People

Alice Y. Hom / Los Angeles, CA

Alice Y. Hom is Alice is the California Partnerships Program Manager for the National Gender and Equity Campaign, a demonstration project for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. As a community builder, educator and writer, she brings over 17 years of experience in organizing and teaching on the intersections of race, gender and sexuality while also linking academic issues to community based activism. From 2001-2006, she served as the Founding Director of the Intercultural Community Center at Occidental College where she worked on diversity and social justice issues. Alice also serves on the board of Visual Communications, an Asian American media arts organization. She co-edited an award-winning anthology titled Q & A: Queer in Asian America. Alice received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University, a Masters Degree in Asian American Studies from University of California, Los Angeles, and is completing her dissertation on organizing and community building by lesbians of color from the 1970s to the 1990s in a Ph.D. History Program at Claremont Graduate University.

Surina Khan / Long Beach, CA

Surina Khan is Vice President of Programs for the Women’s Foundation of California, the only statewide public foundation investing in women and girls to create a more just and equitable society. It is recognized for working across issues to bridge disparate social justice movements. Previously, Surina worked as the executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and as a research analyst with Political Research Associates, a think tank and research center that studies, analyzes and publishes on the political Right. Among her many community involvements, Surina currently serves on the Board of Directors for both Political Research Associates and the Funders Network for Population, Reproductive Health and Rights. She is also a steering committee member of the Los Angeles chapter of Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy; and sits on the National Advisory Council of the Lesbian Health & Research Center, University of California, San Francisco.

Alexander L. Lee / Berkeley, CA

Alexander L. Lee currently serves as the Associate Director for Public Interest/Public Sector Programs at UC Berkeley School of Law. Prior to this position, Alexander founded and directed the Transgender, Gender Variant & Intersex Justice Project, a legal services and policy organization working to end the abuse of transgender people in prison in California and beyond. In this position, he worked closely with leading LGBT legal organizations, as well as racial and economic justice organizations, members of the California legislature and correctional agencies. He has also worked as a staff attorney at Justice Now, helping prisoners fight the termination of their parental rights and win competent health care for life-threatening conditions. He is also a founding member of the Transforming Justice Conference and Coalition, and a former member of the groundbreaking transgender police-accountability community organization TransAction (1999-2003). Alexander is a former Soros Justice Advocacy Fellow and holds a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law.

Mary Li / Portland, OR

Mary has been involved with Astraea since the early 90s when she served on the U.S. Community Funding Panel. Currently, she works for local county government on issues of housing and homelessness, poverty/prosperity and families and children. She is a Chinese-American lesbian parent, and is active in a number of communities and initiatives in the Portland area.

Eleanor Palacios / San Francisco, CA

Eleanor Palacios is the Events Manager at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), joining the staff after three years on NCLR's Board. She also serves as Principal at Lady Iguana Productions. Highly versed in events management, she has co-chaired NCLR's 28th and 29th Anniversary Galas and has been behind events for the SF LGBTI Center, the SF Botanical Garden, the New College, and the Latino Issues Forum. Over the years she has worked with Olivia Cruises, PlanetOut, and Procter & Gamble. She has been an activist in the LGBTI Community for more than 15 years and is a founding member of The Center's Latino Forum.

Miriam Zoila Pérez / Washington, D.C.

Miriam Zoila Pérez grew up in a Cuban immigrant household in North Carolina. She is a writer, blogger and reproductive justice activist who was named one of Women’s Information Network’s (WIN) 2009 Young Women of Achievement. Miriam has been an organizer and advocate for Latina women as a case manager assisting pregnant immigrant women, as well as a reproductive justice organizer with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. Miriam is a trained doula and the sole blogger and founder of radicaldoula.com. She is also an editor at the popular and widely read blog feministing.com. Her writing has appeared in Bitch Magazine, The Nation, RH Reality Check, Campus Progress, Alternet, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World without Rape and Sinister Wisdom: Latina Lesbians. Miriam is also a member of the Management Circle of the Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. She holds a BA from Swarthmore.