Brenda proudly hails from La Villita, Chicago. After she graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she was a literary graduate student in Texas and a rank-and-file activist of Texas State Employees Union. She got the labor bug while volunteering on boycott campaigns with Unite Here! Shortly after, she interrupted her studies and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to organize film and dairy workers with Working America. Since then, she's found her passion for implementing new forms of worker organizing and occupational health and safety. She currently serves as the Associate Director for El Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, a worker center in southeast Chicago.