Welcome Reception for 2020 UCLA Activists-In-Residence
Date and time
Location
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Luskin Commons Room 3383
337 Charles E Young Dr East Los Angeles, CA 90095Description
With a shared commitment to advance democracy through research and alliances with civil rights organizations and progressive social movements, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at the UCLA Luskin School, in this fourth year of the program, are excited to welcome Leonardo Vilchis, Elizabeth Blaney, and Jane Nguyen as the 2020 UCLA Activists-in-Residence.
Leonardo Vilchis, with Pico-Aliso residents, co-founded Union de Vecinos to stop the demolition of the projects. They won a contract for the 250 organized families to stay in the development. His experience has helped put Union de Vecinos, Eastside Local of the LA Tenants Union in a leadership role against gentrification in Boyle Heights. Leonardo is also a co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union.
Elizabeth Blaney, a former CPA turned community organizer and popular educator who has dedicated her life to building an organized base of community members fighting to change the political, social, and economic conditions that create oppression. In 1996, she co-founded Union de Vecinos, a grassroots community-based organization that formed the first tenant union in East Los Angeles and co-founded the citywide Los Angeles Tenants Union.
Jane Nguyen, a co-founder and core organizer of Ktown for All, has led outreach and policy advocacy since May 2018 when the organization was founded to counter-protest protesters of a proposed homeless shelter in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Nguyen is active with the Services Not Sweeps coalition as a founding member and serves on the board of Invisible People.
Please join us in warmly welcoming our activists to UCLA. Come mix and mingle with them over drinks and food. These residencies were made possible through the generous support of the Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee Endowment in Social Justice and Immigration Studies and the James Irvine Foundation.
Organized by
For 50 years, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center has enriched and informed not only the UCLA community, but also an array of broader audiences and sectors in the state, the nation, and internationally about the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in our society.
The Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin advances radical democracy in an unequal world through research, critical thought, and alliances with social movements and racial justice activism. The work of the institute analyzes and transforms the divides and dispossessions of our times, in the university and in our cities, across global South and global North. Launched in February 2016, the Institute support research developed in partnership with social movements and community-based organizing.