Town Hall Seattle and The Stranger present
Speaking of Seattle: Immigrant Rights Are Human Rights
Hosted by Marcus Harrison Green with Angelina Godoy, Roxana Norouzi, Erika Evans, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck
EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 6:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.
At a moment when national politics are testing the boundaries of constitutional protections and human dignity, local communities are asking a vital question: What can we do to protect one another?
Join Town Hall Seattle and The Stranger for the March 19 edition of the Speaking of Seattle civic conversation series, an evening focused on immigrant rights, community responsibility, and the everyday actions that help safeguard our neighbors.
This timely conversation will explore how federal immigration enforcement policies ripple through local communities — and how ordinary people can respond with care, courage, and solidarity. Together, we’ll examine what it means to treat immigrant rights as human rights, and how community members can act lawfully, safely, and effectively when confronted with fear-based tactics and unconstitutional overreach.
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Host
Marcus Harrison Green is the publisher of Hinton Publishing, the founder of the South Seattle Emerald, and a columnist with The Stranger. Growing up in South Seattle, he experienced first-hand the impact of one-dimensional stories on marginalized communities, which taught him the value of authentic narratives. After an unfulfilling stint in the investment world during his twenties, Marcus returned to his community with a newfound purpose of telling stories with nuance, complexity, and multidimensionality with the hope of advancing social change. This led him to become a writer and found the South Seattle Emerald. An award-winning journalist, he was awarded the Seattle Human Rights Commissions’ Individual Human Rights Leader Award for 2020 and named the inaugural James Baldwin Fellow by the Northwest African American Museum in 2022.
Panelists
Angelina Snodgrass Godoy is Helen H. Jackson Endowed Chair in Human Rights and Director at the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington. She is Associate Professor of International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School, Associate Professor of Law, Societies, and Justice, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Sociology. A sociologist by training, her research focuses on human rights in Central and Latin America. Godoy teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in human rights in both the Law, Societies, and Justice program and in the Jackson School of International Studies.
Roxana Norouzi is a longtime immigrant rights leader with 20 years of experience in organizing, advocacy, and social justice work with immigrant and refugee communities. She currently serves as Executive Director of OneAmerica, where she first began as an organizing intern 12 years ago and later led education policy efforts that won major state and local victories and secured millions in funding for multilingual education. Over the past decade, she has helped guide OneAmerica through a transformational shift toward deeper grassroots organizing, strategic policy campaigns, and building political power.
Roxana is also a clinical instructor at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She earned her MSW from UW and was awarded the Bonderman Fellowship, which took her to 20 countries to study post-conflict regions, migration, and identity. As a first-generation American, her work is grounded in a deep commitment to racial equity and immigrant justice.
Erika Evans is the first African American and first person of color to serve as Seattle City Attorney. A graduate of the University of Washington and Seattle University School of Law, Erika began her career in the Seattle City Attorney’s Office before serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Terrorism and Violent Crimes Unit and as Civil Rights Coordinator until March 2025, when she resigned following federal policy changes she opposed. She has also served as a pro tem municipal court judge in three Washington jurisdictions. Erika is a past president of the Loren Miller Bar Association and co-chair of the Washington Leadership Institute.
Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck is known for bringing people together around practical solutions and delivering results. A graduate of Syracuse University and the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, Rinck built her career as a community organizer and policy leader. She has advanced campaign finance reform, supported public health and human services policy across 38 cities during COVID-19, and held leadership roles at the Sound Cities Association and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. As a councilmember, she created a dedicated Committee on Federal Policy Changes to respond to federal threats to Seattle and has championed union-built social housing, immigrant rights, and progressive revenue solutions.
Presented by Town Hall Seattle and The Stranger.
Events are offered for informational, entertainment, and educational purposes only. Read Town Hall’s Program Content Policy.
