Bernardette Arellano is a proud chicana, mother, writer, activist, producer and host of The Rainbow House, a podcast focused on the intersection of race, ethnicity, and spirituality in the United States. She comes from a family of activists; her father and aunt both served on the city council for her home town, Gilroy, CA and her mother supported political prisoners in apartheid South Africa by writing letters to them and speaking out against the South African government during her childhood. She is currently an active member of Indivisible, serving on the Government Relations Committee for the Northwest Chicago chapter.

After graduating from Princeton University in 2002 with a degree in religion, she joined the office of Congressman Mike Honda, first as a caseworker and aid in his local office and then as a legislative assistant in his Washington D.C. office. Following her time on Capitol Hill, she worked first in Government and Community Affairs for UC Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and then as the Director of Government Affairs for the state-wide California Children’s Hospital Association children’s hospitals. She stepped away from the professional world in 2017 to focus on raising her children.