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Gina Acebo is the Network
and Events Coordinator of the Applied Research Center. She received
degrees in Political Science and Ethnic Studies from the University
of California at Berkeley and cut her teeth as a student organizer fighting
for fair admissions for students of color. As a MAAP intern of the Center
for Third World Organizing (CTWO) in 1987, she worked with the Black
Women's Health Project in Portland, OR and organized displaced Filipino
senior citizens in the Bay Area. As one of the first participants of
the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, she worked with Amalgamated Clothing
and Textile Workers Union in Virginia, Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana
and returned to the West Coast to work as a full-time field organizer
of Service Employees International Union organizing health care workers.
From 1992-1999, Gina served as a senior organizer and trainer of CTWO
and during her tenure she organized on issues of community development,
police brutality, and gender equity in budgetary issues, as well as
serving as one of the first organizers of Californians for Justice.
In addition to organizing, Gina has served as a field researcher for
the Consumer Union report The Thin Red Line: How The Poor Still Pay
More. In 2000, she was awarded the La Fetra Foundation Fellowship
to travel to Uganda to work on issues of reproductive health and freedom,
and that led to her work on reproductive health and justice for low-income
API communities in California. She has served on the boards of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, California Peace Action, and the National Organizers' Alliance.
Joining ARC in 2001, Gina worked
on ARC’s response to post 9/11 racial discrimination by serving as
the editor of the Reasserting Justice Toolkit and the Racing
to War curriculum. She coordinated The Public Truth forums
that exposed communities’ stories of how the “war on terrorism”
and national security adversely affect the lives of immigrants, refugees,
and communities of color and to raise awareness of the scope and scale
of attack upon civil liberties and human rights. Currently she coordinates
ARC’s Facing Race national conference on racial justice and helps
organize Network trainings in the Western region.
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