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Born in Washington State to Mexican parents, Angélica knew she “wanted to work on the issues that allowed some folks to have certain privileges and power over others.” Believing a law degree would be beneficial, she enrolled at North Carolina Central University in Durham. Combining her passion for advocacy with education, Angélica completed postgraduate law fellowships with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus both in Washington, DC, and in Madrid, Spain.

“After working on public policy at the national and international level, I knew that I wanted to go back to North Carolina and work on issues at the local level,” she says. In 2008, she moved to Asheville and started at Pisgah Legal Services as a bilingual advocate for the Mountain Violence Prevention Project, shifting her professional focus in 2010 to the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence as their immigrant outreach specialist. Angélica served as the executive director of Our VOICE for nearly a decade before joining the NC Counts Coalition in 2021, an organization committed to building a healthy, just and equitable North Carolina.