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
Our goal is 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 ideas 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.
Furthermore, MILPA was formed because we grasped the baton and began 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
He graduated from CSU Monterey Bay and brings years of experience in non-profit and civic collaboration with community, county and state-based agencies. His relationship building, cultural consciousness and communication background give him a unique facilitation skill primarily rooted in cultural healing and storytelling making his work accessible and effective for various stakeholders. He sits on the Santa Cruz County Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Commission. His pride and joy are his children.
Airam Coronado
Program & Leadership Assistant
Airam Coronado
Airam Coronado is a mother and advocate who works as the Program and Leadership Assistant at MILPA. In this role, she facilitates cultural healing groups for young women of color to engage in practices of decolonization. As someone who navigated both the juvenile justice system and the foster care system, Airam is a community leader who brings her lived experience, storytelling, and cultural humility as her expertise. While she focuses on ending mass incarceration, dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, and building community people power, she draws her motivation from her son Aztlan, her incarcerated family members, and the countless youth who inspire her everyday.
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
Edgar Ernesto Ibarra Gutierrez is the Leadership & Program Coordinator at MILPA. Mr. Ibarra facilitates leadership development and movement-building programs that encourage and support young people in their community and civic engagement while they work towards a future where the next generations can thrive with cultural pride, traditions, and dignity. He’s a Chicano Indigenous young man raised in the city of Watsonville by his mom and his three siblings. He is currently a 4th-year student at UC, Davis majoring in Communications, with aspirations to pursue a master’s degree in the future.
His focus is on strengthening the movement to end mass incarceration while building communications, leadership, and training infrastructure. Edgar enjoys reading books, participating in barrio scholarship with his friends and spending his time outdoors hiking, swimming, and exploring the beauty that nature has to offer. He is on the path to relearning his sacred indigenous traditions of songs, drums, and storytelling by staying close to the fire, honoring the water, and listening to the elders.
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
Program & Leadership Assistant
Desiree Rosas
Desiree (Dez) Rosas is native to Monterey County and is currently a Program and Leadership Assistant, as well as a Prop 47 team member at MILPA. As someone who has been directly impacted by the system, Sister Dez has navigated her way through the justice and foster care systems. With her son by her side, Ms. Rosas has pushed through barriers. She enjoys mentoring future Change Makers through the programs provided at MILPA. Desiree strives to create change in the criminal justice system for her clients and the Next 7 Generations through her work while also providing record reclassification services to the community. Her role is to support those coming back from incarceration as they begin their reintegration process.
Cesar Lara
Director of Policy & Programs
Cesar Lara
Cesar Lara is currently the Programs and Policy Director for MILPA. He was raised in Monterey County, California, and attended California State University, Chico to obtain his Bachelor’s Degree for International Relations.
Cesar Lara is very active on several statewide and local boards. Besides his role at MILPA, Cesar is also the Executive Director of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council (MBCLC). Prior to MILPA, Cesar was the former Policy and Communications Director for Action Council’s Building Healthy Communities, East Salinas Initiative (BHC-ES), the former Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 890 and Director of the Central Coast Citizenship Project in East Salinas, California. Cesar was the State Director for the United Farm Workers’ Nonprofit, La Unión Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), and a Congressional Aide to Congressman Sam Farr. Cesar is a proud father of 3 kids and 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.
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
Finance & Operations Manager
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.
Robert Daniels, Jr
Program & Leadership Assistant
Robert Daniels, Jr
Robert Daniels, Jr is the Program & Leadership Assistant at MILPA. Robert currently attends California State University, Monterey Bay, and is pursuing a B.A. in Accounting. He was raised in Seaside, California by his paternal grandparents, one of which is an African-American Vietnam war veteran and a post World War Two German immigrant, until the age of 12. Thereafter, the state of California reared him into adulthood. His mother is from Salinas, while his father was born in Germany, due to his grandfather’s military background. He enjoys legal work and number concepts, even though he is an environmentalist at heart. His free time is mainly encompassed in gardening and sustainable agriculture; he recently focused on local efforts to bring forth a community garden and revitalization project at Havana-Soliz Park