Jorge-Mario Cabrera is Director of Public Relations for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles. He was born in El Salvador, but moved to the U.S. in 1982. He attended Bell Gardens High School , UC Santa Cruz and UCLA focusing in Community Studies and Public Health. He became a U.S. citizen in 2008. He sat down with Zócalo before his panel discussion on the Census.

Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?

A. My grandma making rice with milk, arroz con leche.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. I have a picture my niece made when she was three years old. It’s a flower. I still keep it at the office.

Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?

A. That I will not eat carbs.

Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?

A. A lot of CDs.

Q. What teacher or professor changed your life?

A. Ms. MacKenzie. She taught me it was OK to not say the words in English perfectly, but that I should still say them. That was in sixth grade.

Q. If you were about to be executed, what would you want for your final meal?

A. Probably just water.

Q. What is the best gift you have ever received?

A. A kiss.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. In the fall.

Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

A. That I have my family here.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. She just died recently and I would’ve loved to have met her. Mercedes Sosa, a singer from Argentina.

To read about Cabrera’s panel on the Census, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.