Two College of Liberal Arts & Sciences students—Julia Julstrom-Agoyo and Fidencio Martinez Perez—have received the 2015 Philip G. Hubbard Human Rights Award from the University of Iowa.

Julia Julstrom-Agoyo, from Chicago, is a senior majoring in international studies (human rights). She has been involved in efforts to protect and promote human rights since her first year at the UI.

This past year, Julstrom-Agoyo has served as an intern with the UI Center for the Human Rights.  She led a project to organize a “community dinner,” pairing student organization leaders with leading human service and human rights non-profit organizations in our community to raise awareness about the need for human rights education and to build common cause to pursue this endeavor across diverse constituencies. More than 300 individuals attended this event and a series of dialogue groups emerged to continue organizational efforts across the community.

Julstrom-Agoyo also actively assisted with a multi-year project to identify and interview refugees in the state of Iowa who wished to share their stories of resettlement for potential publication. She was also instrumental in establishing the Human Rights Student Collective, an umbrella student organization for diverse student groups working on human rights issues.

Fidencio Martinez Perez, from Wilmington, North Carolina, is working toward his MFA in painting and drawing in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Perez has been involved with the Center for Worker Justice since fall of 2013, helping workers and former workers collect wages that have been withheld due to illegal practices by a number of local businesses. This past year, Perez helped undocumented workers who had been fired after they complained about their wages being held and, at times, stolen by management, and he worked with the center on a larger case, helping a young working mother who was owed back pay.

In December 2014, Perez was nominated to and now currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for Worker Justice. He has also been active on a large campaign to get community ID’s for Iowa City and neighboring communities by outreaching to representatives in the community — most recently the mayor of North Liberty.

Perez also created, with two others, a project called Invisible Faces: Identity Portraits. This project, broken into three parts, photography, printmaking, and sculpture/installations, provides participants an opportunity to reflect on immigration, talk about issues that matter, and learn about art.