“I feel privileged to have the opportunity to serve as the new Director for the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs (MCA). I am incredibly grateful for the warm welcome from community partners as well as the overwhelming support from my colleagues and leadership at the Department of Heritage and Arts. I am also thankful to have acquired a remarkable team of talented, capable, and passionate professionals who are eager to expand our multicultural initiatives across the state of Utah. As we begin to develop our strategic plan for this coming year we look forward to grounding our efforts in three primary pillars where we promote: youth leadership and civic engagement, community outreach, and training resources for state agencies and division partners. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate widely and invite strategic partnerships with those invested in building an inclusive Utah through elevating the conversation around diversity, equity, and access.”
–Nubia Peña
The Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs is happy to announce its new directorship under Nubia Peña. She brings with her a vision of broad impact and state-wide diversity initiatives in hopes to collectively create an inclusive climate for Utah’s multicultural communities.
Director Peña has dedicated much of her career to bring awareness to issues of anti-oppression through her professional endeavors and personal faith-based initiatives as a community organizer, advocate, and ally for marginalized populations. Her most recent position was serving as a proud member of the zealous team at the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys where she advocated for youth rights during detention and delinquency proceedings. Prior to law school, for close to a decade, she assisted survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking as a Law Enforcement Victim Advocate. Since 2007, Director Peña has served as the Training Specialist at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault (UCASA) where she developed workshops on Youth Advocacy for Survivors and Social Justice in Youth Prevention Efforts.
She is also a national consultant dedicated to bringing awareness to intersections of trauma and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, an epidemic that targets our most vulnerable youth by streamlining them into the juvenile justice system. In addition, she is also the founder and director of Royalty Rising Youth Ministry, a culturally relevant and gender specific outreach initiative for at-risk and marginalized young adults.
Director Peña received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. There, she was selected as one of 25 law students in the nation to be recognized and was highlighted for her social justice activism in the National Jurist, a leading news source in legal education. This year, she was selected as the recipient of the National Juvenile Justice Network 2019 Emerging Leader Award for her outstanding dedication to youth empowerment in the justice system. Read the press release here.
Director Peña will lead the Multicultural Affairs team in advancing diversity and inclusion initiatives with a shared innovative outlook and a commitment to build partnerships across our great state.