Laura Soto

Laura Soto is an ARTivist: poet, writer, dancer who shares her activism via performance, keynote speaking, poetic spoken & written word through her professional business Bridging Communication LLC. She is a DACA recipient born in Chihuahua, Mexico and raised bi-cultural in the U.S. She has engaged in community activism for social justice from a very young age to uplift the disparities found in her local community. Her ARTivisim, which uses the power of words to fight for a more just world while confronting the realities that the BIPOC immigrant community lives on a daily basis, has taken many forms. Laura has worked with art centers, non-profits, schools, public officials, local news media, public libraries, at-risk youth advocacy centers, alternative healing centers, homeless shelters, women centers, disability centers and legal offices. Laura studied Mexican Culture at Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua in Bellas Artes and finished her AA with Linn-Benton Community College in Cultural Anthropology.

She has performed for Motus Theater, Latino Community Foundation of Colorado, City of Longmont, City of Lafayette, Colorado Department of Education’s Migrant Youth Leadership Institute, Noche de Peña, Tonos Latinos, Dairy Center for the Arts, Longmont Museum, Latino Advocacy Day, Varrios Voices and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Laura has worked as a bilingual immigration paralegal, professional translator/interpreter, community organizer, cultural broker, resource navigator, non-profit administrator and advisor for people with disabilities advocating for immigrant rights based out of Boulder County. In recent years, Laura has co-founded local grassroots organizations Voces Unidas of Boulder County and Colectivo Cultura to provide strong platforms for authentic representation of local immigrant youth voices and Latinx cultural identity. She is a member of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, where she has helped facilitate dialog with Colorado State Representatives and other policy makers to defend equal protections for undocumented immigrants under Colorado law for many years; the Latinx Advisory Committee to Congressman Joe Neguse, where community leaders bring up issues of concern in northern Colorado for the congressman to propose national policy change; and Parents Involved in Education, a task-force of public service Latinx leaders dedicated to bridge the opportunity gap for local Latinx families in the Saint Vrain Valley School District. Laura is currently Operations Manager at the Philanthropiece Foundation and is a proud mother of her young adult children who are bilingual/ bicultural/ queer and rising leaders.