Cristina Pacione Zayas

When she became a Senator for the State of Illinois in 2020, the educator raised in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods of Chicago presented the legislation that her community designed as a protection measure against gentrification, captivating the interest of her colleagues and achieving their approval.

Jessie Fuentes and Cristina Pacione Zayas are two Puerto Rican politicians in Chicago who have experienced government abandonment in various stages of their lives, but who have also witnessed the power of community organizing that achieved anti-gentrification legislation.