In this eNews edition, we are getting to better know Amar Azucena Cid (She/Her/Ella), Program Manager in the Caltrans Office on Race and Equity (CORE).
Amar was born and raised in Oak Park, Sacramento, California by parents who were active in the Chicano/Indigenous Civil Rights Movements who used the arts to reach the community and share knowledge. She attended UC Davis and graduate with a BS in Community and Regional Development with an emphasis in Organization Management and Community Planning. She continued on to attend Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts where she earned an MA in Community Development and Planning with and emphasis in Transportation Planning and Community Finance.
Amar is not afraid to work! A self-confessed workaholic, she has worked in numerous jobs since the age of 15. She held a number of food and retail service positions before heading to college. She then transitioned into work that better aligned with her education and lived experiences. These included working in the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, as Program Manager at the Washington Neighborhood Center, as Executive Assistant and Researcher at the West Sacramento Housing Development Corporation, as Senior Program Manager at the Community Services Planning Council, as Federal Liaison in Worcester, Massachusetts, and as Economic Summit Lead for Assemb. Joe Coto’s Office and the Latino Caucus. She has served in various positions in Caltrans’s Rail and Mass Transportation Division, including as Branch Chief for the Low Carbon Transit Operations Program before moving into her current role as Caltrans’s Office of Race and Equity Program Manager. From Amar…
“What I loved and learned from most of these positions was how to connect with the community and constituents. I found myself using my lived experiences in how I as a person wanted to be treated or show up in the work I was doing. Most of my work found its way to prioritizing communities marginalized by our transportation system and by white supremacy.”
Amar is active in creating nonconventional social groups to support coalition building and networking to make sure there is space for women, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous women. She has been a member of WTS Sacramento for a few years and recently joined the executive board as the TransportationYou Co-Chair. Her goal with WTS is to learn, build, and collaborate with the other planners and the engineers within the chapter to expand and share access to the transportation sector with our youth - especially young girls, women, transwomen, and gender non-conforming youth who identify as Black, Brown, or Indigenous. She sees a lack of access to and knowledge of the transportation industry. From Amar…
“If we can share and expand our network with our youth, then we can start to involve the communities whose voices and lived experiences need to be centered in our work in transportation.”
Outside of work, Amar is family focused. Also an artist, when she finds a free moment she tries to find a way to create or share space with other creatives; but she spends most of her time with her family and raising her two little ones in her home neighborhood of Oak Park.
Thank you Amar for your dedication to WTS, marginalized communities, and the transportation industry. We are excited to have you as a part of the leadership team!