Ámate Cecilia Pérez is a writer and race equity consultant and the founder of Decolonizing Race and the Latinx Racial Equity Project. She has been a VISIONS consultant for over 25 years. Her lives’ purpose is ending racism and oppression. She supports individuals and groups to healing from oppression, increase transformational leadership skills, and build equity by shifting organizational culture and systems. Ms. Pérez has directed multiple organizations and held senior positions in civil rights, national and international policy groups, including CARECEN SF, Presente.org, and Global Exchange. Prior to her social justice experience, Ámate worked as a print and radio journalist. Ámate has been published by the SF Chronicle, the Progressive and Yes! Magazines and a number of other daily newspapers and movement building blogs. One of her personal essays, Dust Angels, was published in The Wandering Song, an anthology of Central American writers living in the United States. In addition to working with VISIONS, Ms. Perez is a consultant with the following national firms: the Interaction Institute for Social Change, Roadmap Consulting, and SEIU’s Bold center. She is a Kellogg Foundation National Race Equity and Healing Fellow as well as a Radical Hope grant receipt for innovation in race and healing. Ámate studied under Norma Wong, a Zen Priest and a Forward Stance teacher and Doña Queta, a Mixteco herbalist and healer. She integrates embodiment practices, emotional intelligence, and native healing approaches in her work. Ámate is a Nahuah decolonizing indigenous person from Kuskatlan (El Salvador), a mother, justice warrior, two-spirit activist, a martial artist and healer. Ms. Perez and her family fled the Salvadoran civil war in the early 1980s. She grew up as undocumented child in Los Angeles and benefited from the 1986 immigration reform law. She has a B.A. from UCSD and a master’s in journalism from UCB. She now lives in Inverness, CA on unseeded and occupied Coast Miwok and Tamal Indian territory.