Rochelle Palache
Vice President
to build the power of immigrant and working-class communities of color to achieve dignity and justice. Currently composed of five organizations—Make the Road Connecticut, Make the Road Nevada, Make the Road New Jersey, Make the Road New York, and Make the Road Pennsylvania—Make the Road States is an organizing powerhouse that has won key campaigns for immigrant and working-class communities of color.
Make the Road organizations have won groundbreaking state-level campaigns to advance the rights of millions of immigrants and BIPOC working people, including the historic $2.1 billion excluded worker fund in New York, expansion of driver licenses and occupational licenses in Nevada, New York, and New Jersey, powerful healthcare expansions for immigrants in Connecticut, and powerful pro-worker legislation that has created some of the strongest protections for low wage workers.
We aspire to a world that has a deep reverence for human dignity, ingenuity, and wisdom borne of experience. People have respect as whole beings whose unique experiences and perspectives equip us to diagnose shared challenges, imagine transformative solutions, and make our world better.
We aspire to a world based on justice and equality, where there is respect and dignity in all aspects of our lives, and where communities exercise self-determination. This world guarantees low-cost and sustainable housing, access to healthcare and healthy living, and the freedom to move, work, thrive, and live free from discrimination and oppression.
We aspire to a democracy that is truly accountable to all of us. This democracy is vibrant and active; it is representative of our communities and includes people who look like—and have the lived experiences of—our members in decision-making power.
Make the Road States is the national organization that supports the national coordination, expansion, and infrastructure for the Make the Road family of organizations. Make the Road States grew out of the work of our founding organization, Make the Road New York.
Immigrants, low-wage workers, parents, and students are part of our community of members who came together to create Make the Road by Walking and the Latin American Integration Center in New York in the 1990s. Eventually, they created our first Make the Road C3 organization, Make the Road New York. Since then we have brought Make the Road’s unique model, combining powerful organizing, policy innovation, transformative education, and movement services, to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Jersey.
