reforming america.

Andrea Gonzales is a 17 year-old Indigenous-Latina Queer activist and advocate for marginalized youth. For a high school art project, Andrea was the model in a series of feminist photos with messages denouncing rape culture written on her bare back. After her school removed the photo display, Andrea’s fight to restore the installation gained media attention and she was recognized by the National Coalition Against Censorship. Ultimately, the photos hung in both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the U.S. Capitol. As an intern at the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, Andrea organized a march against police and ICE brutality and a teach-in to expose the Eurocentric focus of school curricula and advocate for the decolonization of our educational system. Through her work at the Staten Island Youth Justice Center, Andrea helped to implement restorative justice in her community. Following the Parkland shooting, she organized a sign-making event to promote the nationwide student walkout at her school and met with lawmakers in Albany to advocate for the Extreme Risk Protection Order (“ERPO”) bill, as well as sensible gun- control, and suicide- and violence-prevention measures. In the summer of 2018, Andrea moderated a panel discussion alongside March For Our Lives at the New York stop on its “Road to Change Tour.” She is currently an intern at Girls for Gender Equity and the Director of Operations at Youth Over Guns. Andrea lives on Staten Island and is a college student studying Political Science.