Young and politically empowered
WHEN FHERNANDA ORTIZ was 16, an organizer from the Arizona Center for Empowerment, or ACE, a social justice organization, spoke at her high school. After the talk, Ortiz signed up for a six-week political education course run by ACE in partnership with Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), its sister organization. There, she learned about the issues impacting her community, including discrimination and anti-immigrant policies; she even attended an Operation Streamline hearing in Tucson, where dozens of shackled, undocumented immigrants appeared before a judge for criminal prosecution.
In Phoenix, where she lives, Ortiz learned how to exercise her political rights. “I didn’t know back then that I could go to the state Capitol
