Alexa Avilés
Alexa Avilés (January 15, 1973) is an American politician, community activist, and non-profit manager from New York City. She is a member of the New York City Council for the 38th district, which covers Sunset Park along Brooklyn's western shoreline, also covering Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and small parts of Windsor Terrace, Dyker Heights, and Borough Park neighborhoods in western Brooklyn. Prior to taking office, Avilés worked in the non-profit sector, served as president of a parent-teacher association and a member of Brooklyn Community Board 7. Early life and education Avilés was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and raised in East New York. She was the youngest of seven children to a substance abuse counselor mother, and the first in her family to attend college. She graduated Columbia University in 1995, and received a master's degree from CUNY's Baruch College School of Public and International Affairs. She is a National Urban Fellow and an alumna of A Better Chance. Career Her first job began as internship in college and then continued after graduation, at a philanthropy that provided environmental grants in under-served communities in Mississippi, and from there she branched out to work in reproductive rights and justice drives for