Ricardo Fonseca

Ricardo Fonseca is a Trans Latinx Youth Organizer in Kern County with the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Within their time working at DHF, Ricardo has focused on developing and co-creating spaces for youth empowerment through political education workshops, community building, and youth-led programming. They hope that by giving youth the necessary tools and resources to think critically and engage in social justice practices, the youth will continue to advocate and uplift their communities. As an abolitionist, Ricardo truly believes that they can dismantle the current systems and mechanisms of oppression, and create another world where BIPoC lives are centered and celebrated.

Being born and raised on the East Side of Bakersfield (occupied Yokuts land), Ricardo learned early on about systemic injustices on local, national, and global levels by witnessing firsthand the clear divide in Bakersfield that perpetuates violence onto the most vulnerable communities. By experiencing these systemic injustices, they understand the critical need to create and sustain community-based resources to youth and families in order to build new equitable systems that are accessible to everyone. Ricardo believes that these new equitable systems can only be created if collectively engage in a trickle-up social justice praxis–which prioritizes the liberation of the most marginalized first, thereafter ensuring the liberation of all other marginalized groups.

Ricardo hopes to engage in long-lasting community work that uplifts, centers and celebrates the lives and experiences of Trans and Queer BIPoC youth. Ricardo received a B.A. in Sociology and Chicanx Studies from UC Santa Barbara.