Norma has been a labor and community organizer for over 20 years in California, Oregon and Connecticut. She has organized and bargained in public sector unions with membership in higher education, health care and other Public State Services. As a community organizer she has led campaigns on issues affecting immigrants, youth and other communities that have been left behind.
She is a CIWO fellow and believes that the only way to win the kind of structural change we need is by uniting labor and community members in building people power to win and developing Common Good Campaigns.
Since 2016, Constanza has been the co-founder and lead organizer of Hartford Deportation Defense (HDD), an immigrant-led immigrant rights organization that organizes neighbors to build a just and dignified future for their families and communities in the Hartford region. Their current focus is access to health care, quality public schools, renters’ rights, and workers’ rights. Constanza has represented HDD and helped lead statewide social justice coalitions like the CT Immigrant Rights Alliance, HUSKY 4 Immigrants, the CT Coalition for Immigrant Freedom, and Connecticut For All. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped start the CT UndocuFund and the Mutual Aid Hartford network. Since 2024, she has been the organizing director for the statewide community-labor-faith coalition Connecticut For All.
Among Constanza’s proudest accomplishments is the establishment of the Families Facing Deportation Fund at the City of Hartford, the expansion of the HUSKY program to include undocumented kids up to age 15 and undocumented pregnant people, and the recognition of Connecticut pardons by ICE, resulting in people avoiding deportation because of their criminal record once they obtain a pardon in our state.
Constanza grew up in Mendoza, Argentina, and moved to the US at the age of 17. She is formerly undocumented and part of a mixed status family. She lives in Hartford, CT, with her family.