About

Welcome to my little vanity project! My name is Chema Hernández Gil. I was surprised to find this domain name available back in 2011 and since I live in a San Francisco and my family is from another San Francisco, it felt meant to be.

I’m North American through and through. I was raised in the Mexican Bajío, on the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario and in Middle Tennessee—in the Central Mexican Matorral, Southern Great Lakes Forests & Interior Plateau US Hardwood Forests ecoregions respectively, all in the Northern American biogeographical realm.

I later spent my twenties on the shores of the Léman, including too many years studying at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, programming environmental management software and doing media activism/indepedent journalism. I spend my these days working as a labor organizer, walking Luna, camping when I can and on geeky projects when I can’t.

I had the good fortune of being raised vegetarian and decided to become vegan in 2003. I am a co-founder of Seed the Commons, a grassroots organization that works to create sustainable and just food systems that are independent of animal exploitation. You can donate to support our important work here.

I was a member of the San Francisco Redistricting Task Force, tasked with redrawing the district lines for 2022 to 2032. I was told at one point by City staff that it was the most intense deliberative body in California. My exhaustive thoughts on that process and on the final redistricting map can be found in the official Final Report, under my Member Statement, starting on page 41.

For nearly a decade, I was also a member of the East Cut Community Benefit District board of directors (and voted for the name “East Cut”). I’m also a former elected board director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and a former elected member of the Sierra Club, San Francisco local group executive committee. I spent many years as a media activist/accredited journalist during the heydays of Indymedia.

You can follow me in the fediverse. I also have a more active, more ephemeral presence at ctrvx.net/chema. This site and a few other things are on Github. You can verify most of these accounts using Keyoxide: https://keyoxide.org/chema@sanfranciscan.org

My OpenPGP key fingerprint is 0F11 7D50 7E29 F07C EA59 1D79 86B2 EAA6 E2A3 466F.