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View our story by year or see the timeline below.
This isn’t the full story but rather a glimpse into over a decade of grassroots organizing, deep learning, and community power.
Resilience OC didn’t begin with a masterplan we began with relationships. Undocumented youth, system-involved folks, and immigrant families came together with a shared commitment to justice and a vision for something more. We’ve organized through uncertainty, grown through hard lessons, and stayed rooted in an abolitionist approach.
The work hasn’t always been clean or easy. We’ve stumbled. We’ve regrouped. But through every setback and victory, we’ve organized with, not for, our communities. Together, we’ve challenged criminalization, fought displacement, developed youth leaders, and created new spaces for joy, voice, and power.
What follows is not a comprehensive history, but a look at the campaigns, coalitions, pivots, and moments that have shaped our journey. It’s a timeline of what becomes possible when we build with courage, clarity, and an unwavering belief in community.
In 2011, amid the peak of deportations under the Obama administration, young people in Santa Ana came together and launched RAIZ (Resistencia, Autonomía, Igualdad y Liderazgo). We were tired of watching our communities be torn apart — so we did something about it. We helped to launch the Stop Stealing Our Cars campaign and called out the profiteering on the backs of undocumented communities, and we reclaimed public space with a powerful community mural on Sullivan Street. These weren’t just campaigns but rather declarations of presence, survival, and pride. We began holding political education circles to deepen our collective understanding of oppression and our own power. This was the start of our movement — one that dared to imagine a future without cages, and built it from the ground up.
As the possibility of DACA emerged, undocumented youth across the country stepped into the spotlight — and RAIZ was right there in the thick of it. We held direct actions demanding protection for immigrant youth, hosted the first Youth in Resistance Conference, and joined national efforts to ensure that DACA became a reality. Our members mobilized in the streets, spoke to the media, and trained one another in organizing tactics. In this moment, undocumented youth became the face and heart of the movement for immigrant justice. We weren’t asking to be saved. We were organizing to win.
This was the year we fought — and won — our first deportation defense case. When Gurmukh Singh, a beloved community member, was detained, RAIZ organized quickly, launching a community campaign and securing his release. This wasn’t just a personal victory; it became the blueprint for our deportation defense model. Meanwhile, Santa Ana Boys and Men of Color (SABMOC) launched and began organizing to disrupt the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline. With the launch of Street Scholars, we put forward a bold vision for education grounded in healing and dignity, not punishment. We also hosted our second Youth in Resistance Conference, deepening our political education and our commitment to each other. We were becoming the movement we needed.
In 2014, our voices echoed from Santa Ana all the way to Washington D.C. Santaneros spoke directly to President Obama about the devastating impact of deportations on our families. It was a moment of courage and strategy. Locally, our deportation defense model took off, empowering families to organize for their loved ones. SABMOC expanded its impact, organizing with partners to build pilot programs in four schools in SAUSD aiming to adopt Restorative Justice practices. We also mobilized for the passage of Prop 47, shifting California’s approach to incarceration and opening the door for more equitable outcomes. We were bold in our demands because we knew we were right — and our people were watching.
These were years of deep investment in our community. RAIZ continued to lead our Youth in Resistance Conferences, nurturing a generation of organizers grounded in history, healing, and hope. SABMOC’s organizing bore fruit as 17 schools in Santa Ana launched Restorative Justice programs — a direct result of years of pushing against punitive discipline. We saw firsthand what happens when young people are given tools to lead: they transform everything around them. In 2015 RAIZ and SABMOC came together to plant the seeds for Resilience Orange County (ROC). We weren’t starting over — we were merging legacies to build something even more powerful: a youth-led organizing hub rooted in dignity, culture, and community defense.
Resilience Orange County was born out of love for our people and belief in our collective power. Our vision was clear: build an organizing home that centers youth, defends immigrants, and fights for justice across Orange County. We immediately helped to launch the OC Immigration Policy Working Group — the seed for what would become the Orange County Justice Fund (OCJF) and OC Rapid Response Network (OCRRN). We began organizing for a Sanctuary City Policy in Santa Ana and led community education efforts across the region. With every training, every campaign, every gathering, we made one thing clear: this is our home, and we will protect it.
2017 was a year of bold victories. We helped launch the Orange County Rapid Response Network (OCRRN) and passed the strongest Sanctuary City Policy in the country in Santa Ana. Together with community partners, our organizing successfully led to the cancellation of the Santa Ana’s contract with ICE and secured the only immigrant legal defense fund in the county. We didn’t stop there — our #SchoolNotPrisons festival brought thousands together to reimagine justice, while #TacoTrucksAtEveryMosque and our partnership with Latino Muslim Unity showed what true intersectional solidarity looks like. We launched Meet Your DA and Courtwatch with the PEOPLE’s Coalition and mobilized immediately when Trump attacked DACA. Through every action, we organized with love and urgency.
The movement grew. In 2018, we launched the Defend Sanctuary Movement, connecting 16 cities across Orange County to resist attacks on our communities. Our Invest in Youth campaign secured $2.3 million annually for youth programs in Santa Ana — proving that when youth lead, change follows. We hosted OC’s first community-led District Attorney candidate forum and launched Unmask Hate, exposing those behind anti-immigrant fear campaigns. Our Santa Ana People’s Platform brought together working-class families to shape a vision for their city, and we launched Sullivan En Acción an organizing space of tenants, mobile home residents, and homeowners fighting displacement. We were informing policy, building power, and telling a different story about who belongs here and what’s possible when they lead.
In 2019, we began laying down the organizing infrastructure for long-term transformation. We launched a membership structure to deepen political homes for youth and community members. Our AltoPolimigra Network connected advocates to fight criminalization countywide. We hosted our sixth Youth in Resistance Conference and took the lead in Santa Ana’s budget justice fights, continuing to push for a Universal Representation Fund and expanding Invest in Youth. Our presence at city halls, in classrooms, and in streets was grounded in joy, culture, and strategy. We were building systems that could sustain collective care, safety, and liberation.
When the pandemic hit, we did what we’ve always done — turned to each other. We launched the In’Lakesh Relief Fund with SABHC and Cooperativa Santa Ana to support immigrant and working-class families and passed the Santa Ana People’s Budget Platform to demand investments in housing, health, and youth. We launched our Participatory Defense model, hosted the Youth Justice Assemblea, and built undocu-digital spaces so immigrant youth could stay connected. New projects like Youth Gen in Action and Mujeres en Resistencia grew out of our community’s vision. Even in a global crisis, our people dreamed, and built together.
In 2021, we continued to pour in to community leadership, community care, and systems change while also taking a strategic pause to ask what the next chapter of Resilience OC needed to become. We launched our Youth Policy Fellowship and partnered with AHRI through BLOOM to deepen cross-cultural solidarity. We stepped into redistricting fights across Orange County to ensure communities of color had fair political representation. We hosted PEOPLE’s Educational Forums, organized a large expungement clinic, and supported mutual aid efforts that helped families meet urgent needs during a time of uncertainty.
That year also became a turning point. Through both redistricting and community care, we saw how power can be reshaped when people come together to support one another and demand representation. After years of deep organizing in Santa Ana, we made the decision to expand our work into Orange and Costa Mesa — not by leaving our roots behind, but by carrying them forward into new communities ready to build power.
2022 was a year of deep listening and intentional rebuilding. We knew the conditions were changing, and our strategies had to change with them. We spent time in Costa Mesa and Orange listening to working-class families, immigrant communities, youth, tenants, and parents about what they were facing and what kind of organizing home they needed.
Out of that listening came our Summary of Findings, the launch of Costa Mesa Unidos, the growth of Padres Unidos, and early work around eviction defense and housing justice. This was the year we began laying down new roots outside of Santa Ana in a more intentional, intergenerational, and sustainable way. We were not just expanding geographically; we were recalibrating our approach, reimagining what community power could look like, and rebuilding the foundation for a stronger countywide movement.
In 2023, community guided every step of our work. As we continued organizing in Costa Mesa and Orange, we followed the leadership, experiences, and priorities of the people most impacted by the issues we were fighting for. That commitment helped shape new spaces for leadership development, relationship-building, and collective action. CHAMOY began to emerge out of youth connected to Costa Mesa Unidos, creating a space for young people to build identity, political consciousness, and organizing skills.
In Orange, Padres Unidos grew through the Save Esplanade campaign, where families came together to defend community, culture, and the places that hold memory. In Costa Mesa, tenant organizing helped move forward stronger protections for renters. Across the county, we continued showing up through coalition work, Civic Summer, immigrant rights, housing justice, and youth leadership. This year reaffirmed that when community is our compass, we move with purpose, build with trust, and create the conditions for lasting change.
In 2024, we embraced a guiding principle that had already shaped much of our work: organizing at the speed of trust. As our relationships deepened across Costa Mesa and Orange, we focused on building the infrastructure, leadership, and community connections needed for long-term power. After two years of organizing in people’s front lawns, backyards, apartment patios, and shared community spaces, we moved our office to Costa Mesa — creating a more permanent home for organizing, leadership development, and community gathering.
We strengthened CHAMOY as a youth leadership and organizing space, fortified Costa Mesa Unidos, and continued building civic power alongside residents across the city. We hosted tenant rights spaces, supported the second year of Civic Summer, and deepened our work with youth, parents, tenants, and immigrant families.
This was a year of infrastructure, relationship-building, and campaign development. We invested in participatory research, town halls, surveys, and base-building so that our campaigns would be shaped by the people most impacted. Moving into our Costa Mesa office was more than a logistical milestone; it reflected years of relationship-building and a commitment to growing alongside the community. By organizing at the speed of trust, we laid the foundation for stronger campaigns, deeper leadership, and lasting community power.
In 2025, our communities were heavily targeted under Trump 2.0. Indiscriminate raids, kidnappings, and intimidation by ICE and CBP shook families across Orange County. In response, we moved with urgency and care — joining rapid response efforts, supporting mutual aid, building community in Costa Mesa, and reminding our people that they have the right to remain.
Through the Right to Remain campaign, we helped win Costa Mesa’s Immigrant Defense Fund, making it the second city in Orange County to create this kind of protection for immigrant families. We continued to build CHAMOY, expanded youth organizing into high school spaces, held our third Civic Summer, supported the member-led Cruze Peatonal campaign for pedestrian safety in their own neighborhood and housing justice work, and kept organizing toward a county where our people can stay, belong, and thrive.
2026 marks a decade of Resilience OC as an organization and fifteen years since the founding work of RAIZ and SABMoC began shaping a movement in Orange County. This milestone is more than a reflection on what we have survived, it is a declaration of the future we intend to build.
In 2026, we are advancing our Right to Remain vision through housing justice, immigrant defense, mutual aid, youth leadership, and community-led research. We are working to win a rental registry in Costa Mesa, secure long-term funding for the Immigrant Defense Fund, and launch efforts that elevate the stories, conditions, and demands of our communities. But these victories are only the beginning.
Our vision is an Orange County where our communities can afford to stay in the neighborhoods they call home, where immigrant families are protected and empowered, where young people shape public policy and civic life, and where community members have the resources, leadership, and collective power to determine their own futures. We are building the infrastructure, leadership, and movement capacity needed to transform local systems for generations to come. A decade in, we remain rooted in the belief that another Orange County is not only possible it is already being built by the people who organize, lead, and refuse to be left out of decision making.
