Reyna Montoya
Reyna Montoya
Reyna Montoya is a Social Entrepreneur based in Gilbert, Arizona. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Aliento. Montoya was chosen for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2018 in the category of Social Entrepreneurs. [1]
Early Life and Education
Montoya was born in Tijuana, Mexico and migrated to Arizona in 2003 as an Illegal immigration. She went on to attend Arizona State University where she earned degrees in Political Science and Transborder Studies and a Dance minor. She holds a M.Ed in Secondary Education from Grand Canyon University.
Career and Success
In 2013, she was the lead organizer, who prevented an immigration bus of undocumented immigrants from deportation in Phoenix, AZ for the first time in the nation’s history. In the same year, with the help of the community, she stopped her father’s deportation. Montoya is the Founder and Executive Director of Aliento which supports 6.5 million undocumented youth and children of immigrant parents through art, leadership development, organizing and education.
Montoya has received a number of accolades including Soros Justice Fellow 2016, #NBCLatino20 2017, and Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018.