Paola Mendoza is a Latinx artist, film director, author and cultural organizer whose storytelling takes many forms.

Paola uses art to disrupt and disarm, to change our thinking and to advance movements for immigrants, women and reproductive justice. Paola is a Pop Culture Collborative Gender Justice Fellow, a Race Forward Fellow, an Opportunity Agenda Fellow and a Pop Culture; Becoming America Fellow. She was named Glamour’s Woman of the Year in 2017 and one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film.

About

Act for Abortion

January 22th, 2022 marked the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade . Paola organized a celebration on the steps of the Supreme Court in an act of joyful declaration to honor people who have abortions and abortion providers.

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Immigrants Are Essential

Immigrants Are Essential bears witness to the lives of seven undocumented immigrants who were taken too soon by the pandemic.

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Sanctuary

Gripping and urgent, co-authors Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher have crafted a narrative that is as haunting as it is hopeful in envisioning a future where everyone can find sanctuary.

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“Mendoza and Sher’s descriptions of emotional trauma are heart-wrenchingly raw.
A story of survival and hope, Sanctuary is a gripping work of fiction, with a message about xenophobia that’s rooted in a scarily real world.”

— New York Times

“[This] stunning work of YA dystopian fiction…is a triumph in its genre and so politically astute that it sears.”

— School Library Journal