Longtime immigration activist named as Latinos en Spokane interim director

Latinos en Spokane announced its new interim executive director days after the organization’s former director took a new position in Seattle.

Martin Martinez, a co-founder and former member of the board for Latinos en Spokane, will take the helm of the nonprofit until a replacement is found.

Martinez has been involved with advocacy work since his time as a student at Eastern Washington University around 10 years ago, he said. He has worked as a training coordinator for the activism group United We Dream in Washington D.C., and when he later returned to Spokane he was one of the founding members for Latinos en Spokane’s board.

Around 2024, Martinez stepped away from his board position to be with his newborn child. Since then, he said he has been helping the nonprofit an as needed.

“Once you’re in the movement, you kinda stay in it,” he said. “When things get real, that’s when they call me.”

Seattle’s Casa Latina nonprofit announced Tuesday that Latinos en Spokane’s former executive director, Jennyfer Mesa, would begin serving the same role for Casa Latina. Mesa said that she applied for the position in November.

Mesa is a co-founder of the Spokane organization, which offers various supports for local immigrants. She had been director for the past seven years, with leadership announcing last month that she would step down to head a community development initiative, called SOMOS, within Latinos en Spokane.

During her run, Mesa helped Latinos en Spokane develop a number of programs, including a driving school and a small business development center, board member Jesús Torres said.

Though at the time saying she intended to remain as executive director until a replacement had been secured, Mesa is currently in the process of moving to Seattle following confirmation of her new position. She said she plans to continue working from Seattle with a current board member on the SOMOS development project as she can from a mentorship position.

Though her new position begins just weeks after RANGE Media published former employees’ and contractors’ accounts that Mesa had contributed to a “toxic” work culture at Latinos en Spokane, Torres said this story was unrelated to her stepping down and the organization’s subsequent leadership change.

“She came to us to talk about this transition – it wasn’t our decision,” Torres said, adding that she and the board had been planning her departure since last year.

“I think sometimes a person realizes when they have done everything they can for a community,” he said.

Mesa said that the process of being hired for an organization like Casa Latina is thorough and long. Something of that scale couldn’t have happened in the timeframe since the RANGE story posted.

“I had already laid the groundwork to create new leaders,” she said. “I was looking for another project where I could continue growing and learning.”

Since 2024, Mesa said she has gone on two sabbaticals while trying to introduce a co-leadership model to Latinos en Spokane.

Board member Alex Gibilisco said that most of the board is “really happy for her and her ability to find the job she was looking for.” He doesn’t anticipate any shifts in the services that Latinos en Spokane provides during the leadership transition.

“We understand that community come to the center and seek out our services,” Torres said. “We will do everything to make transitions as smooth as possible.”

Though Martinez said he wasn’t expecting to find himself directing Latinos en Spokane, he hopes to help advance the nonprofit’s mission however he can. Though Martinez and Mesa met when he was still an EWU student, Mesa said that he had been a mentor to her in the world of activism. The two are from different backgrounds and bring different expertise and experiences to the organization, Mesa said.

“I’m happy to be witnessing this part of Latinos en Spokane,” she said. “It’s an honor to give it back and see it continue.”

Mesa, Martinez and members of the board all said that they foresee future collaboration between Casa Latina and Latinos en Spokane.

For now, though, Martinez plans to focus first on just keeping the organization’s monthly community flea market El Mercadito running, along with the Ser y Crecer youth program. He looks forward to bringing his advocacy experience to the team as well.

“I have been doing this work for a long time,” he said. “Finding another Jennyfer is extremely hard … She is one of a kind, and we love her.”

Due to the difficulty and importance of the position, Gibilisco said the board plans to take its time in selecting the next official executive director. Martinez said that he is only acting as a buffer until a more official hire can be made, and didn’t want to speculate on whether he will apply for the position so early on.

“The most important part is that this work keeps going,” Martinez said. “Because at the end of the day, the people who are going to be affected are the community.”