Monica Hurtado

Monica Hurtado is committed to building collective power to uplift marginalized communities and drive change. Originally from Colombia, Monica’s journey is marked by a passion for systems change and service. After immigrating to Minnesota in 2001, she played a pivotal role in establishing the transformative “Aqui Para-Ti” program, offering tailored healthcare support to the Latinx community. This experience inspired her to create change beyond the healthcare field, and to transition her leadership skills to community organizing. She now serves as a public policy director at Voices for Racial Justice. With her Bush Fellowship, Monica will travel to see and learn from different traditional and innovative organizing practices in communities throughout the U.S. and internationally. She also will develop her skills and practices related to mindful meditation to strengthen her own leadership.

What has informed your approach to leading change in your community?

My own curiosity and growing up in a very curious family, and the tradition of magic realism in Colombia, which is the ability to imagine things that can be different and should be different.

Who would be your dream dinner guest?

Aida Quilcué. She is an Indigenous leader from the Minga Indigena, who is now a senator. I would love to have dinner with her and learn about her journey, and to ask more about what it was like to be an Indigenous girl in Colombia and her experience in the Minga.

What is your favorite quote or expression?

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together,” by Lilla Watson, an Australian Murri visual artist, activist and academic. I aspire to live that quote. It’s easy to think that you are helping others. I sometimes fall into that trap. This is something I want to keep close to me because I know it’s about being in this with others and liberating myself through that.