At Pangea, Jessica’s goal is to support directly impacted community members who are developing alternatives to deportation and detention. As a person of both Chinese and Japanese ancestry, Jessica (she/her) has been to enough memorials to recognize that the US immigration regime we live under has always been inherently racist. This country once recognized its errors in shuttering all concentration camps of Japanese Americans during WWII, and it can do so again. She firmly believes that we should be working towards that day when all immigration detention centers—today’s concentration camps—are permanently and forever closed.  

Jessica’s past experiences have helped her to understand that the most powerful and healing work happens in coalition, where themes of “shame” and “belonging” can be questioned, and when a person’s whole story is embraced by the community. At UC Riverside (’10), Jessica developed a non-profit to work with people that had experienced intimate partner violence, creating a space for survivors to build community instead of solely relying on the police. At Northeastern University School of Law (’14), Jessica was involved in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Clinic, researching the murder of a Georgian man who had been forced to work on a chain gang during the Jim Crow era. The circumstances of this man’s death had been kept from his descendants. Jessica’s research helped the family to unearth the story and provide new light to the unjust circumstances surrounding this man’s death.

As an immigration attorney at La Raza Community Resource Center and Dolores Street Community Services, the most transformative work Jessica experienced occurred in collaboration, not just with other attorneys, but also with organizers, people of faith, and people in the disability justice and neurodiversity movement. Together, they organized rallies and prayer vigils, hosted “coming out” parties for detained LGBTQ community members, and continue to come up with other creative ways to bring restoration and recognition to a limited legal process.

Jessica proudly identifies as a queer cis-gendered woman. At home, she and her wife speak both English and Spanish, love gardening, and enjoy singing capoeira songs at the top of their lungs.