Erika is serving GREEN MPNA as Executive Director and brings forward more than ten years of experience in grassroots community organizing. Erika was raised in border towns in the Imperial Valley and the Coachella Valley, where she previously organized alongside young women and parents for education equity. She co-founded Raices Girls and Women of Color Network, and Las Nepantleras in Coachella, CA through which the low FM community radio station Radio Raices (95.1FM KWXZ) was founded. Her interdisciplinary scholarship and activist work explore the use of oral histories and personal narratives in social justice circles and community development in rural California. She is concerned with the role of counter-narratives in urban planning and public policy. Erika is interested in supporting building community led conversations that center environmental justice policies through a public health lens. She will be supporting GREEN MPNA’s strategic plan to build community power and move forward environmental justice policy within the city of Santa Ana.