Quiroga is the Program Director of the Contigo Fund. He lays the groundwork for and oversees the grant process and distribution of funds to strengthen and network existing agencies and to identify and support grassroots efforts that advance Latinx and LGBTQ, immigrant, and people of color causes and the intersection of these communities in Central Florida.
Marco brings along with him a wealth of local community knowledge and advocacy expertise. He has a long history as an advocate for the LGBTQ, immigrant, and racial justice movements, driven as a direct result of his own life experience as an undocumented and queer person of color. Marco’s family immigrated to the United States from Peru when he was 2 years old and they landed in Orlando. Having experienced family separation through deportation, poverty, unstable housing and homelessness, Marco deeply understands the tremendous odds facing our community’s common struggle for liberation.
Marco was empowered and connected to the intersecting movements of LGBTQ and immigrant justice through fearless undocumented Latinas and other undocumented LGBTQ youth in Florida. He’s worked extensively alongside LGBTQ, Latinx, and immigrant communities in Orlando and throughout Central Florida, including immigration clinics with Central American and Mexican farm workers and their families in Apopka, on the civic education and engagement campaigns with the Puerto Rican and predominantly monolingual Spanish-speaking community in Kissimmee, and with LGBTQ and undocumented youth on capacity building and leadership development efforts throughout Central Florida.
By centering and working alongside those directly impacted, Marco advocates and challenges systems to ensure those living at the intersections of marginalized identities are treated with the full dignity and respect they deserve.
Most recently, Marco served as the Director of Public Policy at the True Colors Fund and in that position supported state and local advocacy efforts to holistically prevent and address LGBTQ youth homelessness and within the federal government to help ensure no young person is homeless as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Previously, Marco also served as the National Field Officer at Immigration Equality, a national organization that works to end discrimination in U.S. immigration law and reduce the negative impact of that law on the lives of LGBTQ undocumented, asylum-seeking, detained individuals, and their families. Marco also has extensive experience organizing with United We Dream and its Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP), the American Federation of Teachers and AFL-CIO, and a number of other grassroots and national advocacy organizations.
