Carmen Beatrice Perez (born January 21, 1977) is an American activist and
Chicana
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American iden ...
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
who has worked on issues of civil rights including mass incarceration, women's rights and gender equity, violence prevention, racial healing and community policing.
She is the President and CEO of The Gathering for Justice, a nonprofit founded by
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
which is dedicated to ending child incarceration and eliminating the
racial disparities in the criminal justice system. She was one of four national co-chairs of the
2017 Women's March
The Women's March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after Inauguration of Donald Trump, the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. It was prompted by Trump's policy positions and rhetoric, which protesters called Misog ...
.
Early learning and education
Perez was born in
Oxnard, California
Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. On California's South Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the 22nd-most-populous city in California. Incorporated in 1903, Oxnard lies approximately west ...
to Marcel Perez and Alicia Ramirez Perez,
as the youngest of five.
In 1994, her sister Patricia was killed in a single vehicle accident and the funeral coincided with Perez's 17th birthday. it was this event that lead Perez to feel inspired to dedicate her life to initiatives that would help transform the lives of young people.
“I remember somebody coming to our home, asking if we wanted to press charges. And my father said ‘I would never take another mother’s child away,’” Perez said. “And so I didn’t learn restorative justice from studying it. I learned it from a man who would never take another mother’s child away.”
Perez started her undergraduate career at
Oxnard College
Oxnard College is a public community college in Oxnard, California. It was established in 1975 by the Ventura County Community College District. It serves the Oxnard Plain cities of Oxnard, Camarillo, and Port Hueneme. Oxnard College offers both ...
where she received an associate degree in liberal arts. She then transferred to the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...
, as a psychology major where she also studied Chicana Feminism and was involved in Rainbow Theater. She credits this time as formative to her dedication to intersectional and transformative leadership. Through the Chicano Latino Resource Center, Carmen was mentored by psychology professor and Chicana feminist
Aida Hurtado who she also worked for as her research assistant.
Career and activism
Mass Incarceration
In 2001, Perez began work with the Santa Cruz Youth Community Restoration Program, providing alternatives to incarceration for juvenile offenders. In this position she established Reforming Education Advocating Leadership (REAL), a youth mentoring program.
In 2003, she was elected to serve as the Chair of the Latino Affairs Commission of Santa Cruz County. Perez also co-founded the Girl's Taskforce
to provide gender-responsive programming for girls, regardless of probation status, in Santa Cruz County.
In 2004, Perez began working for her mentor, Nane Alejandrez, as his executive assistant and the prison project coordinator focused on cultural programming inside youth detention centers and prisons. In 2005, Alejandrez invited Perez to serve as a youth representative for The Gathering for Justice, a social justice organization established in 2005 by singer, songwriter, actor and activist
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
.
By 2006, Perez had become a board member of Barrios Unidos and started working for the Santa Cruz County probation department
as an intake and investigations officer focused on system accountability. She was promoted to Deputy Probation Officer II in 2007, providing gender responsive programming for an intensive caseload of girls. Perez moved to NYC in 2008 to work full-time as the National Organizer for The Gathering for Justice. Since 2010, she has served as the executive director of The Gathering for Justice, a social justice organization dedicated to ending child incarceration by utilizing Kingian nonviolent direct action, engaging artists and cultural leaders, advocating for policy initiatives and providing direct services inside juvenile facilities. From 2011-2013 she also developed Purple Gold, a young leaders program for
1199 SEIU.
In 2013, Perez co-founded Justice League NYC, a taskforce of young criminal justice experts, direct service providers, activists, advocates, artists and formerly incarcerated individuals bringing their resources to the table to create a blueprint to reform the criminal and social justice system in New York City and State. She organized Growing Up Locked Down, a three-day juvenile justice reform conference, in New York City in 2014 and a second in her hometown of Oxnard, California in 2016. The Oxnard conference was the beginning of Justice League CA.
In May 2014, she had the opportunity to share her life's work and delivered her 1st TEDx Talk inside Ironwood State Prison
hosted by Richard Branson and produced by Scott Budnick. In 2015, Perez testified as a criminal and juvenile justice reform expert before the President's 21st Century Taskforce on Policing.
Women's Rights and Gender Equity
In 2017, Perez was a national co-chair of the
Women's March on Washington, with
Tamika D. Mallory,
Bob Bland
Mari Lynn Foulger (born December 17, 1982), better known as Bob Bland, is an American fashion designer and activist. Bland co-chaired the 2017 Women's March but later resigned from the 2019 Women's March board following accusations of antisemit ...
, and
Linda Sarsour
Linda Sarsour (born 1980) is an American political activist. She was co-chair of the 2017 Women's March, the 2017 Day Without a Woman, and the 2019 Women's March. She is also a former executive director of the Arab American Association of N ...
. Perez's contributions included facilitating the creation of the mobilization's Unity Principles, leading the Artist Table and Honorary Co-Chair selection, and recruiting over 500 partners. In addition, The Gathering for Justice, the organization for which she serves as executive director, was a fiscal sponsor of the Women's March on Washington and donated its office space to organizers during the planning phase. She was a panelist at the 2017 Women's National Convention.
Racial Healing and Community Policing
Carmen has worked with
Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films include ...
,
America Ferrera
America Georgina Ferrera (; born April 18, 1984) is an American actress. Born in Los Angeles to Honduran parents, Ferrera developed an interest in acting at a young age, performing in several stage productions at her school. She made her featur ...
,
Hot97 hosts
Ebro
, name_etymology =
, image = Zaragoza shel.JPG
, image_size =
, image_caption = The Ebro River in Zaragoza
, map = SpainEbroBasin.png
, map_size =
, map_caption = The Ebro ...
and
Nessa
Nessa Diab, known mononymously as Nessa, is an American radio and TV personality and television host.
Early life and education
Nessa was born to an Egyptian father and mother. She has two brothers. She grew up in Southern California but her ...
,
Jussie Smollett
Jussie Smollett (, born June 21, 1982) is an American actor and singer. He began his career as a child actor in 1991 debuting in ''The Mighty Ducks (film), The Mighty Ducks'' (1992). In 2015, Smollett portrayed musician Jamal Lyon in the Fox Bro ...
, and
Colin Kaepernick
Colin Rand Kaepernick ( ; born November 3, 1987) is an American civil rights activist and football quarterback who is a free agent. He played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL). In 2016, he knelt dur ...
. On November 16, 2017, she publicized the case of
Meek Mill
Robert Rihmeek Williams (born May 6, 1987), known professionally as Meek Mill, is an American rapper. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he embarked on his music career as a battle rapper, and later formed a short-lived rap group, ...
. Actress
Jackie Cruz
Jackie Cruz (born August 8, 1986) is a Dominican American (Dominican Republic), Dominican–American actress, singer and former model. She is known for her role as Marisol "Flaca" Gonzales on the Netflix original series ''Orange Is the New Bla ...
praised Carmen for "unlocking her zeal" for social causes. “She trained me to not care anymore and just fight for what you believe in,” said Cruz in a 2018 interview with Bustle.
Support for Louis Farrakhan
Bari Weiss
Bari Weiss (born March 25, 1984) is an American journalist, writer, and editor. She was an op-ed and book review editor at ''The Wall Street Journal'' (2013–2017) and an op-ed staff editor and writer on culture and politics at ''The New Yor ...
has criticized Perez for her support of
Assata Shakur
Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947; also married name, JoAnne Chesimard) is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1977, she was convicted in the first-degree murder ...
, a former
Black Liberation Army
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was a far-left, black nationalist, underground Black Power revolutionary paramilitary organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. Composed of former Black Panthers (BPP) and Republic of Ne ...
member convicted of murder, and
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930.
A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...
leader
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader, black supremacist, anti-white and antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and former singer who heads the Nation of Islam (NOI). Prior to joining the NOI, h ...
. Asked about her support for Farrakhan, Perez responded that there are "no perfect leaders".
In 2018, Teresa Shook, the founder of the Women's March, called for Perez and some of her co-organizers to step down, because they had failed to adequately distance themselves from the anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric of
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader, black supremacist, anti-white and antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and former singer who heads the Nation of Islam (NOI). Prior to joining the NOI, h ...
,
while an article published in ''The New York Times'' discussed accounts by two sources that Perez and Mallory had made disparaging comments to Vanessa Wruble, then a fellow organizer, about her Jewish heritage; Wruble later recounted that she felt "pushed out" because of her Jewish identity.
In January 2019, Perez published an op-ed in the Jewish magazine ''
The Forward
''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ' ...
'', where she stated, “I want to be clear: our movement is a safe place for Jewish women, our leadership abhors anti-Semitism and homophobia, and these kinds of comments are and will always be unacceptable.” In the same article, she acknowledged the failure of the Women's March to act rapidly enough, saying, “I want to be unequivocal in affirming that the organization failed to act rapid enough to condemn the egregious and hateful statements made by a figure who is not associated with the Women’s March in any way.” She also published an op-ed in the New York
''Daily News'', where she again took accountability while acknowledging other factors related to her silence, writing, "after reflecting deeply on what has taken place over the last few months and having finally emerged from a difficult pregnancy at the age of 41, I want to address these issues, accept responsibility and re-commit myself to being a moral leader."
When asked in January 2020 by Emma Green of ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' whether Farrakhan's views represent her own, Perez refused to condemn him. However, she did say that the Women's March erred in harming its own brand. Since the controversy, Perez has participated in antisemitism
sensitivity training
Sensitivity training is a form of training with the goal of making people more aware of their own goals as well as their prejudices, and more sensitive to others and to the dynamics of group interaction.
Origins
Kurt Lewin laid the foundations fo ...
.
Awards and recognition
Perez was named one of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''s
100 Most Influential People
''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, po ...
in 2017, as well as
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
's 50 Top World Leaders and
Glamour's Women of the Year. She was named a "
Latina of the Year" in 2017.
She has also been recognized for her contributions to criminal justice reform, with the "Gutsy Award" from the National Juvenile Justice Network,
a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for Outstanding and Invaluable Service to the Community, the Santa Cruz County Women's Commission “Trailblazer’s Award in Criminal Justice”, and the “Zaragoza Award” from the Committee for the Mexican Culture at D.V.I. Prison in Tracy, for her contribution and dedication to bringing hope to incarcerated men.
References
External links
* https://www.gq.com/story/5-ways-to-effectively-protest
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez, Carmen
1977 births
Living people
People from Oxnard, California
Women's March
Oxnard College alumni
21st-century American women