Juan Cartagena

One of the nation’s leading voices on equality and nondiscrimination, constitutional and civil rights attorney Juan inspires change to systems that marginalize communities of color. As a public speaker, El Diario columnist, and Rutgers University lecturer, Juan focuses extensively on Puerto Rican and Latinx rights issues, including the community impacts of criminal justice, policing and drug policies. In 2017 Juan wrote “Latinos & the New Jim Crow: Untangling Convergences,” the introduction to ​El Color de la Justicia (​ The New Press, 2017), the Spanish translation of Michelle Alexander’s ​The New Jim Crow (The New Press, 2010).

Juan is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University School of Law and is the recipient of multiple recognitions, including Dartmouth College’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Social Justice Award, the US Hispanic Leadership Institute’s Cesar Chavez Community Service Award, and the American Bar Association’s John Marshall Award. Juan lives in New Jersey and served as a Municipal Court Judge in Hoboken.