Interview with Adriana Camarena

Authors

Adriana Camarena

Files

Biography

Adriana Camarena is from Mexico and has spent time in the Uruguay, before becoming a resident of the Mission district of San Francisco in 2008. She is a writer, journalist, a lawyer, as well as a community activist that focuses on ending police brutality and supporting families who have been hurt by police. Camarena is a part of the Auntie Sewing Squad and tries in many different ways to find solutions that can provide emergency relief aid in creative ways.

Thematic Summary

(00:00:00) Adriana Camarena explains what she does as a lawyer and community activist, in particular as someone who accompanies families that have been hurt by the police with a main focus on Latinos. (00:09:00) She shares that she felt like an outsider in Uruaguay, but then moved to the mission district in San Francisco where the majority of the people had an immigration experience. (00:23:00) She summarizes that her book Unsettled in the Mission is about Ohlone histories, drawn from Spanish diaries and local oral histories. (00:30:06) She shares how she joined the Auntie Sewing Squad and collaborated with the family of Luis Gongora Pat to supply water and masks to farmworkers in Petaluma and Healdsburg (00:40:00) Lastly, Camarena reflects on her organizing with the Auntie Sewing Squad throughout COVID-19 and gives advice on how young people to get involved with community organizing.

Interview Date

5-3-2021

Interviewer

Jocelyn Mendoza; Kimberley Aguilar

Recommended Citation

Camarena, Adriana, "Interview with Adriana Camarena" (2021). Auntie Sewing Squad Interviews. 53.
https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/auntiesewing_interviews/53