Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle enters our 12th year in a moment of tremendous political, organizational, and personal change. As we look toward the future, we also feel called to reflect—on why our work matters, how we arrived here, and what continues to root us in community.
MÁS was born from a collective call: a need for a space where our Blackness stands at the center of our Latine heritages. Over the years, that call grew into a movement—nurtured with immeasurable time, dedication, and love by our former Board President and current Executive Director, Milvia Berenice Pacheco Salvatierra, affectionately known as La Negra and Daughter of MÁS. Alongside local and international community members, Milvia helped build the foundation on which MÁS stands today.
In 2025, MÁS entered a new chapter as the Board of Directors stepped more fully into shared leadership and governance. We are committed to growing—individually, collectively, and in relationship with our community. We continue to seek out and uplift the joy, knowledge, and expansive artistry that are part of our abundant inheritance as Black Latines.
Below, you’ll hear directly from our board members—how we identify, what Afrolatinidad means to each of us, why we choose to carry this work, and what we would say to anyone feeling called to support MÁS. Our stories are threads in a larger tapestry, woven with love, accountability, and deep connection to our people.
Learn more about the heritages, values, and personal commitments guiding MÁS’ leadership forward and how you too can get involved.
AVIONA RODRIGUEZ BROWN – President
I am the great-granddaughter of Ramon and Bernadinea De La Fuente and Rosalino Sr. Balderas and Maria de Jesus Sauceda Rodriguez—Mexican immigrants who left everything familiar in search of a better future. I’m also one of the first Black Mexicans in my family.
I’m a queer creatrix, a female creator of art, proudly, and I carry the tools of art that have helped me understand myself more deeply. Sharing those tools with others feels like the most natural extension of who I am.
Milvia and MÁS came into my life at a moment when I was studying Black American history and trying to understand my own place between two cultures that often didn’t speak to each other. What moved me about Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle was how openly the community embraces its Blackness—how willing folks are to learn, reconnect, and reclaim. We celebrate survival, yes, but also joy. We share food, dance, music, stories, languages—everything that makes our cultures whole and alive.
Supporting MÁS is meaningful to me because MÁS supported me first. They welcomed me, held me, and helped me feel less alone in my identity. Through my service, I hope others who feel “in between” can find a place where they are fully seen.
If this work is calling to you, join us Here you will unlearn the messages that have taught you to minimize yourself. Here you will center Blackness in ways that heal your heart and the hearts of your ancestors.
If you have a skill you want to offer, if you’re ready to reconnect with parts of yourself that deserve love, or if you’re just curious, this can be home for you too. All are Welcome in.
OTOQUI REYES PIZARRO – Vice President
I identify as a father, husband, an artist, and a community member. I am a proud Afro Caribbean and Afro-Puertorican. Building connections through community building and using art and music to educate are values of mine. I use It is one of my main tools in my family and aligns with MÁS because here we use these same tools, to build community. We are all connected to MÁS as we have both lineage of African and Native peoples. MÁS is about getting back to our roots, our innate state of being.
I am a collaborator and board member of MÁS because I am committed to its mission and will continue to seek out resources to support and help our people. To anyone else who is feeling the call to support and invest in building up our community, I invite you to join us at a workshop or listen to MÁS PODCAST for MÁS Pride to understand the commitments we have to enhancing the voices of our communities. We assure you that it will be one of your best investments not only to yourself but to the community at large
ROSSANA COLON THILLET – Co Treasurer
I identify as an Afro–Puerto Rican woman, a mother, a social dancer, and a scientist. My identity is shaped by the places and people that raised me: Puerto Rico, my family, and the cultural and artistic communities I have found here in Seattle. My afrolatinidad is rooted in personal history and in the stories of liberation, resilience, and joy that have been passed down through generations. It is the lens through which I understand myself, the way I show up in community, and the values I want to pass on to my children.
My individual values include service, integrity, curiosity, and community care. These values connect naturally with MÁS. I grew up watching my mother live a life centered on service. She is a nurse and spent years leading a preventative medicine center in our town, serving elders, children, and women who needed support. She cared for people through health care as well as through presence, conversation, food, and comfort. Community service was not something she talked about. It was something she practiced every day. Because of her example, serving others feels like a family value and something I have always understood as part of my responsibility.
MÁS aligns with this part of me. I joined the board as Treasurer because I wanted to support the same community I am part of. It brings meaning to my life to contribute to a space where Afro-descendant people in the Latin American diaspora can connect through culture, movement, learning, and shared purpose. Being involved in MÁS allows me to bring my professional skills, my personal background, and my love for Black Latinx culture into one place. It is rare to find an organization where all those parts of myself feel welcomed and useful.
The connection I have to MÁS is both personal and communal. Personally, MÁS gives me a sense of belonging and reminds me of home: the rhythms, food, humor, and warmth I grew up with. On a communal level, MÁS is a space where our histories and identities are celebrated and treated as sources of knowledge and power. I support MÁS because the work matters. It creates spaces for youth to learn their histories, for families to build community, for elders to be honored, and for artists to lead.
To someone who feels called to support MÁS, I would say that your contribution truly makes a difference. Whether you offer time, skills, financial support, or simply your presence, it will be valued. MÁS is a community-led organization, and every person involved helps shape the work. If you want to support a place that centers Afro-diasporic knowledge, celebrates culture, and builds connections across generations, MÁS is a good home. You do not need a specific background or expertise. You only need to care about community and be willing to show up. MÁS will meet you where you are.
DEBORA OLIVEIRA-COUCH – Co Treasurer
Débora Oliveira (she/they) is a queer Black femme and Afro-Brazilian lover of life, movement, and justice. A mother, friend, sister, partner, teacher, dancer, singer, and artist, Débora moves through the world with a deep commitment to holding complexity with tenderness, clarity, and purpose. Born into a mixed household where their parents stood on opposite sides of the picket line, Débora learned early what it meant to live between worlds—bridging contradictions, navigating tension with compassion, and imagining possibilities beyond binaries. That early training in complexity has shaped every part of their life and leadership.
As a sociolinguist, language instructor, and educator by formation—and a community organizer at heart—Débora has spent years weaving networks, mobilizing resources, and tending to the communities that shaped them. In their current role as the Donor Program Manager at the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN), they bring forward a vision of fundraising grounded in dignity, care, accountability, and collective liberation. Their work emphasizes not only raising financial resources but nurturing relationships rooted in integrity, trust, and mutual commitment to justice.
At the center of Débora’s personal worldview are the values of humility, compassion, integrity, joy, and justice. These values guide their daily decisions, their way of building community, and their approach to leadership. They also intersect naturally with the values of MÁS—joy, love, equity and justice, embracing resilience, care for the collective, and centering Blackness. For Débora, MÁS is more than an organization; it is a spiritual and cultural home. Their connection to MÁS is grounded in a lifelong belief that Black diasporic art forms carry medicine powerful enough to mend societal wounds caused by systems of oppression. Whether through dance, music, communal movement, or collective storytelling, Black art is a portal to remembrance—a reminder that we belong to one another, that we are connected across oceans, migrations, and histories.
This is what drew Débora to the MÁS community and why they now serve on the MÁS board as co-treasurer. They believe deeply in the power of spaces that center joy and connection, especially in times when the contributions of Black people and Black culture are under constant threat of erasure. MÁS youth programs, MÁS Conversaciones para MÁS Orgullos, and the teachings of Afro-diasporic artists fill a critical role in the community. They create places where Black youth and families can see themselves reflected, where culture becomes a source of power, and where joy itself becomes a practice of resistance.
When speaking to someone who feels called to support MÁS, Débora’s message is simple: join our family. In this moment—when art is one of the few things keeping our spirits alive, when the world needs reminders of our shared humanity, and when Black-centered art forms continue to hold the origins and healing stories of so many peoples—your support matters. MÁS needs all of us, and there is a place for everyone in this growing, loving, joy-filled community.
SANDRA HUBER – Supportive Member
I proudly identify as a daughter of Panamá—a country that, at its roots, holds a vibrant blend of African, Indigenous, and Spanish cultures. My afrolatinidad isn’t just about heritage—it’s about the stories I carry, the food I love, the way I dance, and the language I use to love on people. It’s in my grandmother’s hands, in the way we show up for our people, the sayings that live in me and the way I’ve been shaped by resistance and joy. MÁS lives these values. It’s not a place that just talks about justice; it builds it in real, human, imperfect, beautiful ways.
My connection to MÁS is deep and personal. It’s not just a project or a job—it’s a reflection of the kind of world I want to help shape. MÁS gave me a space to bring all parts of myself, and now I’m doing what I can to hold that space open for others. We are taking the load to support MÁS because the work is too important to let fall through the cracks, especially with the way things are right now. We’re trying to keep the lights on, the mission intact, and the community cared for, even when the road is rocky.
MÁS is more than a nonprofit—it’s a home, a family, a space for healing and growing. If you’ve ever wished you could be part of something rooted in justice, culture, and love, this is it. And we need you. Whether you give your time, resources, skills, or just your presence, you matter to this work. It’s all hands, all hearts on deck.
ARGENTINA SMITH – Supportive Member
I have a deep love for my Panamanian culture and a passion for building community. My heritage is Jamaican, Colombian, Irish, and Bajan. I serve as a supportive board member of MÁS as it aligns with my work serving as Vice President of Panama Folklore Seattle’s board of directors as well. I’m dedicated to preserving and promoting our rich traditions and supporting initiatives that bring the spirit of Panama to the Pacific Northwest. MÁS is special to me because it is where multiple cultures come together to center our Blackness in the Latine community. It’s an honor to help ensure that our cultures are celebrated and shared for generations to come.
DELIA PINTO – Supportive Member
I am a person born in the territory now called Venezuela. I am a mother, daughter, sister, partner, and a scientific worker in the biomedical field. MÁS’ work has led me on a journey of recognizing my multiple cultural and family heritages and guides and supports me in understanding how my African ancestry intersects with my identity and how I connect with other people of African descent, Black people, and Indigenous people for the common good. This work and how I define my identity are in constant flux, and it is not a linear process.
This term, Afro-Latino, is something I understand originated here in the United States, as a way of saying, “Hey! We Latin American people are also Black, of African descent.” I would never have identified myself as Afro-Latina when I first arrived here. In a way, I
started calling myself Latina because that was the box that “fit”; me on census forms and demographic questionnaires. If I have to define my Afro-Latinidad, after clarifying things a bit, I would say it comes from being a person born in Venezuela who is experiencing migration in the United States and is discovering their African ancestry here, alongside others who are on this journey of reclaiming our history and heritage.
One of the values that guides me is transparency. I strive to be transparent, and this even involves being vulnerable by asking questions that may be uncomfortable or that reveal that I still don’t understand many things. This is very important for the work that MÁS does, because it is in that discomfort, in being and existing with our doubts and certainties, that we can truly dialogue and be in community to transform ourselves.
MÁS has been a place of belonging and transformation. A place of support and community. It is also a source of artistic inspiration (and healing), drawing from Afro- diasporic and community-based arts. The certainty that this space is beneficial individually and collectively, and that we must continue to nurture it so that it remains and continues to serve as an inspiration for others, inspires me to continue contributing however and whenever I can.
I would say, don’t hesitate! MÁS is a space for connection and community; it’s a transformative space. And it is what each of us brings to it. We need hands and hearts to continue building, and we’re waiting for you. It’s not easy all the time, but it’s worth all the effort! Your contribution can be in many ways: funds, time, or talents. Let’s keep building together.
