Erika Thi Patterson is the Campaign Director for the Action Center on Race & the Economy’s climate and environmental justice program. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area [U.S.A.] and credits her early awareness of social injustices in the world to punk music, which she says exposed her to the imperial forces that drove her mom’s family to flee their home country of Vietnam. Patterson also served as Deputy Director of Jobs to Move America, where she led a coalition of unions and community groups to win the country’s first community benefits agreement and union agreement with an electric bus company. She also ran state and local advocacy campaigns, including pushing Los Angeles Metro to swap its fossil fuel- powered fleet for clean vehicles. Patterson earned her Master of Urban Planning and Community Economic Development degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.