Legal Activists of Color: CB King Award 2006 goes to Mercedes Castillo!

Dear TUPOCC:

We are proud of our fierce comrade/hermana, Mercedes, in winning this award! Congratulations, Mercedes, and thank you for all you do in support of the people!

A la lucha,

Ranya, Renee, y Matt

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The CB King Award 2006 will be awarded to Mercedes Castillo!

Mercedes Castillo (University of California at Davis, Class of 2006) has been an active NLG member through the following chapters and committees:

Student Chapter: King Hall NLG, UC Davis

The United People of Color Caucus

SF Chapter: Student Member

International Committee

Labor and Employment Committee

She has also served as Chair of the National Latina/Latino Law Student Association (NLLSA).

Mercedes has accomplished an enormous amount of social justice work in her years as a law student. In her first year she worked with Eva Paterson and others to organize against Proposition 54 in California. In 2004, Mercedes organized students to support the issue of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants and led a national campaign through her organization to oppose the REAL ID Act. In 2005, she led the efforts to oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales.

Mercedes was an active participant in the NLG Delegation to Chiapas in March of 2005, the NLG Delegation to Venezuela in January/February of 2006, and she participated in the Labor & Employment Committee's delegation to Mexico City. Furthermore, she organized a Law Student Delegation to Chiapas in March of 2006.

For the past two years, she has actively organized against the Minutemen. She has participated in various panels, helped with counter-demonstration efforts on a national level and has trained community members to be legal observers for such demonstrations.

Through her work organizing against the Minutemen she was brought into the national discussion on immigration. On March 10, Mercedes helped organize a teach-in in Sacramento that started the grass-roots efforts for the subsequent demonstrations that took place on March 25, April 10 and May 1. On March 31 in the city of Woodland 300 high school students walked-out and a few were beat up and arrested by the police. When she found out about this Mercedes started a plan of action to start going out to the high schools and teaching the students about their rights. She held legal observer trainings for students and was able to train hundreds of volunteers for the April 10 action. She attended various conferences for high schools students to talk about their role in this movement and safety.

On April 10 several hundred students (law, undergrad, high school and middle school) and community members marched from Davis to Sacramento. They joined the rest of the 10,000 people in Sacramento to protest anti-immigration legislation. Mercedes continued to organize for the May 1 actions, educating the community, going out to businesses and asking them to support the boycott, speaking to more community groups. On May 1 she helped bring more than 20,000 people to the streets of Sacramento!

Please join the National Lawyers Guild on October 21, 2006 at the banquet of the National Convention in Austin, Texas in honoring and thanking Mercedes for her hard work and inspiration!