Andrea Isabel Quijada is the Executive Director of the Media Literacy Project. With more than a decade of experience as a media literacy trainer, and more than 15 years as a community organizer, Andrea has a deep passion for media justice. She serves on the Coordinating Committee of the national Media Action Grassroots Network, is an advisory board member of KUNM Youth Radio, and is on the Board of Directors for Enlace Comunitario. Andrea has also co-founded various organizations in Albuquerque, including Young Women United, an organization by and for young women of color. She is particularly interested in media as a tool for self-determination and movement building. Andrea has strong cultural and community ties to the Southwest. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, she has happily made New Mexico her home for the past 15 years. She is a proud tía, daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, and cousin to her family. Andrea earned her M.A. in Art History from the University of New Mexico with a focus on Chicana feminist art and art of social movements.
Monica Braine
Media Production Assistant
Monica Braine is currently in graduate school at the University of New Mexico for Language, Literacy and Sociocultural studies with a focus in Indian Education. She's the former Program Manager of National Geographic’s All Roads Film Project and Cultural Interpreter at the National Museum of the American Indian. She is the director of the documentary, If The Name Has To Go…, that examines the use of Native American images in sports. Her family hails from Montana and Pennsylvania. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and watching terrible pop culture films.
Jessica Collins
Program Director
Jessica Collins, originally from Kansas City, has been an Albuquerque resident for over a decade. She has a passion for film, digital storytelling, and working with youth. Jessica joined the Media Literacy Project in 2003 as an AmeriCorps VISTA. As a VISTA, she produced Challenging the Debt Industry, a documentary and media literacy resource on predatory lending. She was also a GED tutor for low-income youth and adults at SER de New Mexico during her VISTA service. Jessica has trained hundreds of educators and community leaders in media literacy and has developed several multimedia resources on a range of media justice issues. She likes deconstructing TV shows, music videos, marketing tactics, and bad modern art. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, knitting, as well as being creative and organized in all capacities. Jessica is a graduate from the University of New Mexico and holds a B.A. in Media Arts.
Denis Doyon
Media Production Coordinator
On leave August 2010- July 2011.
Christie McAuley
Community Education Coordinator
Christie McAuley was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana and has lived in New Mexico for the past 12 years. Prior to joining MLP in 2003, she taught middle school students in Rio Rancho where she discovered that using media to teach reading and writing was more effective than traditional methods. Before moving to New Mexico in 1996, Christie taught English as a foreign language to college students in Nowy Saçz, Poland, and taught ESL in Indianapolis to refugee and immigrant youth and adults. Christie’s passions in media literacy focus on justice issues for youth and teen girls, the LGBTQI community, and underserved communities around New Mexico who experience health disparities. In her spare time, Christie enjoys hiking and camping with her dog, traveling, visiting family, knitting, and silversmithing. Christie attended Indiana University and University of New Mexico where she earned her M.A. in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies.
Leticia Miranda
Strategic Communications Coordinator
Leticia Miranda is a California-born and raised Chicana with roots in Arizona and Texas. She's covered immigration, prison reform and juvenile justice for Colorlines Magazine and produced a woman of color-centered radio program at KZSC in Santa Cruz. Aside from print and radio, Leticia has a new passion for filmmaking thanks to the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project in San Francisco, CA. Her film Con Una Lengua que No es Mia, has been featured in the Queer Women of Color Film Festival and Frameline Festival. She hopes to one day become an unstoppable media-making machine. Leticia comes to us through the Transmission Project’s Digital Arts Corps VISTA program.
Candelario Vazquez
Media Justice Organizer
Candelario Vazquez is a queer farm worker activist and Jaranero of Mexican descent born and raised in Immokalee, Florida. From early childhood his parents instilled in him a passion for social justice. Candelario witnessed firsthand the injustices brought upon his family and farm worker community through the death of his father to cancer from pesticide exposure and the continued abuses by company bosses. These experiences led him to actively participate in many of Immokalee's direct action efforts. Upon arriving in Albuquerque 8 years ago during a Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Tour, he found a great affinity to New Mexico. He was thrilled to have an opportunity through Digital Arts Service Corps and Media Literacy Project to work here as community organizer. His hope is to continue a career in education and become a radical teacher—integrating the skills and experiences he’s learned throughout life into his teachings.
Cultivating critical thinking and activism in our media culture. Building a healthy world through media justice.
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