Topic by Category: United States

Maegan “la Mamita Mala” Ortiz gives voice to what she has been typing on her blogs for years: the intersection of Latina politics, identity and culture. Born and bred in Queens, NYC, La Mala grew her activist wings at age 17 with under the guidance of her mentor Richie Perez in the Justice committee of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights.

As a doctoral student at Stanford, and later as a researcher at Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Research Center, Dr. Ochoa investigated optical systems for performing information processing.

Lydia Villa-Komaroff, a Ph.D. in Cell Biology, is currently CEO of Cytonome, a company building the first optical cell sorter capable of supporting rapid, sterile sorting of human cells for therapeutic use. Lydia was born on August 7, 1947, and grew up in Sante Fe, New Mexico. As the eldest of six children, she developed teamwork- and consensus-building skills out of necessity; these skills would later serve her well in the lab and the workplace.

An award winning bilingual producer and director with USA and Latin American credits. Her advertising agency experience includes Saatchi & Saatchi/Conill Advertising, Foote, Cone, & Belding International, J.Walter Thompson/Hispania, Young & Rubicam/Bravo Group, The Vidal Partnership, The Chisholm Mingo Group, Spike/DDB Needham, and GlobalHue NY.

Alana Taylor is a self-made new media evangelist, consultant and freelance correspondent. Her interests range from digital media to television and magazines.
She is a tech blogger for Mashable.com, writes occasional guest posts for PBS.org and is double-majoring in Journalism and History at New York University.
>> What can she tell us about her wide [...]

Gina Ravera was born Gina D. Ravarra in San Francisco, California. Her father is Puerto Rican and her mother is African American.
>> I’ll be talking to Gina about her growing up years and what were her early influences.
Ravera is an actress and a classically-trained dancer. Her career spans off-Broadway to television and [...]

Stephanie Elizondo Griest grew up in South Texas and considers herself biracial, as the daughter of a mother with Mexican roots, and a father whose European ancestors settled in Kansas. Neither she nor her sister grew up speaking much Spanish, and Stephanie shares her struggles with her ethnic identity and the stories that arise from her voyage in Mexico during 2005 and 2006 in her recently released book, Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines.

Elva Lima is the oldest girl in a family of six children. Her father worked in the fields of Sacramento when he moved to the U.S. from Mexico in 1961. Her father was able to move the family to the United States in 1965. Her mother was a stay at home mother while her father worked as a bartender.

Diana Gomez is the Chief of the Office of Traffic Management and a senior electrical engineer with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). She has worked with Caltrans for 20 years and began her career designing highway electrical systems.

Madeline Padilla is the nationally recognized Executive Director of Publicity for Arenas Entertainment. Madeline has a particular skill in effectively reaching the community she comes from.