About this Event
Each month this fall, South Floridians from different backgrounds share personal reflections on what “America at 250” means to them. In a country whose defining moments in history center on the division of its people, Our Shared Story is a space where the multitude of American experiences becomes a source of connection and power rather than separation.
Join us for an enlightening conversation with our panel of diverse and esteemed speakers, followed by discussion and mingling at a catered reception. The first fifty attendees can select a free book related to the evening’s themes. Shop recommended books (including those from the first event) here.
🎟 Free & open to the public · RSVP requested ·
After an introduction from Sara Berliner, Books & Books Literary Foundation, this month's speakers include Sui Chung, Executive Director of Americans for Immigrant Justice, Nadege Green, Director of Community Research and Storytelling at Community Justice Project, and Ana Sofia Pelaez, founder and director of Miami Freedom Project for Democracy. Accompanying as moderator is The Rev. Dr. Laurinda Hafner, Senior Pastor of Coral Gables Congregational Church.
About The Speakers
Sui Chung is Executive Director of Americans for Immigrant Justice, Florida's largest nonprofit immigrant defense law firm. She is an award-winning leader of the immigration bar. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has awarded her three times with national awards. During multiple terms, AILA National appointed her to chair its national ICE and EOIR liaison committees, where she represented the interests of over 16,000 immigration attorneys nationwide.
Born and raised in Miami to Haitian parents and a proud graduate of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Nadege Green is an award-winning journalist, public historian, and cultural worker. She is the founder of Black Miami-Dade, a history and creative studio dedicated to expanding public access to Miami’s Black histories. Green has spent more than a decade in Miami journalism, including reporting for The Miami Herald and WLRN. Green serves as Director of Community Research and Storytelling at Community Justice Project, a Miami-based community lawyering organization that supports communities across Florida organizing for racial justice and human rights.She is currently a Senior Civic Media Fellow at the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC and an Archivist-in-Residence at NYU’s Hemispheric Institute. Green is the editor of More Than What Happened: The Aftermath of Gun Violence in Miami, a community anthology documenting the experiences of Miami residents living in the aftermath of gun violence.
Ana Sofia Pelaez is an activist, community organizer, and NGO executive who has led Latino get out the vote efforts since 2016. Through her nonprofit organization, Miami Freedom Project, she is committed to building a community of leaders capable and willing to change the narrative of what it means to be progressive in Miami. In 2024, she launched Miami Freedom Project for Democracy to support newly arrived immigrants and residents on their path to naturalization. She is also an award-winning food, culture, and political writer. As an advocate for cultural representation, her first cookbook The Cuban Table was nominated for a James Beard award and she has contributed to The Immigrant Cookbook to benefit the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and Padma's All American: A Cookbook by Padma Lakshmi.
About The Moderator
The Rev. Dr. Laurinda M. Hafner’s passion for prophetic ministry, the social gospel, interfaith dialogue, and the arts has been the mark of her vibrant ministry. She was called as Senior Pastor of Coral Gables Congregational UCC in 2006. In 2022, Pastor Laurie, as she is known, along with another Christian, three Jews, one Unitarian-Universalist and a Buddhist, sued the State of Florida over reproductive rights on religious grounds. From that experience came her contribution to an anthology of writings called, Fighting Mad: Resisting the End of Roe v. Wade, edited by Krystale E. Littlejohn and Rickie Solinger from University of California Press. Pastor Laurie is a community activist, especially engaged in LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice, the work of anti-racism, anti-book banning, and interfaith dialogue. She is probably best known as the pastor who goes up into the Church Tower each year and stays there until at least six tons of food is collected. Over the past years she has raised more than 125 tons of food for the hungry of South Florida.
Event venue & nearby stays
Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Boulevard, Coral Gables, United States
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