2012 Equal Justice Works Fellow, Joanna Cuevas Ingram

Printer-friendly versionGrowing up in Oakland, California, I began as a youth advocate combating racial profiling and California state policies that had a disparate impact on youth of color in 1998. After engaging in over fourteen years of critical human rights analysis and community-based advocacy with a number of organizations, I came to realize that without a more nuanced and intimate understanding of the law, the communities I continue to live in and serve would not be fully equipped to win sustainable solutions. Engaging in critical research and scholarly analysis in "The Color of Change: Voting Rights in the 21st Century and the California Voting Rights Act," (forthcoming, Harvard Latino Law Review, Vol. 15, 2012) only reaffirmed my lifelong commitment to seek out community-based solutions for civil rights and human rights violations, and it led me to focus on one of the most fundamental civil and human rights we have in the United States – the right to vote. This work inspired me to continue to perform critical research and impact litigation as informed and led by communities throughout California and the Ninth Circuit that look largely like my own—mostly low-income, African American, Latina/o and rife with barriers in access to voting, education, health care and employment.