A Semi-Monthly Virtual Huddle for Activists

On December 9, at 6 p.m., we focused on how we define safety when so many of us are quickly incarcerated, detained, and taken from our communities and families. From our long-standing advocacy to close Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles and the Adelanto Detention Center to the escalating number of lives lost while held in custody throughout the southland—what could safety look like if it included all of us? Conversation and actions focused on how incarceration and detention are harmful and dangerous, and we explored bigger thinking about what to fight for to truly keep us safe.

Special guests included:

Janet Asante (she/her) is a queer Los Angeles-based abolitionist feminist organizer and creative from Houston, Texas. Janet leads strategy for the campaign to close Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles, and spearheads media and communications for Dignity and Power Now (DPN) and the JusticeLA Coalition (JLA) to do so. Janet has dedicated her life to organizing against injustice and inequity since childhood, and is an award-winning writer, speaker, and poet. Prior to joining DPN and JLA, Janet worked to exonerate incarcerated people with the Texas Innocence Network at the University of Houston Law Center, and served as a Second Day Impact Fellow with Deeds Not Words.

Ra Avis (she/her) is an artist, community builder, an award-winning blogger, and a 2025 writing freedom fellow with Haymarket Books. She is also the founder of Kites Library, a free archive of resource-sharing mini zines, and a co-founding organizer of the Biggest Little Zine Fair. Ra's storytelling blends personal vulnerability with systemic critique, always centering the tender stretch toward something more than survival.

Marcela Hernandez (she/her) is the capacity building director at Detention Watch Network, a coalition of more than 110 organizations – and previously detained leaders – organizing to abolish immigrant detention and end the prison industrial complex. She is an immigrant from Mexico and has been organizing for 20 years, including with the Not1More campaign, Organized Communities Against Deportation (OCAD), IDEPSCA, Public Counsel, Critical Resistance Los Angeles, and several immigrant youth-led collectives in California.

John Mathews II (he/him) serves as chief of staff for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office. In this role, he leads the strategic development and implementation of office priorities, advancing efforts to transform the criminal legal system and expand alternatives to incarceration. Before joining the Public Defender's Office, John served as senior justice deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, where he spearheaded crucial and impactful countywide criminal justice reform initiatives. His legal experience also includes service as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Puerto Rico during the Obama administration, as a litigation associate at Latham & Watkins LLP, and as a federal judicial law clerk to the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson.

On Tuesday, October 28, we explored how collective safety looks like in the arts, entertainment and in our personal expression. In this culture-packed edition of our We Keep Us Safe series, we learned about a recent victory against Huntington Beach’s attempt to ban books at its library and connect with trans and gender-nonconforming organizers and artists who dare to exist authentically as themselves at a time when the administration is hell-bent in undermining the progress and power of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S.

Special guests included:

Chris Kluwe (he/him), author and former NFL football player who set several of the Minnesota Vikings’ punting records during his eight-year career, and who has been an indefatigable champion for LGBTQ+ rights and went viral when he was arrested for peaceful civil disobedience at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting.

Khloe Rios-Wyatt (she/her), an award-winning CEO and a founding member of Alianza Translatinx in Orange County, where she leads efforts to address the health and social needs of transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex (TGI) people and is recognized nationally for her expertise in transgender health, immigration and community organizing.

Artist, advocate, academic and image maker, Xelestial Moreno-Luz (she/her/ella), who utilizes lens-based approaches to critique the visual institutions that depict transgender bodies within our contemporary landscape. She has spent the past decade: working in coalition to reimagine equity for LGBTQ+ communities, fostering diasporic queer/trans identity formation incubators, and expanding the field of transgender, gender expansive, and intersex (TGI) art and sexual health education. She is the founder and CEO of Saturn's Wish, an arts and culture organization uplifting communities in Los Angeles and beyond.

On Tuesday, September 23, we gathered to ask: what does collective safety look like in the face of an encroaching police state?Together, we shared strategies and actions to confront the rise of militarized federal agents, the violence against our immigrant communities, and the racist legacy of police stops—while organizing for the dignity and safety of all.

Poet Yesika Salgado (she/her/ella) opened the huddle with a poem and conversation about her dreams for Los Angeles. A two-time National Poetry Slam finalist and the recipient of the 2020 International Latino Book Award in Poetry, Yesika Salgado is a beloved Los Angeles-born Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, her culture, her city, and her fat body. We’re thrilled she joined us on this vital September huddle.

On Tuesday, August 12, we focused on student safety in today’s political climate. In the Back to School edition, ACLU advocates and more explored inclusion and freedom of expression in California schools, students' rights, and the laws that protect LGBTQ+ and immigrant youth.

Activist, content creator, Youth Against Hate coalition founder and ACLU SoCal Youth Liberty Squad alum, Millie Liao (she/her), joined us to share why digital activism matters today and inspire organizers to activate and own their civic power using platforms like YouTube and social media. Millie studies the effects of social media on human behavior at Yale and shares her life as a student with over 300k YouTube subscribers. Her experiences as a young activist with the ACLU SoCal motivated her movement work, and we’re grateful our first We Keep Us Safe event as our special guest next week.