Pat Young – Board of Directors
Pat Young
Patrick Young is an immigration attorney and immigrant rights advocate. He has represented thousands of immigrants before the immigration courts, the INS, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Patrick was the founding Chairperson of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance and served seven terms as the Chair of the Board of the New York Immigration Coalition. He was a founder of the national Committee for U.S. Action on Asylum Concerns, which later merged into the National Immigration Forum.
He served on the board of Nassau County CASA as well as the Nassau Task Force on Immigration. He was also a member of the expert advisory council to the New York State Interagency Task Force on New Americans during the Mario Cuomo Administration.
He is currently Program Director of the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN-N.Y.) and Supervising Attorney at the Westchester Hispanic Coalition. He is Special Professor of Immigration Law at Hofstra University School of Law and he writes for Long Island Wins. Pat also blogs on books at What I’m Reading Now.
May Chen-President
May Chen
May Y. Chen is the founding President of the Board of NYSIAF, bringing her lifelong passions for immigration advocacy, labor rights, and the issues of Asians/Asian-Americans and women to this new organization.
She devoted a career of more than 25 years to the garment workers’ union, Local 23-25 Workers United/SEIU (formerly UNITE HERE, UNITE, ILGWU). Until her retirement in 2009, she was the Manager of Local 23-25 and Vice President of the International Union. Much of her work focused on bargaining for union contracts and benefits, coordinating political action campaigns, and fighting for immigrant workers’ rights, women’s issues, and worker education.
Today, she works part-time as an Adjunct Professor at CUNY’s Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies. She continues to serve on numerous non-profit boards including La Fuente, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), and Union Health Center.
Annetta Seecharran – Treasurer
Annetta Seecharran
Annetta Seecharran is an experienced leader and manager within the social justice movement. In September 2009 she completed an eight year tenure as the Executive Director of South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!), the pioneering organization dedicated to ensuring the transition and success of low-income South Asian youth and families in the United States. Under Annetta’s leadership SAYA! grew from a start-up to a nationally recognized organization that directly impacts the lives of over 1,000 individuals annually and has an influential voice on public policy issues related to youth and immigrants.
Prior to joining SAYA!, Annetta spent five years at the International Youth Foundation (IYF), where she ran YouthNet International, a best-practices network of youth development organizations in over 30 countries. She also created and launched YouthActionNet, now a leading global initiative promoting youth social entrepreneurship. Annetta has also worked for the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the Gender and Development Program of the United Nations Development Program.
Annetta holds an M.A. in international political economy and development from Fordham University, a B.A. in political science from Manhattanville College, and executive management certificates from Columbia Business School and Harvard Business School. Besides being a board member of NYSIAF, Annetta serves on the executive boards of the New York Immigration Coalition and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. Annetta advises numerous social justice and immigrant serving initiatives, and is a frequent public speaker on youth development, immigrant rights, community development and South Asian-American issues.
Barbara Weiner – Board of Directors
Barbara Weiner
Barbara Weiner has been practicing law since 1976, first in California and now in Albany, New York. She has always worked for civil legal services programs, representing low- income people with a variety of civil legal problems concerning housing, public benefit issues, and immigration. Since the summer of 1990, she has worked for the Empire Justice Center in its Albany office. Barbara has been able to take a more systemic approach to the problems of low-income New Yorkers by using tools such as lobbying, training, providing technical assistance to community advocacy and local legal services organizations, and impact litigation.
Since the 1996 welfare reform legislation, her focus has been on the access of immigrants to federal and state public benefit programs. Her work in this area includes the regular provision of training to lawyers and other community advocates working with immigrants, legislative and administrative advocacy, both on a state and federal level and representation of individual immigrants unfairly denied assistance.
Barbara has long been a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform.
Susan Stamler- Board of Directors
Susan Stamler
Susan Stamler is the Senior Vice President at M+R Strategic Services, managing the Campaign to Reform State Juvenile Justice Systems that seeks state level policy changes in juvenile justice systems. For more than thirty years, Susan has organized grassroots support for social justice, environmental and consumer issues.
Prior to joining M+R, Susan worked for 17 years advocating on behalf of settlement houses and community centers at United Neighborhood Houses, the federation of settlement houses in New York City, and for UJA-Federation of New York. She supervised a policy staff, analyzed government policies and budgets, mobilized grassroots support and lobbied on both the state and city level to increase funding to improve the delivery of critical human services programs.
Susan has also coordinated political activities to assemble and activate pro-choice voters at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and was one of the founders of the New York AIDS Coalition.
Diane Steinman-Board of Directors
Dr. Diane Steinman
Diane Steinman is the Executive Director of the New York State Interfaith Network for Immigration Reform, a collaboration of diverse New York State faith community leaders that advocates for immigration reform to ensure just and humane treatment of all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, while meeting America’s security, economic and political needs. She is also the former Director of American Jewish Committee New York – she retired in August 2010 after 30 years of service.
Diane’s engagement with immigration issues began in 1981, when she was the AJC Colorado director and a leader of a Latino-Jewish dialogue project. From 1985 – 1989, she served as AJC’s New England Director on the board of the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy coalition. Her work has culminated in New York, where she has been engaged for more than 20 years in advocacy work for immigrant rights and comprehensive immigration reform.
Diane received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Minnesota, and served as a professor of philosophy at Boston University and the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1972 – 1981.
Chung-Wha Hong- Executive Director
Chung-Wha Hong
Chung-Wha Hong has worked for immigrant communities for over 20 years. She currently serves as executive director at The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella advocacy organization made up of approximately 200 immigrant organizations throughout New York State. The NYIC has become a leading advocacy voice for the diverse immigrant communities in New York State and has built political power and fostered strong leadership in immigrant communities through issue campaigns, capacity building, leadership development and civic participation programs.
Her past activism also includes work on health care, labor, and immigrant and civil rights issues at the Committee of Interns & Residents, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC).
She lives in Flushing, Queens, with her three children.
Michael Hirschhorn- Secretary
Michael Hirschhorn
Michael J. Hirschhorn serves as executive director of the International Human Rights Funders Group, an educational network connecting several hundred grantmakers interested in freedom, civil liberties, migration and immigration, and other core human rights issues.
Previously, Michael served as executive director of the Coro New York Leadership Center, where, among other priorities, he helped launch the Immigrant Civic Leadership Program. Prior to Coro, Michael was the executive director of the Literacy Assistance Center, New York City’s hub of training and professional development in literacy education in English as A Second Language (ESL) as well as Adult Basic Education.
Michael earned an MBA and and MSW at Columbia University and a BA from Yale University.
Jessi Jaramillo- Board of Directors
Jessi Jaramillo
A little over a year ago, Jessi began working on the campaign to Reform Immigration for America. For six months, she worked as a grassroots organizer in upstate New York and supported leaders across New York State, leading an effort in organizing numerous actions in order to push for comprehensive immigration legislation. Though it was her first bout in community organizing, she assures it is not her last. “It was the most amazing experience I’ve had yet. I met amazing and committed leaders across the state that gave me strength and humility and allowed me to be a part of something so much bigger than I could ever imagine.”
Soon thereafter, her time with the campaign ended and Jessi decided to go back to school. Currently she is working to finish a Political Science, B.A. at Binghamton University. She also runs a small farm with her family, works part-time as a technology trainer for a local library, and writes on her personal blog [blacksheepsays.com] about immigration, farming and things that matter. Jessi also contributes to the National Young Farmer’s Coalition FarmHack blog.
She hopes to continue her education with a graduate degree in the near future and wants to keep working to empower the Latino community. “We have strength in our numbers, traditions, and values as a community and now is our time.” For a few more of Jessi’s insights follow her on Twitter @JessiJJ.
Leticia Alanis – Board Vice President
Leticia Alanis
Leticia Alanis has been active in the migrants’ rights movement since she emigrated from Mexico in 1996. Leticia co-founded and now co-directs La Union, a membership-led organization in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. La Union (UCL, Inc.) is working to advance the social, cultural and economic rights of people from the Global South in the communities where they live now and in the communities from which they come.
Before she came to the United States, she was a catholic nun directing religious educational programs and teaching theology in Mexico.
She holds a BA in Liberal Arts with a major in Social Work from the City College and graduates in June of 2011 from the Masters in Public Administration program at John Jay College, specializing in Urban Affairs.
Dr. Marcelo Venegas-Pizarro- Board of Directors
Dr. Marcelo Venegas-Pizarro
Marcelo Venegas-Pizarro, MD, AAHIVS, was born in Chile and lived in many countries as a child refugee from the Pinochet dictatorship in 1973. Dr. Venegas-Pizarro has worked in several countries including his home country Chile as well as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala around community health issues, with a focus on HIV/AIDS. In 2005 Dr. Venegas-Pizarro served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice-President at Housing Works, Inc. He was responsible for opening Housing Works’ Women’s Health Center in Downtown Brooklyn, in December of 2007.
He has served on the Board of Directors of Doctors for Global Health (DGH) and more recently serves on the Board of Action for Health in the Americas (AHA). Additionally, Dr. Venegas-Pizarro has joined Lutheran Medical Center as Medical Director of HIV Services and ACHIEVE Clinic, a Designated AIDS Center (DAC).
Dr. Venegas-Pizarro lives in New York City and is the proud father of two daughters.
