About Us
MILPA Collective (MILPA) is first and foremost a movement space designed for, and led by, formerly incarcerated and system-impacted individuals. We are committed to supporting next-generation infrastructure and leadership within communities, organizations, and systems. We center cultural healing, racial equity and LOVE in our practices and advocacy.
Our Mission
To cultivate Change Makers for the Next Seven Generations
by creating opportunities for cultural healing, intergenerational leadership,
and empowerment through community-driven decision making for healthier communities.
Our Vision
The Next Seven Generations are culturally rooted with pathways to be successful, healthy and live oppression free.
Our History
The vision and idea behind MILPA are rooted in the history that our health, well-being, and liberation are intergenerational. Many of us are second-generation activists, coming from migrant workers whose parents or grandparents were involved in the farmworker movement or women-led cannery strikes. MILPA comes from a lineage of abuelos and abuelitas who provided for their families and fought, protected, and prayed for this generation to have a future.
They prayed for us to engage the intentions set by our ancestors. MILPA was formed because we answered the call to begin re-asserting our indigeneity, cultural traditions, and interconnection to this continent we call Turtle Island. We hold that government-based identification does not determine our connection to this land or our right to self-identify as indigenous. For us, the work we do is an unfolding prayer, and we thank the Four Sacred elements, the Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Our history reminds us of questions that guide our values and future:
- Who are we?
- What do we value?
- Where do we come from?
- And, where are we going?
Our Staff
Juan Gomez
Executive Director
Juan Gomez
Juan Gomez is a proud father to Rayo Tamoxtzin (Sacred Lightning Spirit Ray). In addition, he has dedicated his adult life to being a cultural broker, movement builder, spontaneous storyteller and barrio “community” scholar. He is the Co-Founder and Executive Director at MILPA. Juan works to build next generation leadership while supporting healing informed team building. Throughout his career Juan has provided technical assistance for various youth justice strategies and initiatives, where he co-created healing-informed capacity building, training and strategic facilitation. Juan has also gained valuable experience by working at The California Endowment on issues impacting Boys and Men of Color. Mr. Gomez aims to see a world without the need to arrest, detain, convict, or send people into the correctional system. Juan was raised by his grandparents Amelia and Ampelio and is of Coahuiltecan and Chicano indigenous descent.
John Pineda
Deputy Director
John Pineda
John Pineda is a proud father of 6 children. Born in Salinas and raised in Greenfield, he is an original MILPA co-founder. Mr. Pineda’s humbly and effectively serves as MILPA’s Deputy Director by supporting organizational operations, training, and management. His passion is working with formerly incarcerated individuals and system-impacted youth using La Cultura Cura – an indigenous cultural healing philosophy. Mr. Pineda also brings his unique skills of technical assistance and capacity-building to work in partnership with the Vera Institute of Justice on Restoring Promise: A Young Adult Prison Reform Initiative. Through this role, he directly challenges mass incarceration and ethnic/racial disparities using a healing-informed cultural approach.
Elias (Eli) Gonzales
Training & Site Manager
Elias Gonzales
Airam Coronado
Program Leadership Assistant
Airam Coronado
Airam Coronado is a Program Leadership Assistant at MILPA working to reclassify low level criminal offense records and is a trained XINATCHTLI facilitator. Airam got introduced to movement work by interning at the Colectiva De Mujeres in 2016. And in 2017 she started interning at MILPA. She was raised by her single mother and is the youngest of 9 children. Mrs. Coronado grew up in the East Side of Salinas. At 15 yrs old she was labeled a “troubled child’, having received plenty of school suspensions that later entered her into the juvenile system. Her foster care experiences also inform her works and she strives to support youth empowerment especially that of youth and other young women of color. Airam is a proud mother to Aztlan.
Cristian Franco Jr
Training & Site Coordinator
Cristian Franco Jr
Cristian Franco Jr is a proud father of a teenage son. He has spent 10 years training, coaching, and developing his son amongst other youth ages 10-16 in Baseball. He cares about young people having opportunities to develop the skills necessary in overcoming criminalization, poverty and disrupting the school to prison pipeline.
Mr. Franco Jr works regionally in the state, His work includes facilitating rights of passage circles for youth involved at the front end of the system (or on probation), in community schools, coaching and mentoring youth in California’s youth prisons (DJJ), and building the next generation of policy advocates and social justice leaders through the Next Generation Fellowship. His coaching of youth, advocating with partner justice policy groups, and his mentoring of young people involved with the criminal justice system demonstrate his niche expertise.
Though his own incarceration in youth prison as a teen, is a negative force that brings him to this work, the love he received from his family augments his motivation to be a force for social change, fighting against mass incarceration, and pushing for racial/ethnic equity through coaching and mentoring. The loss of his mother while he was incarcerated taught him the sanctity of family and fueled his passion for cultural healing for young people in the deep end of the system.
Edgar Ibarra Gutierrez
Leadership & Program Coordinator
Edgar Ibarra Gutierrez
Alexis Magdaleno
Lead Prop 47 Specialist
Alexis Magdaleno
Alexis Magdaleno is the Lead Prop 47 Specialist at MILPA. He provides record reclassification and clearing services to the South Monterey County population. He was born Acámbaro Guanajuato in Mexico and migrated to the US at the age of 5 with his family, where he was raised in Soledad, CA. As a teen he was directly impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline, witnessing many of his close friends and family members being expelled or suspended, sent to continuation schools, and sent to juvenile hall. Alexis barely scraped by without getting caught up. Yet his determination led him to study at UC Berkeley where he received his BA in Social Welfare. Now he is back in his home community making positive changes. Alexis is a facilitator in Joven Noble, Cara Y Corazon, and the Telpochcalli Youth Leadership Academy with a focus on facilitating these groups in South Monterey County. Additionally, Alexis works in South Monterey County to cultivate change makers, address education inequities, and the School to Prison Pipeline.
George Villa
Programs & Research Associate
George Villa
Additionally, he facilitates for youth incarcerated in California’s new Department of Youth and Community Restoration (formerly the Division of Juvenile Justice within the CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) a healing, trauma-informed Rites of Passage program that promotes character development through an indigenous worldview philosophy. Most recently, he has joined a collaboration between MILPA and the Vera Institute to radically transform the living and working conditions inside jails and prisons across the country with an initial focus on young adults. In his free time, George enjoys hiking, swimming, Crossfit, fitness coaching, and reading. He is also proud uncle of professional, world champion boxer Ruben Villa IV. George is proud to have been born and raised in the heart of East Salinas.
Desiree Rosas
Prop 47 Outreach Assistant
Desiree Rosas
Desiree is a Prop 47 team member who provides record reclassification services to the community. The purpose of the service is to help formerly incarcerated people obtain better opportunities for employment and housing. Her goal is to help as many people as she can with the reintegration process.
Desiree Rosas is a proud mother to her 5-year-old son. As an indigenous woman born and raised in King City, CA, she has been directly impacted by the system. After navigating the justice and foster care system, Desiree has pushed through the barriers. She now strives to create change in the criminal justice system for her clients and the next 7 generations through her work at MILPA.
Cesar Lara
Director of Policy & Programs
Cesar Lara
Cesar Lara was raised locally on the Central Coast of Monterey County; he’s currently the executive director of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council. The Labor council is the local body of the AFL-CIO. They serve as a coalition of the Labor Community in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. Over 70 unions are affiliated with the MBCLC, representing more than 40,000 union members and their families. The mission of the MBCLC is to improve the lives of workers, their families, and our community and to help bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to the Monterey Bay Area.
Cesar Lara is all very active on a number of statewide and local boards, besides his role at the Labor Council; Cesar is the current Policy and Communications Director for Building Healthy Communities, East Salinas and the current director of the Central Coast Citizenship Project in East Salinas California Recently Cesar stepped down as Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 890 and prior to his tenure at the Labor Council, Cesar was the State Director for the United Farm Workers nonprofit La Union Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) and a Congressional Aid to Congressmen Sam Farr. Cesar attended California State University, Chico to obtain his bachelor’s in International Relations. The child of immigrant farm workers, immigrant rights and the needs of his community are a priority in his life.
Bernard (Bernie) Gomez
Program & Leadership Assistant
Bernard (Bernie) Gomez
Bernard “Bernie” Gomez is a Program and Leadership Assistant at MILPA. Concurrently, he is serving as a Research Intern with the Alianza for Youth Justice, a national group of reform professionals. There, he conducts national collaborative research with Latinx youth to transform youth justice systems and build ethnic equity.
At a young age Bernie was exposed to the reality of a being Chicano in a disenfranchised community of campesinos. As a teen parent he was pushed out of school and into vicious cycle of addiction and criminalization.
He survived the prison industrial complex while becoming aware of the many layers of racism and structural inequities. At MILPA he has begun to walk with PALABRA in the effort to cultivate change makers, continue the fight for systemic change and reconnecting to his ancestral traditions.
James Martinez
Policy & Programs Assistant
James Martinez
Josh Somers
Research Manager
Josh Somers
Josh Somers is a member of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, Auteca Pagume clan. Josh follows in the footsteps of activism, just as his father before him. He is a survivor of addiction, incarceration, and oppression. It is with this lived experience that he ventures into the work of Restoring Promise with the hope to provide a very unique and qualified perspective. Josh seeks to reach people who struggle in the face of oppression, in order to be an inspiration as well as an outlet for their voices. A voice that people in power should know matters. His belief is that this work to end mass incarceration is crucial for our black and brown relatives throughout the four directions.
Rosaura Figueroa Mendoza
Communications Coordinator
Rosaura Figueroa Mendoza
Rosaura Figueroa Mendoza is a queer, Chicana artist from South Hayward, CA currently working as the Communications Coordinator at MILPA. She was born/raised in the East Bay, and is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants. Rosaura developed a passion for social justice at San José State University, where she earned a degree in Sociology+Concentration in Community Change. She founded The Hayward Collective, a grassroots community organization, and HayStack Mujer Media, a video production company. She creates music, loves to dance and boxes for fun.
Veronica (Ronnie) Miramontes
Operations Associate
Veronica (Ronnie) Miramontes
Veronica “Ronnie” Miramontes serves as MILPA’s Operations Associate. As a powerful single mother, from a small ranchito in Mendocino County, she followed her dreams down to the sea and graduated from CSU Monterey Bay with a double concentration in Creative Writing/ Social Action and Journalism/ Media Studies. As a first generation college graduate, Ronnie honors her roots, which descends from the valleys surrounded by mountains in Jalisco, Mexico, hence her last name Miramontes.
Ronnie’s experience delves deep into restorative justice practices within Monterey County schools through performance in circles, mediation, conflict resolution skills, and volunteer management systems. She currently serves as the first Latina Board Member for the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD).
Ronnie recently married her soulmate and they are lovingly raising their three children, Ailani, Jesé, and Mila to follow their dreams and break barriers with the rooted pride living inside each of them.
Daniel Mendoza
Research & Program Coordinator
Daniel Mendoza
Daniel Mendoza is the Research and Program Coordinator at MILPA. For the past 6 years, his efforts have focused on ending mass incarceration, disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline, and building people & community power. Through advocacy and partnering with different Juvenile/Criminal justice stakeholders, he has influenced policy changes particularly around eliminating the practice of trying youth as adults, ending the use of solitary confinement for youth and improving reentry services for individuals post incarceration. Additionally, Daniel seeks to build up positive narratives about comrades who have been formerly incarcerated or system impacted.
Daniel graduated from the University of California, Davis where he majored in Chicano/a Studies. At UC Davis, he co-founded Beyond the Stats, a collective of formerly incarcerated and system impacted students working to dismantle structural barriers while navigating the UC system. Daniel enjoys hiking, watching stand-up comedy and spending time with family. Daniel grew up in Watsonville, California where he was raised by his single mother.