Anaïs Deal-Márquez brings over a decade of experience as a leader, advocate and strategist with a career dedicated to community organizing, grassroots policy, leadership training, capacity building and organizational development. She was Co-Executive Director of Voices for Racial Justice (VRJ), working to expand a statewide network for culturally rooted community organizing and movement building. Prior to that, she served as VRJ’s Director of Youth Organizing, during which time she founded, implemented and facilitated the Youth Cultural Organizing Institute.

Raised between the mountains of Veracruz, México, and the Midwest in a family of artists and teachers, Anaïs believes in the power of storytelling to shift culture and build community. Anaïs is a musician and published writer whose work focuses on migration, memory and cultural revitalization. Her poetry has been featured in 'The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext,' 'POETRY,' and more. She loves spending time by bodies of water, cooking with family and traveling to her homelands. Anaïs is committed to fostering spaces for connection and transformation grounded in creativity, imagination and restoration. She graduated with honors from Macalester College, with degrees in American Studies and International Studies, and a minor in History.