Nelson Carrasquillo
Nelson Carrasquillo, General Coordinator CATA (Farmworkers Support Committee) comes from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, where he worked as Coordinator of Organizing in the National Ecumenical Movement (PRISA), working with fishermen’s communities, communities with environmental problems, farmworkers and small agricultural communities.
He has been working with CATA since 1992, working with migrant workers located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico. His work with CATA is to enable and empower migrant workers located in Mexico, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico as they struggle for healthier living and working conditions, adequate housing, environmental justice and dignity and respect. Representing CATA, he participates in several boards including among others; the Urban /Rural Mission, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, and the Farmworkers Health and Safety Institute. He has represented farmworkers in several commissions and during September of 2000 he was selected to be in the Executive Committee of the Planning Group for the National People of Color and Indigenous Peoples Environmental Leadership Summit II.
Since 2000 he has worked in solidarity towards encouraging dialogue among the migrant community, especially with Latino, South East Asia, and Chinese youth organizations. By promoting a dialogue among different ethnic groups in the Pennsylvania area, common areas of needs could be identified and achieve the possibility of working together to solve the problems. In 2005, Mr. Carrasquillo was awarded the Alston/Bannerman Fellowship for his years of social activism promoting environmental justice and immigrants’ rights.
Currently he is Co-Chair of Urban Rural Mission USA as well as the Global Partners Working group of the same entity. At the regional level he is engaged in the Tri State Social Gathering, a coalition of grassroots organizations in the states of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and serves in the Blue Ribbon Panel on Immigration for the State of New Jersey.