Our Team

Our Characters

Leyla Martinez grew up and still lives in the Bronx. After her son’s father was sent to prison she turned to illicit means to support them and was herself imprisoned. There she made up her mind to get a college education. She fought the welfare bureaucracy and eviction and in 2018 that dream became a reality when she graduated with a BA in Human Rights from Columbia University where she served as a program coordinator for the Center for Justice and was both a Justice in Education Scholar and a PALS Scholar.

Leyla has been an advocate with the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls,Welfare Rights Initiative, JLUSA, Women’s March, FRRC and many others. Today she is a Soros Justice Fellow and the Founder of Beyond the Box, an organization to increase access to higher education and other opportunities for people after incarceration. She works tirelessly as a criminal justice reform advisor to LatinoJustice PRLDEF, #cut50 and is on the board of The Canary Impact Fund.

Hirah Mir was born in Pakistan, moved with her family to Australia and then to Brooklyn and lived in a homeless shelter while in middle school. Though her family was then on welfare Hirah focused on her studies and looked forward to college. When she turned 18 she was faced with having to go to work in a dead-end job but Hirah found a way to Hunter College. There she worked with the coalition that achieved passage of a NY State law to allow people on welfare to get a 4-year degree. She went on to get her Ph.D. from UAlbany/SUNY.  While there she was an award-winning lecturer and Adjunct Professor.

Now as a Research Scientist at the NYS Office for People With Developmental Disabilities she leads initiatives to increase access to benefits for people with disabilities. She has worked in other advocacy and legislative efforts including equitable pay for contingent faculty, fossil fuel reduction, and implementation of culturally responsive practices in NYS’s health care system. She is also working on an independent project to capture the migration stories of her family members, who are also first generation immigrants.

Shawnta Alston grew up in Queens when welfare recipients were not allowed to go to a 4-year college. Her mother had her already meager welfare benefits cut to $68.50 a month because she insisted her daughter go to college. Their dream came true in 2015 when Shawnta was a SEEK Honors Graduate at Hunter College. Her powerful story has been featured in a June 2003 Time article written by Karen Arenson.

As a NYPD School Safety Officer she supports students, by making them more aware of the impact of policy and informing them of their rights. This setting has allowed her to apply her experience of creating social change for young adults and further fuels her passion for social justice.

She is also a poet committed to use her voice as a tool of empowerment, (stage name: LA Paparazzi). She continues to be involved in volunteer activities such as serving the homeless population and creating opportunities for youth to do community service.

By the time Becca was 11, her grandparents had died and her older sister Genevieve moved out. While the next few years living alone with her mother were hard, Becca carried on with enormous resolve. Welfare kept her and her mom housed in those early years.

At 16 after early graduation from Murry Bergtraum High School she enrolled in Hunter College – working diligently and tirelessly, she attended college at night and worked full-time during the day. By this point, Becca was financially supporting her mom and her dad started contributing financially. She didn’t have a lot of college influence in her life since her mother didn’t go to college and her sister was in and out, but Becca always knew that she would go. Becca’s father pushed her to get the best education possible without taking on unnecessary debt, suggesting she transfer into the CUNY Baccalaureate Program where he had graduated. There she was awarded the Thomas W. Smith scholarship, an honor her father had also received years earlier – they were the first father/daughter duo to receive it. 

At the age of 28 and after working in schools for 10 years, Becca became the Chief Operating Officer of Explore Schools in Brooklyn, a charter management organization that ran eight public charter schools in Brooklyn. In 2018 after working at Explore for a total of eight years and in the COO role for three, Becca left Explore to work for the New York City Department of Education where she currently serves as the Chief of Staff for the Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support, supporting the Deputy Chief Academic Officer for the Division who oversees special education in NYC. Becca’s choice of career and role demonstrate her commitment to ensuring the education system works for children. She does what is right for kids – hoping she can help them as education once helped her. Becca is married and lives with her wife and their dog in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Our Team

Diana Devlin – Producer / Director

Diana is a producer/director/writer who plied her craft in NYC for many years before turning to a producing job in industry for the last fifteen years. She produced and wrote, Dreams & Wishes, 16mm, a documentary about verbal and nonverbal communication in the Brazilian Amazon; produced Amazon Gold for ABC TV; helmed Peru’s Shining Path, 16mm, which was distributed throughout Europe and toured the US with Best of Festival (Latin American Film Fest),directed and produced, Chesterwood, about sculptor Daniel French and the Guggenheim’s sculptor-in-residence program; produced and wrote a series of short docs on designers (Perry Ellis, Edith Head, Jean Muir); was six years on the Board of the NY Film/Video Council where she created the Short Doc Fest at MOMA; was a NYFA Artist-in-Residence and guest lectured at Manhattanville College creating a Social Justice Film Festival with inaugural guests Ron Howard and Christine Choy. She has returned to documentary making to pursue her passion creating non-fiction films that illuminate the important under-examined issues for women in our times. Photo credit: Scrivo Studios

Grace Zinnel, Producer/Director began her career at Checkerboard Film working on more than 10 documentaries about American artists, most notably Inventing Cornell Tech: The Vision and Jeff Koons: The Whitney Retrospective. She edited Carrie Mae Weems: Speaking of Art, and excerpts from their film on Joel Shapiro which screened at MoMA. In 2010, she co-founded Hear The Hungry and spearheaded Hear The Hungry Productions collecting more than 100 stories from homeless men and women in New York City. In 2017, Zinnel worked with Academy Award nominee Susan Kaplan and Cara McCaffrey on a podcast about a group of women fighting an environmental disaster in their city. Zinnel also worked as a Production coordinator on independent feature films in New York and Los Angeles, most notably: Rapid Eye Movement, Church People, and Bollywood films Half Girlfriend and Welcome to New York. She Coordinated for the Investigation Discovery series Hometown Homicide and Primal Instinct, and the Netflix series, Microscopic. Now she is the Head of Content for Luxury Travel Hackers where she produces and edits a travel show on hidden gem destinations around the world. In 2010, Zinnel produced a short doc on the Welfare Rights Initiative at Hunter College that served as her inspiration for the current feature documentary in development, American Nightmare/American Dream.

Cristel Jalbert, Associate Producer was born in the Dominican Republic, and raised in Canada until she immigrated to NYC as a teenager. Despite being undocumented, she went on to pursue a college degree and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Hunter College where she was a member of Psi Chi Honor Society and conducted her undergraduate honors thesis on social emotional learning and homelessness . Cristele is an outdoors enthusiast, a Manager at Il Corallo Trattoria and Associate Producer on American Nightmare/American Dream.  

David Cordeiro, Music Composer/Producer is a guitarist/composer/producer/educator based in New York City and Los Angeles. Born and raised in Fortaleza, Brazil, David moved to NYC in 2007 to pursue a degree in Jazz Performance. The combination of his experience in college, his Brazilian Music background, and the love for all sorts of music genres has produced a successful career. He has performed at major venues such as Highline Ballroom, Webster Hall, The Blue Note, Joe’s Pub, Skirball Cultural Center and others with a variety of artists. David’s versatility opened doors for him to play all over the United States, Caribbean Islands, Brazil, and Europe.

As a composer/producer, David has written music for trailers, films, documentaries, promotional videos, etc. for major clients such as BMW, Indian Motorcycles, Idealist, and others individually and through his company Dreamwagon Productions. His latest work can be heard on the upcoming short drama RAW to be released in 2020. David also works as a song writer and his latest work can be heard on the artist J.Antonette’s new EP “Paper Trail.”

As an educator, David believes in the idea of sharing not only the knowledge of music and instruments, but more importantly the passion for this amazing form of art. He has worked as a guitar instructor at The Collective School of Music, as the Education Director and instructor for the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance (NYC based; founded by Grammy winner Arturo O’Farrill), and developed an outstanding career as a private music teacher.