I am a mother, wife, writer, grandmother, activist and a progressive donor/organizer. I am the founder of the Angelica Foundation, my family foundation, which started in 1992.
For more than two decades I have overseen Angelica’s human rights grants program in Mexico. The portfolio has provided long term support to regional, national and grassroots NGOs. Mexico is a country where I was raised as a child, and where I came of age politically. Today it is a place I continue to fight for, invest in and love. The Mexico Human Rights Program has been the keystone of my life’s work. It has allowed me to support brave activists and community leaders in the struggles of indigenous land rights, women’s rights, human rights, immigration justice and trans-national drug policy reform.
I am proud that Angelica Foundation has, at times, provided the first support people received in a crisis -- such after the murders of 43 students from the rural college of Ayotzinapa. I am also proud that I have often been the first funder some small grassroots Mexican organizations have ever met. At times I have moved beyond the purview of grants portfolios, to be strategically involved with social movements. A primary example was the 2012 Movement for Peace and Justice, a citizen uprising led by the beloved poet Javier Sicilia, which mobilized the nation to fight against drug war violence and impunity.
I am the former President of Threshold Foundation, a 300-plus member community of donors and allied progressives who come together to pool resources, educate each other and support movements for a more just society. I currently serve as a board member and Co-Facilitator of Threshold’s Immigration Justice & the Americas Funding Circle. I speak frequently on the topics of Mexico, the drug war, and the immigration/migration/human rights issues at the US/Mexico border. I am at work on a memoir about the role of my family in the building of mid-century Las Vegas. I live with my husband Jim in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I continue to work for human rights and progressive social change in the borderlands.
I first came to Santa Fe in 1987 and am happy to have been based here since 1992, but I was born in Rochester, NY. After graduating from Princeton with an AB in Politics and receiving a Masters from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in International Economics and Japanese Studies, I became the first American to receive a Masters in International Management from Kokusai Daigaku (International University of Japan). I also studied Political Economy in Paris and International Economics in Italy. I speak or at least at one time spoke Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and bits and pieces of other languages.
I went on to work at a number of think tanks, investment banking firms including Nomura Securities and Morgan Stanley and then co-founded an investment management company, Pacific Partners. Later I also helped found the Social Venture Network, a non-profit network of socially responsible business people. I am still an active investor in a variety of ventures.
In addition to my work as a Director of the Angelica Foundation, I serve or have served on over a dozen non-profit boards and commissions, from other foundations such as Livingry and Threshold, to Rainforest Action Network, the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, Democracy Alliance, Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order, Community Change Action, Canyon Neighborhood Association, Project New Mexico, the Santa Fe Film and Digital Media Commission, and others. I am often too busy but almost never bored.