Speakers

Sam Quinones

Sam Quinones is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist, a reporter for 35 years, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction. He is a veteran reporter on immigration, gangs, drug trafficking, the border.

He is formerly a reporter with the L.A. Times, where he worked for 10 years. Before that, he made a living as a freelance writer residing in Mexico for a decade.

His latest book, released in November, 2021, is The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. It comes out in paperback in November, 2022.

In The Least of Us, Quinones chronicles the emergence of a drug-trafficking world producing massive supplies of synthetic drugs (fentanyl and meth) cheaper and deadlier than ever, marketing to the population of addicts created by the nation’s opioid epidemic. With The Least of Us, Quinones broke the story of how the methamphetamine now produced in Mexico has covered the U.S. and is creating widespread and rapid-onset symptoms of schizophrenia, becoming in the process a major driver in the country’s the homeless problem.

In January 2022, The Least of Us was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) award for Best Nonfiction Book of 2021.

The Least of Us follows his landmark Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (Bloomsbury, 2015), which ignited awareness of the epidemic that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of lives and become deadliest drug scourge in the nation’s history.

Dreamland won a National Book Critics Circle award for the Best Nonfiction Book of 2015.

In 2019, Slate.com selected Dreamland as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the last 25 years.

In 2021, GQ Magazine selected Dreamland as one of the “50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21 st Century” Contact him at samquinones7@yahoo.com.

Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici

Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici represents the First Congressional District of Oregon, which includes large portions of Washington and Multnomah Counties, and Tillamook, Clatsop, and Columbia counties.

Strengthening public education is one of Suzanne’s top priorities and one of the reasons she got involved in public service. Suzanne spent hundreds of hours volunteering in public schools before serving in the Oregon State Legislature, where she passed legislation to reduce duplicative testing. In Congress, she is a leader on the Education and the Workforce Committee and Ranking Member of the Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee. The Congresswoman has long been an advocate for equity in education policy and funding. She is dedicated to setting national policies that give students the support and opportunities they need to succeed in school and in life. She played a lead role in the passage of the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind, reduced testing, put more focus on well-rounded education, and gave more decision-making back to states and local districts.

Suzanne worked her way through college in Eugene, first at Lane Community College and then at the University of Oregon, where she earned her bachelor’s degree and law degree. She is focused on making college more affordable and providing workers with in-demand skills to enter the workforce.

In Congress, Suzanne is fighting to help working families get ahead and to build an economy that gives everyone the opportunity to succeed. She is a strong advocate for retirement security. In addition to protecting and strengthening Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, Suzanne also advocates for policies that help workers save for retirement. Suzanne also supports paid family leave, raising the federal minimum wage, making sure workers have a voice on the job, and workforce development programs. Suzanne is vigilant about making sure that women have access to a full range of family planning services, including abortion.

During college and law school, Suzanne worked at Lane County Legal Aid. After law school, Suzanne was an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., where she was in the Credit Practices Division of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. She then practiced law in Portland, where she represented individuals and small businesses.