Esmeralda "Esmé" Quintero-Cubillan
Pronouns: they/she
About:
Esmeralda “Esmé” Quintero-Cubillan (They/She), is an organizer, educator, and poet from Central Florida, raised in Texas and Southern California. Esmé began organizing around policing, queer and trans justice, and in Orange and Santa Barbara counties.
Esmé joins San Diego Pride after completing the inaugural Pauli Murray Fellowship with the American Civil Liberties Union. Esmé worked at the intersection of gender, immigration, Indigeneity, and organizing. Developing and executing advocacy support programs and political education.
Esmé received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). During their time at UCSB, Esmé concurrently served as the President of the University of California Student Association and External Vice President for Statewide Affairs, representing over 285,000 students to the State and Federal government.
During her tenure, Esmé created the first environmental justice campaign, successfully lobbied the state for $30 million in direct funding for marginalized students and founded a Queer & Trans BIPOC Emergency Fund which distributed $30,000 in grants to QTBIPOC across the country during the height of the pandemic.
Esmé is a first-generation Boricua & Venezolana in diaspora dedicated to decolonizing Borikén (Puerto Rico) and ending U.S. imperialism in all U.S. colonies. Esmé believes that each generation has a duty to lay the groundwork for the next seven generations.
In their freetime, you can find Esmé annoying her cat Pad Thai, blasting Chappell Roan, or organizing for the liberation of Borikén.