About

Joaquín Lara Midkiff (Chilapantec) is a writer and public servant based in the Pacific Northwest.

In Oregon, Joaquín serves on multiple boards and commissions at the local and state levels, advising diverse areas of public policy. Twice appointed by Governor Kotek, he serves on the Oregon Disabilities Commission and represents Subdistrict 1 on the Board of Directors for the Salem Area Mass Transit District (Cherriots). He has served on the City of Salem’s Planning Commission, Human Rights Commission, and sat on the educational equity advisory committee for Salem-Keizer Public Schools. His advocacy work in the farmworker justice movement includes working as a community organizer with Causa of Oregon, and his current role at the Capaces Leadership Institute.

A former fellow with the Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies at the MacMillan Center studying Indigenous diaspora and migration, Joaquín’s social history of Oregon’s Indigenous migrant communities in the post-IRCA period won the Andrew D. White Prize in American history. His essays have appeared in the Oregonian, Truthout, Statesman Journal, New Haven Register and Yale Review of International Studies, among others. His poetry was included in The Future Lives in our Bodies (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022).

Joaquín studied history and evolutionary biology at Yale University, where he was awarded the John C. Schroeder Prize and Adrian Van Sinderen Prize.