Cirian Villavicencio, Commissioner

Cirian Villavicencio is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California.

Active in politics, Cirian interned for the late Congressman Tom Lantos (12th-CA) and served as staff for the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus in the State Capitol. He worked on political campaigns including Steve Westly for Governor and Obama for America. He served on the Sacramento County Democratic Central Committee and was elected as a state delegate twice to the California Democratic State Convention in 2009-10 and in 2016-18. 

Active in national politics, Cirian was also elected twice as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in support of Barack Obama in Denver, Colorado in 2008 and in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2012. In 2013 and 2017, he represented San Joaquin Delta College as a delegate to the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly where he helped craft and vote for policy that affected 3.2 million teachers. Locally, he served as a deputy foreman for a federal criminal grand jury for the U.S. Eastern District Court and served as a citizen member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Committee (EEOAC) for Sacramento County. 

In 2015-16, Cirian served as CAPIAA’s chair. Under his leadership, CAPIAA helped pass data disaggregation legislation for the Asian American, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander communities and helped advocate for Filipino WWII Veterans to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. Cirian also served as a political contributor/analyst for The Voice of Stockton’s Politics Panoramic and Stockton’s 360 News Magazine.

In 2018, Cirian was appointed as president of San Joaquin Delta College’s Asian and Pacific Islander American Staff Association (APIASA). In this role, he advocates for the interest of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) faculty, staff, and students while promoting to advance the professional, educational, civic, and social interests of APIASA’s members. He is also the co-founder of the Empowering Positive Initiative for Change (EPIC) learning community that serves AAPI students on campus.