José Antonio
Zayas Cabán

José Antonio Zayas Cabán is the Executive Director for Our Streets Minneapolis, where he has worked on developing reparative justice campaigns across the Twin Cities and the region. As the Executive Director, José is working to ensure Our Streets continues to emerge as a national leader in advocating for streets that prioritize racial, climate and economic justice for all.

José is a board member at Streets.mn and The Alliance, and served as co-convener and Advisory Board member in a climate and mobility justice campaign that aims to increase multimodal transportation and reduce vehicle miles traveled and improve equitable access to transportation infrastructure across the state of Minnesota.

José was also a 2022—2023 Mapping Prejudice Project Community Fellow, where he conducted research into the intersections between racial covenants, transportation, housing and land use, and is developing a workbook on how to address these issues through an integrated approach to advocacy. José is also a resident at the University of Minnesota Liberal Arts Engagement Hub, where he is working on an essay for the upcoming book Human Tolls: Public Histories and Community Responses to Twin Cities’ Freeways in collaboration with Associate Professor Greg Donofrio and Dr. Ernest Lloyd from the Heritage Studies and Public History program.

Outside the transportation space, José is a multi – GRAMMY® Nominated Artist and was awarded the 2021 McKnight Artist Fellowship for his work on producing albums with music focused on present-day social issues and the relationship between his home country Puerto Rico and the United States Empire. He is also on faculty at St. Joseph’s School of Music where he teaches applied saxophone.