The National Institute for Latino Policy, Inc.

800-590-2516
About NiLP
The National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP) is a nonpartisan center established in 1982 in New York City, originally as the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy (IPR). NiLP provides a unique approach and voice to the policy analysis and advocacy needs of the Latino community in the United States. Originally focused on the Puerto Rican community, our work has grown organically to include all Latinos and has gone from a local to a national focus.

The Institute’s approach includes:
  • Focusing on the intersectionality of Latino policy issues
  • The use of action-research as an organizing tool for advocacy
  • A strategy that focuses on the development of local and state level strategies as the basis for national policy analysis and organizing
  • The creative and aggressive use of the internet and the media as community education and organizing tools
  • An emphasis on working in critical policy areas that are underdeveloped or not addressed in the Latino community
For further information on NiLP, click here.

GOT NiLP?
To subscribe to The NiLP Latino Policy & Politics Report to keep abreast of the latest develop-ments in the Latino community, click here. It's free!
Board of Directors

The National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP) is governed by a Board of Directors made up of some of the leading professionals in their fields. Former NiLP Board member, Jenny Rivera, was recently appointed as an Associate Justice of the NYS Court of Appeals by Govenor Andrew Cuomo. Our current 7-member Board includes:

Chair
José R. Sánchez, a political scientist whose research has focused on Puerto Rican and Latino policy issues and politics. He is a  full professor of political scence  at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, where he chairs the Urban Studies Department. He is the author of Boricua Power, a co-author of The Iraq Papers and one of the founders of NiLP.

Secretary
Edgar De Jesus, a veteran union organizer and community activist. He is the Executive Director / Area Organizing Director of the Servidores Publicos Unidos de Puerto Rico, Council 95, AFSCME, AFL-CIO. 

Treasurer
Israel Colon, a longtime community activist and public administrator. He most recently served as the Director of the Office of      Multicultural Affairs for the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia and is currently a program development consultant.

Hector Figueroa, an economist, is the President of SEIU’s Local 32BJ in New York City, the largest private property management labor union in the United States.

Tanya K. Hernandez, a Fordham Law School professor whose research focuses on issues of race within the Latino community. She is, most recently, the author of Racial Subordination in Latin America: The Role of the State, Customary Law 
and the New Civil Rights Response and a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

Maria P. Rivera Salmeron, an attorney and longtime entrepreneur and community activist. She is currently a managing partner with Nuestros Refrescos Import Company based in New Jersey, and an adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Essex County College.

President
Angelo Falcón, a political scientist and co-founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), which he has directed since its founding in 1982.