Commissioners
The Commission is composed of eleven commissioners throughout the state of Washington. Commissioners are recruited and appointed for their diverse views, locales, and community connections in order to represent the diversity within the Latino population of Washington State.
Commissioners leading the way
Angie Hinojos, CHAIR
1st term, Expires: 08/01/2025
Angie Hinojos graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Architecture. She is the Executive Director and co-founder of Centro Cultural Mexicano in Redmond. She is a passionate advocate for social and racial justice, and utilizes her experience as a Public Artist to strengthen community bonds and encourage civic engagement through art.
She is Chair of the Redmond Arts and Culture Commission and serves on the Pandemic After-Action Review Taskforce for Washington State. Angie has also been a community organizer focused on equity in education, with the goal of increasing access to higher education for underserved communities.
Phone: (425) 736-4322
Email: Angie.Hinojos@cha.wa.gov
Bernal Baca, Ed.D., Vice CHAIR
2nd Term, Expires 08/01/2026
Dr. Baca earned his Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Organizational Leadership as well as his Masters in Counseling, Mental Health Counseling/Counselor from Seattle University. Dr. Baca also has a Master of Arts (M.A.), Public Administration from Washington State University and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Political Science and Government from University of Colorado at Boulder.
Dr. Baca has been an American Federation of Teachers member for over 30 years. Prior to AFT Washington, he was an executive board member and the local union president of AFT Yakima faculty. He is also one of the founding Board Members of the Equity in Education Coalition. Dr. Baca is currently the Executive Director of Centro Latino Tacoma and is proud holder of season tickets for the Denver Broncos since 1971.
Contact information: 509. 961.7840
Email: bernal.baca@cha.wa.gov
Eric Gonzalez, vice chair
1st (full) term, Expires: 08/01/2026
Eric Gonzalez Alfaro is the Legislative Director of the ACLU of Washington, where he works on Healthcare, Youth Justice, Immigration, Criminal Justice, and Technology-Privacy issues at the state and local level. Prior to joining the ACLU, he served as Legislative and Policy Director for the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, an organization representing over 450,000 rank and file union members from over 600 affiliates and Central Labor Councils. There, he led policy and legislative efforts on workers’ rights issues, on and off the jobsite, including policies related to health and safety, health care, education, civil rights, immigrant rights, voting justice, strategies to end mass incarceration, and anti-poverty policies, to holistically promote social and economic justice. He’s worked for OneAmerica, Equal Justice Coalition, Northwest Justice Project, Columbia Legal Services, which all focused on increasing Washingtonians’ access to justice, regardless of income, and immigration status.
Phone number: (509) 293-095
Email: eric.gonzalez@cha.wa.gov
Commissioner Lina A. Rios
1st Term, Expires 08/01/2026
Commissioner Rios was born and raised in Yakima and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Lina was raised in the farming industry. She attended Yakima Valley College while working in Law Enforcement prior to starting her career in the Insurance & Financial Services industry 2001. Since then she served as the Vice Chair of Central WA Hispanic Chamber, served on the Yakima Valley College Advisory Committee and hosted a bi-weekly educational radio segment for Radio KDNA in Central WA helping farm workers and the Spanish speaking communities learn more about finances. After Lina's husband completed his service with the U.S. Marine Corps, she relocated to Southwest WA.
Phone: 509. 952.5438
Email: lina.rios@cha.wa.gov
Commissioner Randy Nuñez, ED.D.
1st Term, Expires 08/01/2026
Son of Petra and Ambrosio Nuñez, by way of South Texas and Sinaloa, Mexico, migrated to Washington State as farmworkers in the 1960s, Randy Nuñez grew up in the Yakima Valley. While the environment Randy grew up in was beset with poverty and violence, he was fortunate to have had a supportive family, and community mentors for academic guidance and community organizing.
Recently earning his doctorate degree in Education Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Washington, Randy has combined his commitment to social justice and education. He currently works in public education as an Equity Specialist, to train and coach educators in equity leadership. His core belief is that when we prepare and support educators from a social justice lens, our diverse community’s assets are surfaced, and we work in partnership with our families for the success of our students.
Randy currently lives in Bellevue, WA, with his wife and children, whom are committed to familial well being by healing from generational trauma, and on a path of ancestral knowledge.
Phone: 206. 890.6756
Email: randy.nunez@cha.wa.gov
Commissioner Lola Flores
1st Term, Expires 08/01/2026
Commissioner Flores earned her Biology and Natural Resource Management degree in Guadalajara, Mexico where she was born. In Olympia, she received her Master of Environmental Studies from The Evergreen State College. Lola worked at the nonprofit Earth Economics for five years where she gained expertise in ecosystem service valuations, among other ecological economics methodologies. She currently works at the Department of Ecology in the Hazardous Waste and Toxic Reduction Program. She sits on the Boards of the Hispanic Roundtable and the Capitol Land Trust.
Phone: 503. 828.2516
Email: lola.flores@cha.wa.gov
Commissioner Jessica Hernandez
2nd term, Expires: 08/01/2024
With a history in hunger-relief work in the nonprofit sector, Jessica is passionate about access to healthy, nutritious, and traditional foods. She sees the intimate connection between equity and health that is needed to support a thriving community. In tandem, her current work as Program Lead for Washington State Department of Agriculture's We Feed WA (WFW) Program that centers equity and access while her work as a small farm owner with a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program; Jessica lives the work at the intersection of health, economy, and equity.
Phone: 425. 444.2600
Email: Jessica.Hernandez@cha.wa.gov
Commissioner Fernando Mejia-Ledesma
1st term, expires on 08/01/2025
Fernando Mejia-Ledesma has close to 20 years of organizing & policy experience with many labor, community, and immigrant rights organizations in WA and across the U.S. Fernando moved to the U.S. from Mexico at sixteen years old; he recently became a U.S. citizen and voted for the first time in 2021. He has worked with several state and national organizations including the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, Alliance for a Just Society, OneAmerica, Washington Community Action Network, United We Dream Network, United Food and Commercial Workers 3000, Communities for Our College, and Puget Sound Sage.
Phone: 206-556-1934
Email: fernando.mejia@cha.wa.gov
Commissioner Mike Gonzalez
1st term, expires on 08/01/2025
Mike Gonzalez is the Economic Development Manager at the City of Pasco in Franklin County. Gonzalez helps the City of Pasco improve the economy through business development, retention, and attraction. Gonzalez markets the City’s events, projects and initiatives. Gonzalez also helps promote community and economic development and administer land use, housing, property maintenance and construction regulations. Gonzalez is a licensed real estate agent in Washington state.
Mike works closely with the Latino community in Pasco through the Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber, Latin Business Association, Downtown Pasco Authority, Pasco Chamber, Tri-Cities Regional Chamber and Visit Tri-Cities. A native of Miami, Florida, Mike is proud of his Puerto Rican heritage. He grew up in a multicultural family. Mike has a true passion, love and dedication for the Hispanic community in Washington state. Mike is a proud graduate of Miami Dade Community College, N.C. State University and attended the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism graduate program.