sins invalid staff
Patty Berne, Executive Director/Artistic Director
PATRICIA BERNE is the Co-Founder, Executive and Artistic Director of Sins Invalid. Berne’s training in clinical psychology focused on trauma and healing for survivors of interpersonal and state violence. Their professional background includes advocacy for immigrants who seek asylum due to war and torture; community organizing within the Haitian diaspora; international support work for the Guatemalan democratic movement; work with incarcerated youth toward alternatives to the criminal legal system; offering mental health support to survivors of violence; and advocating for LGBTQI and disability perspectives within the field of reproductive genetic technologies. Berne’s experiences as a Japanese-Haitian queer disabled woman provides grounding for her work creating “liberated zones” for marginalized voices. Berne was awarded the Disability Futures Fellowship in 2020 and they are widely recognized for their work to establish the framework and practice of disability justice.
Nomy Lamm, Creative Director
NOMY LAMM began performing with Sins Invalid in 2008, and since then has been on the Artistic Core (2008-2010), Directed the Artists in Residence Program (2010), and has worked as staff since 2013. Nomy is a multi-media artist, musician, writer and performer who teaches voice lessons and offers creative coaching focused on helping students move through fear and self-judgement to take up space and find equilibrium in radical authenticity (nomyteaches.com). She is an ordained Kohenet (Hebrew Priestess), holds a BA in Multimedia Art and Political Economy from The Evergreen State College, and has an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University. She lives on occupied Squaxin/Nisqually/Chehalis land in Olympia, WA with her partner Lisa, their dogs Dandelion and Momma, and their cat Calendula.
Karina Camarena Heredia, Executive Assistant
KARINA CAMARENA HEREDIA is a woman of color working towards her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley. She loves to dance, read, and play games with her friends. She joined the Sins team this past June as our Executive Assistant. Karina was born in Mexico and migrated to Southern California at the age of five. Over the years she has lost her memories of her birth country and wishes to go back and reconnect with her roots someday. As a 22 year old, she is just starting off her social justice career with special interests in Disability Justice, Reproductive Justice, and Immigration issues.
Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Social Media and Community Engagement Specialist
CYREE JARELLE JOHNSON is a poet and writer from Piscataway, New Jersey. SLINGSHOT, his debut poetry collection, was published by Nightboat Books in 2019 and won the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. He is a Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow with Poetry Foundation and the inaugural Poet in Residence at Brooklyn Public Library.
Mordecai Cohen Ettinger, Development Director
MORDECAI COHEN ETTINGER has over 25 years experience as a multi-sector social justice activist and organizer, holistic healer, fundraiser, radical scholar, and educator. Mordecai is the Founding Director of the Health Justice Commons, and co-founded the TGI Justice Project. He is adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he teaches critical science, technology, and medicine studies. Schooled by years of movement work, and trained in Somatic Experiencing, Reiki and Cranial Sacral therapy, they have studied with Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. Mordecai is crip, queer and trans/ non-binary. He is a survivor of radiation poisoning and what is designated by the UN to be medical torture. They are here for advancing disability justice for our futures to be possible.
Letícia Robles-Tovar, Administrative and Development Associate
LETICIA “Lettie” ROBLES-TOVAR is a nepantlere aspiring cultural worker who aims to focus their work on abolition, radical decolonization, environmental justice, and collective healing. Their ancestors and love for Mother Earth--along with growing up in a rural community--are at the root of their commitment towards collective liberation and being a good steward to the Earth. They hold a BA in political science from the University of Berkeley, California. They spend their free time learning the secret language of plants and the histories of rocks.
Jen/Eleana Hofer, Language Justice Coordinator
JEN/ELEANA HOFER is a poet, translator, social justice interpreter, teacher, facilitator, urban cyclist, and co-founder of the language justice and language experimentation collaborative Antena Aire (2010-2020). They publish poems, translations, and visual-textual works with numerous small independent presses and in various DIY/DIT incarnations, and have received support in many forms from many entities, including CantoMundo, the Academy of American Poets, the City of Los Angeles, the NEA, and PEN American Center. Jen/Eleana lives on unceded Tongva land in Los Angeles and identifies as a queer white Latinx/Argentinean Jewish BDS supporter who grew up mostly monolingual in a bilingual/bicultural family. They passionately believe in language justice practices as a powerful intersection between healing, solidarity work, and the transformative possibilities of language. More information: www.channeltransmitrepeat.com.
Maria Palacios, Spanish Language Communities Outreach Specialist
MARIA PALACIOS, also known as the “Goddess on Wheels,” is a poet, author, spoken word performer, and workshop facilitator who has performed with Sins Invalid since 2007. Maria has published several books including Poetic Confessions Volumes I & II, Dressing Skeletons, and Criptionary. Maria’s work echoes the resilience of crip survival, through the lens of her own experience as a Latina, immigrant, disabled woman living in Houston.
Lorenzo Van Ness, Disability Justice Trainer
LORENZO VAN NESS is a queer trans Dominican lifelong New Yorker. While they have worked primarily in the legal field as a non-attorney, they have organized in NYC since 2006 around issues of language access, police accountability, community safety, fighting poverty, leadership development and QTPOC liberation. They’re passionate about building access for people pushed to the margins, supporting community and continuously growing their knowledge.