Our Founding Board

In Pomona, Luis worked with Tomás Ursúa for many years helping move the city from at-large to district elections. Luis was also a planning commissioner for Councilmembers Marco Robles and Cristina Carrizosa.

He was elected to the Three Valleys Municipal Water Board of Directors, serving five years as District 1 Director. Lately, he has joined with other community advocates to bring the Nuestra Casa Museum of History and Culture to fruition.

Cristina Carrizosa has provided a lifetime of service to the Pomona community. First elected to the Pomona City Council in 1993, Mrs. Carrizosa represented District Three for 21 years. She served on the Pomona Board of Library Trustees, Tri-City, Pomona Valley Transportation Authority, and various school site councils and advisory committees.

Her advocacy and leadership on difficult issues include helping to save homes at the Patritti Track in Pomona. She supported bilingual education and positioning bilingual office personnel in schools. Along with others, she worked hard to establish the Pomona Day Labor Center. Mrs. Carrizosa strongly opposed aggressive police checkpoints and propositions she believed were harmful to the city, such as Measure T, Measure L, trash transfer stations, a card club, and a doughnut shop owner’s bigotry.

She co-created Project Renacimiento and Esperanzas y Alegría Park in the Angela-Chanslor community and the Philadelphia Park Community Center. She founded the Pomona Youth Orchestra. Additional projects that Mrs. Carrizosa supported are the Hope for Home shelter, murals and musical programs at Philadelphia and Washington Parks, and the annual Christmas toy drive.

Mrs. Carrizosa received the 2003 Woman of the Year award from the California 61st Assembly District and was recognized as Teacher of the Year by the California 32nd Senate. In 2007, the LA County Commission for Women honored her for Project Renacimiento. That same year, she received the Latino(a) Round Table Service to Others award.

Other awards include the Nathaniel and Elizabeth Davis Civil Rights Award (2014), Latino Arts Museum Woman of the Year (2015), Pomona Unified School District Community Service (2015 and 2016), Day Labor Award (2016), Woman of the Year – California 52nd District (2019), and Padres Unidos (2022).

Along with other volunteers, she is co-founding the Nuestra Casa Museum of History and Culture in Pomona, California.

In August 1970 Mike had a life changing event at the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles. He witnessed the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department attack men, women, children and senior citizens who were resting after a long, hot march against the Vietnam War. This horrible event changed his life to seek justice for minorities in race relations and other arenas.

In the early 1990’s Mike became the President of the Pomona Valley Democratic Club. He worked to help elect local candidates to the Pomona City Council. Mike was an early member of the Latino/a Roundtable attending the organization’s second meeting. In his work with the Roundtable he worked on many community events and Co-Chairs the successful push to make Ethnic Studies mandatory for graduation at Pomona Unified School District. In 2024 Mike Co-Founded the Nuestra Casa Museum of History and Culture in Pomona California and is the current Treasurer.

In 1983, Angela earned a law degree at the Peoples College of Law in LA, where she met Salvadoran refugees fleeing their country’s civil war. Two years later, she became national executive director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a national organization that organized to stop US intervention in El Salvador. She served as an official witness of the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City, which ended the 12-year civil war in El Salvador in 1992.

From 1996–2007 she served as the executive director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN-LA) and presently serves as President of the Board. In the late ’90s she served on the CHIRLA Board of Directors. In 2004 she co-founded the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), now Alianza Americas. In 2008 she joined the Latino and Latina Roundtable of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valley and served as Vice-Chair for several years. From 2018 to 2022 she served as Co-Executive Director of National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). She presently serves on the Board of the Centro Cultural Techantit-LA, an indigenous rights organization, and in 2024 co-founded the Board of the Nuestra Casa Museum of History and Culture in Pomona, California. Angela and her husband Jim Sanbrano live in La Verne, CA.