As a District 2 resident for over 20 years, I am proud to call the Grand Lake neighborhood home. I’m a lifelong community organizer who got my start in Chinatown, organizing immigrant women garment workers to win their wages back. I’m guided by values I learned from my parents — both immigrants from the Philippines — whose struggles taught me the importance of integrity, honesty and fairness. I know what it is like to organize outside the halls of power — and win.

I'm proud to be Oakland's first Filipina-American Councilmember and to give voice to our diverse Asian Pacific Islander community at City Hall. And as a working mother — I will do whatever it takes to keep our kids safe and make sure their future is bright. My proudest role is as spouse to Brad and Mom to Balana.

Before my election to the City Council in 2018, I served as the Executive Director of the Partnership for Working Families and as the Executive Director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE). 

I am humbled that my work organizing garment workers and building the student anti-sweatshop movement was recognized with the 1999 Mario Savio Young Activist Award , that I was named a social justice Changemaker by the San Francisco Chronicle  in 2012, and   to have received Oakland Rising's Townie of the Year award in 2018.