Isabel Castillo, co-founder of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance and founder of DREAM Activist Virginia, will be at Bluffton University Tuesday, Nov. 13, to share her experiences as an undocumented youth and community activist.
Free and open to the public, Castillo’s presentation, “Undocumented and Unafraid: Personal Lessons from Community Organizing,” will begin at 11 a.m. in Founders Hall.

Castillo, who has lived in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley for 21 years, advocates for immigrant rights and young students across Virginia and the nation.

In May 2011, the University of San Francisco awarded her an honorary doctorate for her advocacy for congressional approval of the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which would provide a conditional path to U.S. citizenship for certain young, undocumented immigrants.

She has led rallies, organized a march on Washington, D.C., and staged a nonviolent sit-in—which led to her arrest—at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office.

A graduate of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., she is a volunteer social worker and interpreter for the Harrisonburg Public Schools and a board member for both the NewBridges Immigrant Resource Center in Harrisonburg and the Scholars’ Latino Initiative-Shenandoah Valley.