Arlene Amarante is an attorney, educator, and writer dedicated to elevating the theory and practice of social justice. She is a first generation American born in the Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles, otherwise known as LA, to Mexican immigrants from Durango. Arlene is also the founder of Adelante, a Knoxville-based deportation defense nonprofit that currently operates a jail visitation program for immigrant detainees. Her work and her scholarship center around the recognition of persons at the margins, including unaccompanied children, asylum seekers, the stateless, and the undocumented.