Welcome, Keynotes, and Closing Remarks
Friday, June 16, 2017
10:30 – 11:00 a.m. Welcome Address
Susan Henderson | Executive Director, DREDF
Susan Henderson has been with DREDF since 1997. In 2004, she started DREDF’s Foster Youth Resources for Education (FYRE) project to heighten awareness and protect the rights of children with disabilities in the child welfare system. She started DREDF’s Disability and Media Alliance Project (D-MAP) to address the misinformed disability coverage that undermines public policy and legal advances to coverage that raises public awareness and helps to end disability discrimination. She has worked internationally with other disability-led organizations to conduct workshops on disability and human rights in Bahrain, Columbia, Guam, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Tanzania and Uganda.
Susan worked for 13 years as part of the team that planned, designed and constructed the Ed Roberts Campus, a universally-designed building in Berkeley, CA. She currently serves as the president of its board. She has worked in non-profit and law firm management and finance for over 20 years and has an MBA and a BA in Anthropology.
10:30 – 11:00 a.m. Welcome Address
Susan Henderson | Executive Director, DREDF
Susan Henderson has been with DREDF since 1997. In 2004, she started DREDF’s Foster Youth Resources for Education (FYRE) project to heighten awareness and protect the rights of children with disabilities in the child welfare system. She started DREDF’s Disability and Media Alliance Project (D-MAP) to address the misinformed disability coverage that undermines public policy and legal advances to coverage that raises public awareness and helps to end disability discrimination. She has worked internationally with other disability-led organizations to conduct workshops on disability and human rights in Bahrain, Columbia, Guam, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Tanzania and Uganda.
Susan worked for 13 years as part of the team that planned, designed and constructed the Ed Roberts Campus, a universally-designed building in Berkeley, CA. She currently serves as the president of its board. She has worked in non-profit and law firm management and finance for over 20 years and has an MBA and a BA in Anthropology.
Friday, June 16, 2017
10:30 – 11:00 a.m. Welcome Address
Alexis Alvarez | Co-Founder, CNLD
Alexis Alvarez advises and represents people with disabilities facing discrimination in employment and unequal access to government programs and services. Before joining Legal Aid at Work’s Disability Rights Program, she was a staff attorney with the Disability Rights Legal Center’s Cancer Legal Resource Center in Los Angeles, where she helped people tackle legal issues related to cancer. Alexis earlier clerked for Judges Robert L. Hess and Barbara M. Meiers of the Los Angeles Superior Court and Judge Gilbert M. Román of the Colorado Court of Appeals. Alexis is also a co-founder of the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disabilities.
Alexis received her J.D. in 2011 from the UC Davis School of Law and her B.S. with honors in 2007 from Colorado State University. During law school, Alexis was a senior articles editor for the UC Davis Law Review, and served on the board of the La Raza Law Student Association.
10:30 – 11:00 a.m. Welcome Address
Alexis Alvarez | Co-Founder, CNLD
Alexis Alvarez advises and represents people with disabilities facing discrimination in employment and unequal access to government programs and services. Before joining Legal Aid at Work’s Disability Rights Program, she was a staff attorney with the Disability Rights Legal Center’s Cancer Legal Resource Center in Los Angeles, where she helped people tackle legal issues related to cancer. Alexis earlier clerked for Judges Robert L. Hess and Barbara M. Meiers of the Los Angeles Superior Court and Judge Gilbert M. Román of the Colorado Court of Appeals. Alexis is also a co-founder of the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disabilities.
Alexis received her J.D. in 2011 from the UC Davis School of Law and her B.S. with honors in 2007 from Colorado State University. During law school, Alexis was a senior articles editor for the UC Davis Law Review, and served on the board of the La Raza Law Student Association.
Friday, June 16, 2017
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch & Keynotes
"Accessibility at AT&T"
Ileana Winterhalter | Area Director, AT&T
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch & Keynotes
"Accessibility at AT&T"
Ileana Winterhalter | Area Director, AT&T
Friday, June 16, 2017
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch & Keynotes
"Identity Crisis: The Intersection of Race & Disability with Disbelief & Disruption"
David Fazio | Founder & President, Helix Opportunity
David Fazio is the Founder, and President, of Helix Opportunity, a disability-related organizational and business development consulting and training firm. He works with companies to provide meaningful experiences to the $8 trillion consumers with disabilities demographic, without unintentionally stigmatizing customers by their differences. He also assists organizations in shifting from problem-solving, deficit-based thinking to strengths-based mindsets that appreciate and value the unique contributions of all employees towards achieving common goals, so that employees of all different abilities, backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives feel invited, welcomed, and valued in an inclusive work environment. He survived a soft ball sized hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 13, that left him completely paralyzed on the left side of his body, and blind in the left half of each eye. David is also a Board Member of the Silicon Valley Business Leadership Network and Support for Families of Children with Disabilities.
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch & Keynotes
"Identity Crisis: The Intersection of Race & Disability with Disbelief & Disruption"
David Fazio | Founder & President, Helix Opportunity
David Fazio is the Founder, and President, of Helix Opportunity, a disability-related organizational and business development consulting and training firm. He works with companies to provide meaningful experiences to the $8 trillion consumers with disabilities demographic, without unintentionally stigmatizing customers by their differences. He also assists organizations in shifting from problem-solving, deficit-based thinking to strengths-based mindsets that appreciate and value the unique contributions of all employees towards achieving common goals, so that employees of all different abilities, backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives feel invited, welcomed, and valued in an inclusive work environment. He survived a soft ball sized hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 13, that left him completely paralyzed on the left side of his body, and blind in the left half of each eye. David is also a Board Member of the Silicon Valley Business Leadership Network and Support for Families of Children with Disabilities.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
10:00 – 10:30 Welcome
Jesse Arreguin | Mayor of the City of Berkeley
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin was elected as Berkeley's Mayor on November 8, 2016, and is the first Latino and youngest person elected Mayor in a century.
The son and grandson of farmworkers, Jesse Arreguin was born in Fresno and raised in San Francisco. Jesse grew up in a working-class household, where his parents instilled the values of hard work, public service, and giving back to others. When Jesse was young, his family was pushed out of their home in the midst of San Francisco’s skyrocketing housing market, due to owner-move-in evictions and rent increases. Jesse knows how disruptive and harmful evictions are to working families, and how essential housing security is for the success of families and children.
Jesse was motivated by the social movements of the era: the fight against apartheid in South Africa, for democracy in China, and for farmworkers’ rights in California and across the nation. Experiencing these social movements at a very early age helped Jesse develop a lifelong commitment to fighting for social justice. As a youth, Jesse was also inspired by the life and leadership of Cesar Chavez, who taught him that one person, despite all odds, can stand up and make a difference. Chavez became a hero for Jesse, and at the age of 9, Jesse helped lead efforts to establish Cesar Chavez Street in San Francisco.
Jesse’s dream as a kid was to attend the best public university in the world, UC Berkeley. When first visiting the campus, he fell in love with the city and knew this was where he was meant to be. Despite the odds he faced, Jesse became the first in his family to graduate college.
For the last 14 years, Jesse Arreguin has served the Berkeley community. Jesse first served on the city’s Housing Advisory Commission, where he helped secure funding for hundreds of new affordable units, helped craft Berkeley’s Condominium Conversion Ordinance, strengthened inclusionary housing policies, and fought for City funding for student cooperative housing. In 2004, Jesse was elected citywide to serve on the Rent Stabilization Board. As Chair of the Rent Board, he strengthened renter protections to help keep families in their homes. In 2008, longtime Berkeley City Councilmember Dona Spring passed away. Before her death, she asked Jesse to run to succeed her in office, so Jesse did, and he won. That year Jesse became the youngest person and first Latino ever elected to the Berkeley City Council. For 8 years, Jesse Arreguin represented our vibrant Downtown and portions of North Berkeley.
10:00 – 10:30 Welcome
Jesse Arreguin | Mayor of the City of Berkeley
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin was elected as Berkeley's Mayor on November 8, 2016, and is the first Latino and youngest person elected Mayor in a century.
The son and grandson of farmworkers, Jesse Arreguin was born in Fresno and raised in San Francisco. Jesse grew up in a working-class household, where his parents instilled the values of hard work, public service, and giving back to others. When Jesse was young, his family was pushed out of their home in the midst of San Francisco’s skyrocketing housing market, due to owner-move-in evictions and rent increases. Jesse knows how disruptive and harmful evictions are to working families, and how essential housing security is for the success of families and children.
Jesse was motivated by the social movements of the era: the fight against apartheid in South Africa, for democracy in China, and for farmworkers’ rights in California and across the nation. Experiencing these social movements at a very early age helped Jesse develop a lifelong commitment to fighting for social justice. As a youth, Jesse was also inspired by the life and leadership of Cesar Chavez, who taught him that one person, despite all odds, can stand up and make a difference. Chavez became a hero for Jesse, and at the age of 9, Jesse helped lead efforts to establish Cesar Chavez Street in San Francisco.
Jesse’s dream as a kid was to attend the best public university in the world, UC Berkeley. When first visiting the campus, he fell in love with the city and knew this was where he was meant to be. Despite the odds he faced, Jesse became the first in his family to graduate college.
For the last 14 years, Jesse Arreguin has served the Berkeley community. Jesse first served on the city’s Housing Advisory Commission, where he helped secure funding for hundreds of new affordable units, helped craft Berkeley’s Condominium Conversion Ordinance, strengthened inclusionary housing policies, and fought for City funding for student cooperative housing. In 2004, Jesse was elected citywide to serve on the Rent Stabilization Board. As Chair of the Rent Board, he strengthened renter protections to help keep families in their homes. In 2008, longtime Berkeley City Councilmember Dona Spring passed away. Before her death, she asked Jesse to run to succeed her in office, so Jesse did, and he won. That year Jesse became the youngest person and first Latino ever elected to the Berkeley City Council. For 8 years, Jesse Arreguin represented our vibrant Downtown and portions of North Berkeley.
Keynote: "Histerimonia: Truths Our Bodies Speak"
Saturday, June 17, 2017
11:45 – 12:45 Lunch & Keynote Address
Aurora Levins Morales | Historian/Artist/Activist
Aurora Levins Morales is a writer, an artist, a historian, a teacher and mentor. She's a also an activist, a healer, a revolutionary. Levins Morales tells stories with medicinal powers. Herbalists who collect wild plants to make medicine call it wildcrafting. She wildcrafts the details of the world, of history, of people's lives, and concentrate them through art in order to shift consciousness, to change how we think about ourselves, each other and the world.
Levins Morales am a woman with chronic illness and disability, because her body is unable to handle the toxic load of 21st century capitalism. She can't crank out books, go on speaking tours, teach at a university, attend conferences, go to meetings and marches, or work an eight hour day. She has had to invent other ways to engage with the world.
Levins Morales calls what she does homeopathic activism. Homeopathy uses minute amounts of true substance to trigger powerful self-healing responses in our bodies. Homeopathic medicines are made by diluting and shaking, diluting and shaking. The more diluted a remedy is, the more powerful its effects. Homeopaths believe that as the remedy is potentized, the original substance leaves its energy imprint, the essential pattern of its nature, the idea of itself, in the diluting water and that this is what has the power to awaken our bodies' own inherent defenses and create health.
Because Levins Morales has very little physical energy and a lot to contribute, she looks for the one or two most potent molecules of what I'm thinking about, the particles that could help wake up our individual and collective immune systems. Then, she potentize them through art, through metaphor, through storytelling, through posing questions and suggesting possibilities.
Some of what Levins Morales does is writing. Some of it is visual art. Some of it is conversation. Some of it is mentoring. Some of it is ritual. Whether they're lectures or embroidered and beaded photographs printed on silk, she like to call the things she creates talismans. Objects meant to spark unexpected transformation. Levins Morales can call herself a writer, or an artist, or a historian. The title of the moment doesn't matter. What matters is whether she's effectively opening up new possibilities, making and revealing connections, building relationships.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
11:45 – 12:45 Lunch & Keynote Address
Aurora Levins Morales | Historian/Artist/Activist
Aurora Levins Morales is a writer, an artist, a historian, a teacher and mentor. She's a also an activist, a healer, a revolutionary. Levins Morales tells stories with medicinal powers. Herbalists who collect wild plants to make medicine call it wildcrafting. She wildcrafts the details of the world, of history, of people's lives, and concentrate them through art in order to shift consciousness, to change how we think about ourselves, each other and the world.
Levins Morales am a woman with chronic illness and disability, because her body is unable to handle the toxic load of 21st century capitalism. She can't crank out books, go on speaking tours, teach at a university, attend conferences, go to meetings and marches, or work an eight hour day. She has had to invent other ways to engage with the world.
Levins Morales calls what she does homeopathic activism. Homeopathy uses minute amounts of true substance to trigger powerful self-healing responses in our bodies. Homeopathic medicines are made by diluting and shaking, diluting and shaking. The more diluted a remedy is, the more powerful its effects. Homeopaths believe that as the remedy is potentized, the original substance leaves its energy imprint, the essential pattern of its nature, the idea of itself, in the diluting water and that this is what has the power to awaken our bodies' own inherent defenses and create health.
Because Levins Morales has very little physical energy and a lot to contribute, she looks for the one or two most potent molecules of what I'm thinking about, the particles that could help wake up our individual and collective immune systems. Then, she potentize them through art, through metaphor, through storytelling, through posing questions and suggesting possibilities.
Some of what Levins Morales does is writing. Some of it is visual art. Some of it is conversation. Some of it is mentoring. Some of it is ritual. Whether they're lectures or embroidered and beaded photographs printed on silk, she like to call the things she creates talismans. Objects meant to spark unexpected transformation. Levins Morales can call herself a writer, or an artist, or a historian. The title of the moment doesn't matter. What matters is whether she's effectively opening up new possibilities, making and revealing connections, building relationships.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
4:45 - 5:00 p.m. Closing Remarks
Katherine Perez | Scholar/Activist
Katherine Perez, a CNLD Co-Founder, hails from La Mirada, California. She holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law and is currently a PhD candidate in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her scholarship analyzes disability laws and policies through critical legal and historical frameworks.
As a law student, Katherine re-engaged the Disability Law Society and was a leader in the La Raza Law Students Association. Before law school, Katherine was a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Fellow in Washington D.C. (2006-2007) and a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru (2008-2010). She currently serves as a REV UP Advisory Committee Member and as a Student Representative on the National Advisory Board of the National Center for College Students with Disabilities. She was honored to receive the 2017 American Association for People with Disabilities (AAPD) Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award for her work as a co-founder of CNLD.
Katherine identifies as a Latina with mental disabilities and has a sister with intellectual disability. She runs Disability Rights Blog. Find her updates on Facebook and Twitter.
4:45 - 5:00 p.m. Closing Remarks
Katherine Perez | Scholar/Activist
Katherine Perez, a CNLD Co-Founder, hails from La Mirada, California. She holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law and is currently a PhD candidate in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her scholarship analyzes disability laws and policies through critical legal and historical frameworks.
As a law student, Katherine re-engaged the Disability Law Society and was a leader in the La Raza Law Students Association. Before law school, Katherine was a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Fellow in Washington D.C. (2006-2007) and a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru (2008-2010). She currently serves as a REV UP Advisory Committee Member and as a Student Representative on the National Advisory Board of the National Center for College Students with Disabilities. She was honored to receive the 2017 American Association for People with Disabilities (AAPD) Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award for her work as a co-founder of CNLD.
Katherine identifies as a Latina with mental disabilities and has a sister with intellectual disability. She runs Disability Rights Blog. Find her updates on Facebook and Twitter.