, and a Special Assistant United States Attorney at the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1999, James served the last six months of the Clinton Administration in the White House as a Senior Advisor to the Honorable Buddy McKay, the President’s Special Envoy for the Americas. James received an Outstanding Performance Award at the Justice Department for his work on voting rights cases and a State Department Special Achievement Award for his work on anticorruption initiatives. He has federal criminal and civil trial experience.
In his present position at the State Department, James serves as the lead officer on intellectual property and high tech crime. James helped evolve the first US international cyber security outreach strategy, originated and obtained NSC approval to launch a major new initiative in the Organization of American States and has participated on numerous U.S. Government delegations to bilateral and multilateral meetings on cyber security, cyber crime and intellectual property rights crime. Working closely with government partners like USTR and USPTO, as well as rights holders like the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, as manager of the INL intellectual property rights and cyber crime training and technical assistance programs James implemented a major expansion of State Department training and technical assistance to build foreign law enforcement capacity to combat intellectual property rights crimes. In 2005, James was selected for a Brookings Institute congressional fellowship and spent a year as Foreign Affairs Fellow for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY).
A member and past President of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia and member of the American and Hispanic National Bar Associations, James participated in drafting ABA guidebooks on cyber crime and cyber security and was a panelist on cyber crime issues at the 2001 Hispanic Internet Summit in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the 2003 Hispanic National Bar Association Convention in San Jose, California.
Lawyers in Academia
Leticia Saucedo (moderator)Professor Saucedo earned her J. D. in 1996 from Harvard Law School, where she was managing editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review. Following graduation, she first served as briefing attorney to Chief Justice Thomas Phillips of the Texas Supreme Court, then was an associate of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Jacobsen in New York City, where she was the recipient of the Fried Frank MALDEF Fellowship. From 1999 to 2003, she was a staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in San Antonio, Texas. As a staff attorney, Professor Saucedo litigated civil rights cases in the areas of employment, education, voting rights and immigration.
Professor Saucedo has taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas since 2003. She teaches Torts, Immigration Law, and co-directs the Immigration Law Clinic. She has co-developed and taught international and domestic service learning legal courses covering the immigration consequences of crime, and domestic violence in a post-conflict society. Her research interests lie in the intersection between employment and labor law and immigration law. She is co- editing a casebook on Latinos and the law, entitled, The Legal Construction of a Latino Identity. Her articles have appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Immigration and Nationality Law Review and the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences.
Reynaldo Anaya ValenciaReynaldo Anaya Valencia is a Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Center for Latina/Latino Legal Studies at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. St. Mary’s University is a Hispanic Serving Institution and the law school is consistently ranked as one of the best law schools for Hispanics in the country. Valencia has practiced, taught, written, and lectured nationally and internationally on corporate law, corporate bankruptcy, and race and gender issues. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, Valencia was one of 16 White House Fellows for 1999-2000, working in the White House Office of the Chief of Staff, on race, civil rights, immigration and Latino education issues. Professor Valencia currently serves on the Audit Committee of the Law School Admission Council, the State Bar of Texas Gender Fairness Task Force, and on the Ethics Committee of Christus Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio. Professor Valencia is the lead co-author of an undergraduate textbook titled Mexican Americans and the Law, which is now being developed into a casebook for law students.
Joaquin G. AvilaJoaquin G. Avila is an Assistant Professor at Seattle University School of Law. Born and raised in Compton, California, Mr. Avila attended Centennial Senior High School, graduating valedictorian in 1966. Mr. Avila attended Yale University and received his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science in 1970. Mr. Avila graduated from Harvard Law School in 1973 where he served as Case and Comments Editor for the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review.
Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Avila served as a law clerk with the Alaska State Supreme Court. In 1974, Mr. Avila joined the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (M.A.L.D.E.F.), a national Latino civil rights advocacy organization. In 1976, Mr. Avila became M.A.L.D.E.F.’s principal voting rights attorney focusing on access to the political process at the national and local levels. Mr. Avila testified in 1981 before the U.S. Congress in support of the extension of the Voting Rights Act. In 1982, Mr. Avila became M.A.L.D.E.F.’s President and General Counsel. Mr. Avila was responsible for the formulation and implementation of a national Latino civil rights agenda, which resulted in major legislative and legal victories. In 1985, Mr. Avila established his private voting rights practice.
Mr. Avila’s achievements include many awards and citations. In 1996, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation selected Mr. Avila as a Fellow for his work in the voting rights area. Also in 1996, the Vanguard Public Foundation awarded Mr. Avila its Social Justice Sabbatical. Mr. Avila received a proclamation for his contribution to the City of San Antonio, Texas, from then Mayor Henry Cisneros. In addition, the Hispanic National Bar Association granted him their Benito Juarez and Abraham Lincoln Award for outstanding achievements as an attorney.
A member of several federal and state Bars, Mr. Avila has taught at the University of Texas Law School and the University of California Law School at Boalt Hall.
Mr. Avila and his wife, Sally, have three children, Joaquin Emiliano, 35 years old, Salvador Tiachca, 29 years old, and Angelique Marie, 27 years old.
Jenny MartinezJenny Martinez is an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School, where she teaches international law, international human rights, constitutional law and civil procedure. Her current research focuses on international criminal law, terrorism and human rights, and the interaction of international and domestic legal institutions. In 2004, she argued Rumsfeld v. Padilla, one of the “enemy combatants” cases, in the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, Professor Martinez worked as an associate legal officer at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, where she worked with Judge Patricia Wald on criminal trials involving genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Professor Martinez also practiced law with the firm Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., where she focused on constitutional appellate litigation.
A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Professor Martinez was also a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and to U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Guido Calabresi. She has been named to the American Lawyer’s “Fab Fifty” young litigators; the National Law Journal’s “Forty under Forty” list of top young lawyers; the Daily Journal’s “Top Twenty Under Forty” young California lawyers; Diverse: Issues in Higher Education’s list of ten rising academic stars; and Hispanic Business’s 100 Most Influential Hispanics.
Jorge RamirezAfter graduating from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Professor Ramírez served as a law clerk to the Honorable Homer Thornberry on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Following his judicial clerkship, Professor Ramírez gained experience
in three areas of the legal profession: commercial litigation, poverty
law, and non-profit law. Professor Ramírez first practiced law as
a commercial litigator with the firm of Susman Godfrey, L.L.P. in Houston,
Texas. He represented various corporate clients injured by, among other
things, breach of contract, fraud, and/or anti-competitive behavior. Three
years later, he accepted an offer from Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. to become
managing attorney for the Farm Worker Health and Safety Project in Weslaco,
Texas. In that capacity, Professor Ramírez initiated and managed
environmental and occupational safety litigation for indigent clients injured
throughout the United States. He also assisted international non-governmental
organizations on cross-border environmental issues. In 1996, Professor
Ramírez became executive director of the Texas Democratic Party
and later served as acting general counsel.
Professor Ramírez has lectured and written, both in the United States
and Mexico, on various topics including the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), international environmental issues, and farm worker law. He has
also served as a visiting professor in a graduate program on comparative
law at the Universidad Autónoma de Asunción Paraguay. Professor
Ramírez administers our international study abroad programs in Spain,
France and Mexico. His responsibilities include teaching international
law courses at our Summer Law Institute in Guanajuato, Mexico. He was selected
as one of five professionals to travel to Brazil in May of 2006 as a participant
in a Group Study Exchange Program ("GSP") sponsored by the International
Rotary Foundation. The GSP provides participants with an opportunity to
meet with colleagues in Brazil to discuss opportunities for collaboration,
study and research. Professor Ramirez also participated in the "American
Swiss Foundation Young Leaders Conference" held in Ermatingen, Switzerland
in May, 2005. Participants in the Conference are nominated by prominent
American and Swiss citizens and provide the next generation of leaders
in Switzerland and the U.S. an opportunity to develop a deeper awareness
of the other's perspective. The bipartisan group of fifty participants
(half American and half Swiss) is selected on the basis of outstanding
professional and personal achievement.
Alternative Career Paths to Success: Latino Alumni Excelling Outside the Practice of Law
Regina Montoya ’79Regina Montoya is the Chief Executive Officer of New America Alliance (NAA). Her responsibilities include developing strategic and tactical plans to fulfill the NAA’s mission of promoting the advancement of the Latino community with a focus on economic and political empowerment. Ms. Montoya is a Harvard-trained attorney who was one of the first Latinas to earn partnership in a major law firm in the United States. She is one of a handful of Latinas serving on a Fortune 500 Board of Directors, and she is a former award-winning television commentator.
Ms. Montoya is a member of the Board of Directors of Washington Mutual. Among her past corporate activities, she has served on the Boards of Directors of the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) GSE, the Trammell Crow Company and Texas Commerce Bank. In addition, Ms. Montoya has served as a member of the Advisory Board to Univision – Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Prior to joining NAA, she was Founder and President of WORKRules, a Texas-based workforce training and media and community relations company where she consulted with business leaders and corporate clients, including several Fortune 500 companies. From 1980 until 1990, Ms. Montoya practiced law with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, and was elected partner in 1986. From 1990 until 1993, she was a shareholder and director of the law firm of Godwin and Carlton, P.C.
In 2000, Ms. Montoya was a candidate for the 5th U.S. Congressional District of Texas. In 1998, she was nominated by the President to serve as the U.S. Representative to the Fifty-third Session (1998-1999) of the General Assembly of the United Nations, where she focused on economic and social issues. In 1993, she served in the White House as an Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
A leader in the nonprofit community, from 1996 to 2000 she was the volunteer National President of Girls Incorporated, formerly known as Girls Clubs of America, and is currently a member of the Girls Inc. Latina Initiative Advisory Board and the Board of Directors of its Dallas affiliate. Ms. Montoya serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the Boards of Directors of the Dallas Theater Center, the Parkland Foundation Board and the American Diabetes Association of Metropolitan Dallas. From August 2002 to February 2005, she was the Southwest Regional Director of AARP.
Ms. Montoya is the former co-chair of the Latino Advisory Committee for KERA-TV (PBS). She was a regular panelist on the KERA-TV (PBS affiliate)-produced programs, On the Record and Between the Lines, has provided political commentary for KDFW-TV (Fox affiliate) and was the moderator for the WFAA-TV (ABC affiliate) program, Nuestro Dia. Her commentary has been carried on CNN and many radio broadcasts, in both English and Spanish. Her op-ed articles have been featured in the Los Angeles Times and The Dallas Morning News. Ms. Montoya is currently working on a book about the importance of incorporating Latinos into the economic, political and social fabric of America.
Among her countless local and national awards, Ms Montoya has been honored by Hispanic Business magazine as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the US and has received the Latina Excellence Award for Leadership from Hispanic Magazine, the Mother of the Year Award from Dallas Can Academy, the Profiles in Leadership Award from SMU, and she was a finalist for the Quarterback Award (for Volunteerism) from the Dallas Cowboys.
Ms. Montoya earned her B.A. from Wellesley College, where she is a member of the Board of Trustees, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She also has served as Vice President and Elected Director of the Harvard University Alumni Association. From 1995 to 2000, she was a visiting Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Gilbert AranzaGilbert Aranza is President of Star Concessions, Ltd., a Food and Beverage Operator and Management Company that owns and operates food and beverage and retail concessions at airports, primarily Dallas Love Field and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Concepts include Chili's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Seattle's Best Coffee, Whataburger, East Side Mario's Italian Eatery, Cool River Café, Cantina Laredo and Fossil, as well as concepts licensed by the Texas Stadium Corporation, home of the Dallas Cowboys. Mr. Aranza is also President of Club Concepts, Ltd. and Coast Clubs, Ltd., which operate Admirals Clubs, First Class Lounges and Executive Conference Centers for American Airlines, Inc. and Red Carpet Clubs for United Airlines in certain airports across the country.
Prior to his restaurant management career, Mr. Aranza was a partner with Cohan, Simpson, Cowlishaw, Aranza & Wulff, L.L.P. Attorneys and Counselors, and Director of First Southwest Company, Investment Bankers concentrating on the start-up of businesses in Mexico. Gilbert Aranza is presently a member of the Frito-Lay Latino/Hispanic National Advisory Board, Dallas Citizen’s Council, the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center Board of Trustees and the World President's Organization.
Mr. Aranza holds a BBA in Accounting from The University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Ana Maria SalazarAna Maria Salazar Slack, is a recognized international law and national security expert on Latin America. She writes a weekly column for El Universal, El Informador, El Imparcial and other major Mexican newspapers and “La Opinión” in California. She anchors two popular English speaking nation-wide radios news programs in Mexico, in addition to hosting a weekly TV show “Seguridad Total” on Channel 40 (SKY 140). She is the author of two books: “La Guerras que Vienen ” (Aguilar/Nuevo Siglo 2003) and the bestseller “Seguridad Nacional Hoy. El Reto de las Democracias” (Aguilar/Nuevo Siglo 2002). In addition to her work in the media, Ms. Salazar heads Grupo Salazar, an international consulting firm that specializes on negotiation and mediation training (www.gruposalazar.com).
Between June 1998 and January 2001, Ms. Salazar served at the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support. As a result of her efforts at the Pentagon, in 2000 Ms. Salazar was recognized by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Hispanic Americans in the United States. Prior to joining the Pentagon, Ms. Salazar served at the White House as Policy Advisor for President Clinton’s Special Envoy for the Americas in 1998 and from March 1995 to June 1997, she served in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
Ms. Salazar has also worked and lived in Latin America. In Colombia she served as the Judicial Attaché at the United States Embassy in Bogotá, coordinating evidence and information requests between the United States and the relevant Colombian agencies. She also has supervised multi-million dollar projects designed to improve the administration of justice in Colombia and Guatemala.
Ms. Salazar received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989 and a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. She is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and in the District of Columbia and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Raul R. TapiaRaul R. Tapia is a Managing Director of the C2 Group, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in representation before Congress, the White House and various federal executive agencies. Mr. Tapia is also the founder and former Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Republic Communications Corporation, and a founder, Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of AMO Broadcasting Company.
Mr. Tapia has served as one of nine members of the Board of Directors of Denny’s Corporation. Fortune magazine, in its annual review of the top 1200 companies in the United States, has repeatedly selected Denny’s among its “America’s 50 Best Companies for Minorities” survey. Mr. Tapia has also served as one of eight members of the Chairman’s Diversity Council of the GTECH Holdings Corporation.
Prior to joining the C2 Group, LLC, Mr. Tapia was a founding partner in the law firm of Tapia & Buffington from 1981 to 1992. Before starting his law firm, Mr. Tapia served on the White House staff of President Jimmy Carter from 1979 to 1981 as Deputy Assistant to the President for Hispanic Affairs. From 1976 to 1977 he served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Edmund W. Burke, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Alaska.
Mr. Tapia received his degree from the Harvard Law School in 1975. He earned a Master in Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University in 1976 and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1972 from California State University at Fullerton where he received "The President's Award" as the outstanding member of his graduating class.
Active in a number of civic activities, Mr. Tapia has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hispanic Heritage Awards Foundation for a four year term. The mission of the Foundation is to recognize Hispanic achievement through annual Awards in five categories: Education, Leadership, Sports, Art and Literature. Under Mr. Tapia’s leadership, the Foundation instituted a scholarship program that is now offered in twelve cities. In recognition of his efforts, Latina Magazine selected Mr. Tapia in its annual 2000 “Hombres” issue as “Role Model of the Year”.
Dinner Keynote
R. Alexander AcostaR. Alexander Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida on June 9, 2006. The Southern District extends along more than 300 miles of coastline from Key West in the South to Vero Beach in the North and has approximately six million people.
Prior to his appointment as United States Attorney, Mr. Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Mr. Acosta was the first Hispanic to serve as an Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights statutes, including those statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, handicap, religion, and national origin in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs. Prior to his service as Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB").
A native of Miami, Florida, Mr. Acosta attended the Gulliver Schools in Miami. He earned his degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. After graduation, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then worked at the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Kirkland and Ellis. Mr. Acosta has also taught several classes on employment law, disability-based discrimination law, and civil rights law at the George Mason School of Law.
SATURDAY
Breakfast Plenary ∙ A Conversation with the Dean
Elena Kagan Elena Kagan, the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law, has served as Dean of Harvard Law School since July 1, 2003.
Kagan came to Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became Professor of Law in 2001. While on the faculty, Kagan has taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure and a seminar on the law surrounding the presidency.
From 1995 to 1999, Kagan served in the White House, first as Associate Counsel to the President (1995-96) and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council (1997-99). In those positions she played a key role in the executive branch's formulation, advocacy, and implementation of law and policy in areas ranging from education to crime to public health.
A leading scholar of administrative law, Kagan's recent work focuses on the role of the President of the United States in formulating and influencing federal administrative and regulatory law. Her 2001 Harvard Law Review article, "Presidential Administration," was honored as the year's top scholarly article by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and is being developed into a book to be published by Harvard University Press. Kagan has also written on a range of First Amendment issues, including the role of governmental motive in First Amendment doctrine, and the interplay of libel law and the First Amendment. Her works in progress include a new casebook on administrative law.
Kagan launched her scholarly career at the University of Chicago Law School, where she became an assistant professor in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995. In 1993, Kagan received the graduating students' award for teaching excellence.
Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986 to 1987. The next year she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. She then worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1989 to 1991.
Kagan received her bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton in 1981. She attended Worcester College, Oxford, as Princeton's Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow, and received an M. Phil. in 1983. She then attended Harvard Law School, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude in 1986.
Strategic Interventions for Latino Access to Housing, Health Insurance, and Wealth
Sylvia Trujillo is a Senior Legislative Counsel with the American Medical Association (AMA). Sylvia provides legislative and regulatory analysis on an array of issues including: genetics/bioethics, stem cell research, telemedicine, Medicare managed care and the prescription drug benefit, drug importation/reimportation, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drugs, biologics and devices safety issues. Sylvia has over 10 years of public agency and healthcare law experience.
Prior to the AMA, she served as a litigation attorney in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Office of the General, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Division. She also served as an Assistant Regional Counsel for HHS where she represented a number of HHS agencies in addition to CMS. Sylvia provided legal representation to HHS on varied issues including Medicaid coverage, matching funds and state plan amendments, Medicare reimbursement, nursing home and home health agency quality of care enforcement matters, compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act, and health care fraud and abuse in the context of bankruptcy.
She earned her law degree from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall), her Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College, cum laude.
Louis BarajasLouis Barajas is a premier example of the American dream. Born in the barrio of East Los Angeles and the son of Mexican immigrants, Louis began his financial and small business career in his teens by helping his father and mother with their wrought iron business. He graduated from UCLA in 1984, received his MBA from Claremont Graduate School in 1987, and attained a Certified Financial Planner designation from the Denver College of Financial Planning in 1990. After years of experience at major accounting and financial planning firms in Southern California, Louis left the “yacht and Mercedes” crowd and returned to East Los Angeles in 1991 to form his own wealth and business planning firm, Louis Barajas, Wealth & Business Planning.
Since 1991, Louis has become a nationally recognized expert in financial and business issues. His goal is simple: to create an “Economic Revolution for the Working Class” to help them attain greater abundance through more wise financial and business choices. Rutledge Hill Press is publishing Louis’ new book SMALL BUSINESS, BIG LIFE (also in Spanish – Micro Empresa, Mega Vida) in May 2007. HarperCollins published his national best selling book, The Latino Journey to Financial Greatness in 2003 and El Camino a la Grandeza Financiera in 2004. This book was recognized by the Latino Literary Awards as the 2004 Best Self-Help Book.
Louis has received numerous awards, including, in September 2002, Mutual Funds Magazine named Louis as one of the Top 100 Financial Advisors in the United States; in May 2005, Louis received the Small Business of the Year Award from the Latin Business Association; and in 2006, The Los Angeles District Office of the Small Business Administration awarded Louis The Small Business Journalist of the Year.
Louis currently writes a financial empowerment column called “Doctor Dinero,” for the national Latino Men’s magazine, Open Your Eyes (OYE). From 1997 to 2001, Louis wrote a weekly financial and consumer advocacy column called “Entre Numeros” for the business section of La Opinion, the largest circulated Spanish newspaper in the United States.
Ruben Jose King-Shaw, Jr.
Ruben Jose King-Shaw Jr. is Chairman and CEO of Mansa Equity Partners, Inc., a health care private equity investment and advisory firm. The firm focuses on health care products, services and technologies that can benefit from the trends in clinical science, demographics, government payment policy and regulation. A dual citizen of Panama and The United States, Ruben has advised governments and companies in North America, The Caribbean, South Africa and Latin America on matters of business development, mergers and acquisitions, and health care policy.
Ruben also remains active in public service. New York Governor George Pataki appointed Ruben to the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney appointed Ruben to the University Of Massachusetts Board Of Trustees. He chairs the UMass Board's Committee on Academic and Student Affairs. Ruben is a member of the Cornell University Council and the Advisory Council at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Abbott Laboratories named Ruben to their Health Policy Board in 2005. Ruben is also a director of the Scripps Florida Funding Corporation.
Ruben has an extensive expertise in health policy, economics and finance. Ruben served in the George W. Bush Administration from 2001 to 2003 as Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Ruben was also Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury. Before entering public service, Ruben had twenty years of experience in health care management.
Ruben is happily married to Patricia Gipson King-Shaw and they have two beautiful daughters, Alexandra Anis, and Angelica Anastasia. They enjoy their homes in Massachusetts, Florida and Panama City, Panama.
Eva M. PlazaEva M. Plaza is the Chief Deputy City Solicitor for the Solicitor’s office of the City of Philadelphia. Ms. Plaza is in charge of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative Unit. Prior to this position, Ms. Plaza served as Assistant Secretary of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ms. Plaza was appointed to a four-year term by President Bill Clinton and was sworn in on November 8, 1997. As Assistant Secretary, Ms. Plaza vigorously enforced the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and its amendments, and waged aggressive education and outreach campaigns in communities across the country.
Prior to her appointment as Assistant Secretary, Ms. Plaza served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General over the Torts Branch at the U.S. Department of Justice. Before serving in the Administration, Ms. Plaza was litigation trial attorney in the Washington, D.C. law firms of Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson and Arent, Fox, Kinter, Plotkin & Kahn from 1986 to 1993.
Ms. Plaza has received numerous awards for outstanding achievement, including the Albert Arent Pro Bono Award, 1989; the National Conference for College Women Leaders, Woman of Distinction Award in 1998; and the Hispanic Bar Association’s Equal Justice Award in 2002. She has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in America, and is a lifetime member of the American Bar Association’s American Bar Foundation.
Ms. Plaza graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1980. Ms. Plaza studied law at the University of California Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, where she served as Associate Editor of the California Law Review. After graduating from law school in 1984, Ms. Plaza was selected to the highly acclaimed Attorney General Honors Program of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. where she was trial counsel in the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch.
Beyond Chávez: Is There a Left in Latin America?
Ana Maria Salazar Slack, is a recognized international law and national security expert on Latin America. She writes a weekly column for El Universal, El Informador, El Imparcial and other major Mexican newspapers and “La Opinión” in California. She anchors two popular English speaking nation-wide radios news programs in Mexico, in addition to hosting a weekly TV show “Seguridad Total” on Channel 40 (SKY 140). She is the author of two books: “La Guerras que Vienen ” (Aguilar/Nuevo Siglo 2003) and the bestseller “Seguridad Nacional Hoy. El Reto de las Democracias” (Aguilar/Nuevo Siglo 2002). In addition to her work in the media, Ms. Salazar heads Grupo Salazar, an international consulting firm that specializes on negotiation and mediation training (www.gruposalazar.com).
Between June 1998 and January 2001, Ms. Salazar served at the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support. As a result of her efforts at the Pentagon, in 2000 Ms. Salazar was recognized by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Hispanic Americans in the United States. Prior to joining the Pentagon, Ms. Salazar served at the White House as Policy Advisor for President Clinton’s Special Envoy for the Americas in 1998 and from March 1995 to June 1997, she served in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
Ms. Salazar has also worked and lived in Latin America. In Colombia she served as the Judicial Attaché at the United States Embassy in Bogotá, coordinating evidence and information requests between the United States and the relevant Colombian agencies. She also has supervised multi-million dollar projects designed to improve the administration of justice in Colombia and Guatemala.
Ms. Salazar received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989 and a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. She is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and in the District of Columbia and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Raquel AldanaProfessor Aldana earned her J.D. degree in 1997 from Harvard Law School, where she served as articles editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Prior to coming to the Boyd School of Law, Professor Aldana worked for the Center for Justice and International Law representing victims of gross human rights violations in the Inter-American System on Human Rights. She also taught a seminar in human rights at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Prior to that, she was an associate at the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington, D.C.
Professor Aldana teaches Immigration Law, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, International Human Rights, and International Public Law. She also teaches experiential learning courses, including a course in Nicaragua on domestic violence in a post-conflict society. She spent the Spring of 2006 as a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala, where she taught courses on economic rights and conducted research on femicide. Her publications have appeared in The Journal of Human Rights, the UC Davis Law Review, Human Rights Quarterly, the Oregon Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law.
John C. BonifazJohn Bonifaz is the founder of the National Voting Rights Institute (NVRI) and a Senior Legal Fellow at Demos in its Democracy Program. Founded in 1994, NVRI has served as a prominent legal and public education center dedicated to protecting the right of all citizens to vote and to participate in the electoral process on an equal and meaningful basis. Mr. Bonifaz served as NVRI’s executive director from 1994-2004, and then as its general counsel from 2004-2006. From January through September 2006, Mr. Bonifaz took a leave from the National Voting Rights Institute to run as a Democratic candidate for Massachusetts Secretary of State, garnering nearly 130,000 votes in a primary fight against a 12-year incumbent. In the spring of 2007, Mr. Bonifaz will be an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, teaching a course on advocating for democracy in the United States.
Mr. Bonifaz also maintains a private law practice with his father, Cristobal Bonifaz, specializing in international human rights and environmental cases. Since 1993, Mr. Bonifaz and his father have been involved in a longstanding battle to hold the Texaco oil company accountable for its environmental destruction of the Ecuadorian Amazon. In February and March 2003, Mr. Bonifaz served as plaintiffs’ lead counsel in John Doe I v. President Bush, a constitutional challenge to President Bush’s authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action.
Mr. Bonifaz is the author of: Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush (NationBooks-NY, foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., January 2004), on the illegality of the Iraq war. Mr. Bonifaz is a 1992 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1999 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
Antonio GonzalezAntonio Gonzalez is President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP). SVREP, founded in 1974, is the largest and oldest non-partisan Latino voter participation organization in the U.S. Gonzalez assumed the presidency of SVREP in 1994, after having served from 1984-90 as an SVREP organizer, and from 1991-94 as a policy program director with the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI), SVREP's sister organization. Gonzalez and SVREP have been central figures in the dramatic growth of Latino political participation across the nation. Gonzalez was the central architect of the Latino Vote USA, Latino Vote 2000, Campaign for Communities (2004), and the Ten-Four campaigns in 1996, 2000, and 2004 that mobilized record numbers of new Latino voters across the U.S.
Gonzalez put WCVI on the map as the first national Latino organization to include U.S.-Latin America relations in the U.S. Latino Agenda. Key Gonzalez initiatives included: sending delegations to observe the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran elections in 1990 and 1991, leading the Latino Consensus on the NAFTA movement that led to the creation of the $3 Billion North American Development Bank in 1993, promoting greater dialogue between the U.S. and Cuba, and critiquing the War on Drugs. In 2006, Gonzalez presided over an historic gathering of Latino organizations, activists and elected officials, the Latino Congreso, which drew more than 2,000 participants, and helped to shape a long-term political agenda for the Latino community.
Gonzalez has lectured and written on U.S. Latino voting behavior, as well as Latino participation in U.S.-Latino America policy. He currently appears as a regular commentator on the Public Radio International's Tavis Smiley Show and hosts his own weekly radio show on Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles called “Strategy Session”. Most recently, Time Magazine named Gonzalez in August 2005 one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.
Gonzalez has traveled extensively in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and is fluent in Spanish. A graduate in U. S. History of the University of Texas, San Antonio in 1981, he also conducted undergraduate coursework at UC San Diego during 1975-77 and Masters Course work in Latin American History at U.C. Berkeley in 1981-82.
Ambassador José SantanaJosé Santana is the Executive Director of the Dominican Republic Presidential Commission of Science and Technology and Research Associate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Santana was born in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and is an economic specialist in technology and development.
Santana completed his Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) with a degree in economics. In 1997 he received a certification at the University of Ilmenau (Erfurt, Germany) for his active participation in the ISWI program Building Our Future. In 2001 he completed a graduate program at Columbia University in New York on Executive Information Technology Management.
José Santana joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of 2003. He became a research affiliate of the MIT Auto-ID Laboratory where he specialized in Radio Frequency Identification - RFID and Supply Chain Management.
In September of 2004, he was appointed by the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, to take on the role of Executive Director of the International Commission of Science and Technology with the rank of Ambassador and Special Advisor to the President. José Santana is an activist and visionary in the development of science and technology in developing countries.
In 2005 he joined the One Laptop Per Child initiative. The aim of the this initiative is to provide low cost laptops to every child in developing countries. In early 2006, Santana established in the state of New Jersey the International Foundation of Science & Technology to promote knowledge transfer to developing countries.
Lunch Keynote
Hon. Carolyn CurielCarolyn Curiel has been a United States Ambassador, Senior Speechwriter and Special Assistant to the President, and she now serves on the Editorial Board of The New York Times. She became perhaps the only speechwriter ever credited for writing a major presidential address when President Bill Clinton acknowledged her as the author of the policy speech that included the still-quoted words: “mend it, don’t end it,” in reference to affirmative action.
As ambassador, Ms. Curiel advanced American interests on a wide range of bilateral and regional issues, including regional security, environment, border disputes and trade and economic cooperation. She negotiated, signed and delivered long-stalled treaties on extradition, legal collaboration and increased counter-narcotics cooperation. An admitted bookworm and policy wonk, she nonetheless donned Army fatigues and accompanied U.S. and regional forces into the thickest jungle for military exercises — something her male predecessors missed doing.
At the White House, Ms. Curiel wrote on the President’s “opportunity agenda,” which included education, health, environment and race relations. For a change of pace, she also assisted with the President’s comedy monologues.
The Times hired Ms. Curiel in 2002 to write editorials on politics and social issues. Another New York paper, The Observer, noting her role as the director of The Times’ elections endorsements, called her “perhaps the most powerful person in New York politics.”
Ms. Curiel has also been an Emmy-nominated producer and writer for Ted Koppel at ABC News Nightline, manager of the Caribbean Division for United Press International, and an editor at The Washington Post and at The New York Times.
She has received numerous honors for her work as a communicator, trailblazer and mentor. She received a B.A. in Radio-TV-Film at Purdue University, which has honored her as a Distinguished Alumna. Calumet College of St. Joseph in Indiana awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1998.
The Intersection of Organizing, Politics & Direct Action
Marshall Ganz (moderator)
Lecturer in Public Policy, entered Harvard College in the fall of 1960. In 1964, a year before graduating, he left to volunteer as a civil rights organizer in Mississippi. In 1965, he joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; over the next 16 years he gained experience in union, community, issue, and political organizing and became Director of Organizing. During the 1980s, he worked with grassroots groups to develop effective organizing programs, designing innovative voter mobilization strategies for local, state, and national electoral campaigns. In 1991, in order to deepen his intellectual understanding of his work, he returned to Harvard College and, after a 28-year leave of absence, completed his undergraduate degree in history and government. He was awarded an MPA by the Kennedy School in 1993 and completed his PhD in sociology in 2000. He teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics.
Saru JayaramanSaru Jayaraman is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 1992 she founded Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (W.Y.S.E.), a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing young women of color with the resources, information and support necessary to think critically and take leadership in their communities for change. As Attorney/Organizer at the Workplace Project, a Latina/o immigrant worker organizing center, she created The Alliance for Justice, a law and organizing program that organized custodial, factory, and restaurant workers to fight for workplace justice. Most recently, together with workers from Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, she founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), an immigrant workers' center focused on organizing immigrant restaurant workers all over New York City, particularly those displaced from the World Trade Center, and the families of restaurant worker victims of 9/11. Among other things, ROC-NY has organized workers to win workplace justice campaigns and launch their own cooperatively-owned restaurant. As a Professor of Political Science and Labor Law at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and New York University, Ms. Jayaraman has also just co-edited The New Urban Immigrant Workforce (ME Sharpe, 2005). Her constant fight is for racial and economic justice domestically and globally.
Maria Teresa PetersonNamed by Hispanic Magazine as among the top Latinas in Government and Politics, Maria Teresa Petersen is the founding Executive Director of Voto Latino, a youth organization founded by actress Rosario Dawson seeking to galvanize the fastest growing eligible voting block in America. Under Maria Teresa's leadership, Voto Latino launched the first national mobile texting campaign to register voters. Prior to Voto Latino, Maria Teresa served as a political consultant to several clients including: Bayer Pharmaceuticals, National Latino Council of Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention, and AT&T. She started her career as a Legislative Aide for former Democratic Caucus Chairman Vic Fazio. Maria Teresa has appeared in several media outlets including CNBC, NY1, and Univision; and she serves as a frequent guest speaker at national conferences focusing on social entrepreneurship and Latino issues. Maria Teresa is a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy International Affairs Fellow, a National Hispana Leadership Institute Fellow, and a founding board member of the Latino Leader's Network. Maria Teresa holds a Master's from Harvard and a Bachelor's from UC Davis. The White House Project's SheSource.org recently invited Maria Teresa to participate as a political and social entrepreneur expert for their project.
Rocio SaenzAfter immigrating to the U.S. from Mexico and working low wage jobs, Rocio Saenz became an organizer for Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Justice for Janitors campaign in Los Angeles in 1988. Here she led a successful campaign to organize janitors in Los Angeles. The campaign builds worker power by eliminating non-union competition, and using community support and political power to turn janitors into a united force- capable to standing up to national janitorial contractors and building power to win respect, higher wages and safer workplaces. In August, 2001, Saenz moved to Boston to build the Justice for Janitors program. In the fall of 2002, Rocio led several thousand Boston janitors on a monthlong strike that ended with a historic settlement and support from media, clergy, politicians and community groups. Boston became her home, and in July 2003, Rocio was elected President of SEIU Local 615, the building service workers’ union.
Latino Leadership in the Political Sphere
Upon receiving her Master in Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2006, Jeannette Soriano returned to her hometown of Los Angeles and currently serves as Chief of Staff to Mr. David C. Lizarraga, Chair of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and President and CEO of TELACU, the largest community development corporation in the nation. Prior to graduate school, Jeannette represented the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles as Field Representative to Assemblymember Judy Chu, and as an Organizer for the California Democratic Party during the 2002 statewide elections. During her time at the Kennedy School, Jeannette built upon her efforts as an undergraduate to strengthen the Harvard Latino community by reorganizing Concilio Latino, the umbrella organization of Latino student groups university-wide, co-founding the Harvard Latino Studies Research Symposium, and expanding the Harvard Latin@ Alumni National Network, of which she is Co-Chair. Jeannette graduated from Harvard College in 2001 with an A.B. degree in Hispanic Studies and has served on the boards of Honor PAC, the Eastside Democratic Club, and Comision Femenil de Los Angeles.
Juan M. Garcia IIIRepresentative Juan M. Garcia III (D-Corpus Christi) is a second-generation naval aviator and attorney. Representative Garcia graduated with honors from UCLA, where he gave the 1988 commencement address. He earned his law degree from Harvard and his master's degree in public policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1992. After completing his naval officer and flight training, Representative Garcia received his "Wings of Gold" at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Lieutenant Commander Garcia flew 30 armed missions in the Persian Gulf, was the top aide to the deputy Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, and served in Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. He was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Constellation in support of the enforcement of the no-fly zone in Iraq. His military awards include the Joint Commendation Medal, the Naval Commendation Medal, and the Naval Achievement Medal.
In 1999, Representative Garcia was one of 16 Americans selected to serve as a White House Fellow, the nation's premier leadership development program whose alumni include Henry Cisneros and Colin Powell, and worked as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Education.
Representative Garcia left active duty in 2004 and continues to serve as an instructor pilot at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi with the Naval Reserves. He practices civil defense law with the firm of Hartline, Dacus, Barger, Dreyer & Kern.
Representative Garcia and his wife Denise, who met while classmates at Harvard Law, have four children, including twin eight-year-old boys, a six-year old daughter, and a three-year old son. They live in Corpus Christi.
Jeffrey SanchezBorn in the Washington Heights section of New York City, Jeffrey Sánchez moved with his family to the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston as a child. A graduate of the Boston Public Schools and UMASS/BOSTON, Jeffrey has worked in banking/financial services and in various capacities for the City of Boston, including the Mayor’s Community Liaison to the Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill neighborhoods as well as to the Hispanic community citywide. He served as the Director of Boston Census 2000. He also worked as Director of Planning at the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation and served as a consultant to the Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools. Jeffrey has served as the State Representative for the 15th Suffolk/Norfolk district for five years, serving the communities of Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and Brookline. As the Vice Chairman of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, Jeffrey’s legislative agenda is extensive and emphasizes initiatives that address access and retention in education and workforce development policies. Jeffrey has been recognized with an honorary doctorate from Wentworth Institute of Technology and was honored with the Boston Junior Chamber of Commerce Jaycees’ Ten Outstanding Young Leaders award in May of 2005, followed by the national recognition of being named as one of the United States Junior Chamber Commerce Jaycees’ Ten Outstanding Young Americans for 2005.
He lives in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood with his wife, Brenda, and daughter, Luna Isabella.
H. Francisco Leal graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986 and Yale University
in 1983. He is the founder and managing partner of Leal & Trejo, LLPMr.
Leal’s practice includes providing legal advice to the firm’s
public agency clients on issues related to the Brown Act, environmental
liability and regulatory compliance, zoning, adult business regulation,
cable television franchise renewals, election law, conflict of interest
issues, and personnel matters.
Mr. Leal also has a developed practice in legislative analysis and advocacy.
He is a lobbyist registered with the California Secretary of State and
provides legislative analysis, advice, and advocacy through Legislative
Advocacy Group, Inc., for the firm’s clients. As a lobbyist, Mr.
Leal has represented various general law cities, water and air quality
agencies, school districts and healthcare providers on such issues as gaming
regulatory reform, funding for school construction and infrastructure projects,
and zoning and transportation related matters. He previously served as
Assistant Regional Counsel for the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), where he handled a variety of matters related to the enforcement
of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act (CERCLA). Mr. Leal serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for
Plaza de la Raza and served as a Trustee for the Mexican American Bar Association
(MABA), as a Board Member for the Community Youth Gang Services Project
(CYGS), the Los Angeles Center for Law & Justice, and the International
Visitors Council of Los Angeles (IVCLA).
Hilda ZacariasHilda Zacarias successfully ran for a seat on the Santa Maria City Council in 2006. She is the third woman to be elected to the Council in the city’s 100 year history. Hilda has a long career in politics dating back to