Joanna Uribe is a lifelong organizer, activist, and mentor whose community work has spanned more than five decades. Born in 1946 in New York City to a Colombian artist father and an American writer mother, Uribe spent part of her early childhood in France before returning to New York, where she attended the Lycée Français and later Antioch College, known for its socially conscious environment.

Uribe’s arrival in San Francisco in 1969 placed her at the heart of a vibrant moment of Chicanx and Latinx activism. She joined efforts with the Bay Area Radical Teachers Organizing Collective (BARTOC) and worked closely with youth with emotional and behavioral challenges. Early on, she became deeply involved in the movement to support Los Siete de la Raza, a group of seven young Latino men whose controversial arrest galvanized community organizing in the Mission District.

Uribe went on to co-found El Instituto Familiar de la Raza in 1978 alongside leaders like Dr. Concha Saucedo and six others. Her leadership and vision were instrumental in securing funding and shaping the Institute’s mission: providing culturally rooted, bilingual mental health care that honored the spiritual, communal, and familial dimensions of well-being. She served as Board President for ten years — entirely as a volunteer — while also developing grant proposals, training young organizers, and helping shape culturally competent models of care that integrated ceremony, community celebrations, and grassroots healing.

Uribe describes herself humbly as “just a regular person” who hopes her work motivates younger generations and those feeling burned out to find their own place to give back. She continues to mentor community leaders and remains deeply committed to ensuring that cultural knowledge and collective care remain central to health justice work.