Quick Facts
Biography
Thomas A. Nazario (born 1949) is an attorney, author and international children's rights advocate. He is Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, as well as Founder and President of the San Francisco-based The Forgotten International, and previously Program Director of USF's Tibetan Children Education Project. He has been an inspector for the United Nations and a consultant for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He has authored four books on children's rights, including In Defense of Children
Nazario has worked around the world documenting human rights violations involving women and children for the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, and for many nongovernmental agencies. In 2014 he published a book addressing issues of global poverty, Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World's Poor.
Biography
Born in 1949, Nazario grew up in Spanish Harlem in New York City. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from City University of New York. After graduating from the University of San Francisco with his J.D. he served as Assistant Deputy Public Defender in San Francisco, and worked as a children's rights advocate. He received a fellowship from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial to start the Bay Area Street Law Project. He later joined the staff of the University of San Francisco School of Law as a law professor where his focus has been Children's Rights, Education Law, and Family Law.
As part of a National Children's Day observance resulting from a resolution offered by Joseph P. Kennedy II and passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, Nazario served as a member of a taskforce responsible for monitoring the status of children in America and testified before Congress on the problems they face.
He founded an international philanthropic organization, The Forgotten International, in 2007.
Teaching
In addition to teaching and writing at the University of San Francisco, he is the executive director of the school's Center for Community Legal Education, as well as program director of USF's Tibetan Children Education Project, and supervises the Street Law Program which sends students to inner-city schools to serve as teachers and role models.
Work for the United Nations and the U.S. State Department
In 1999, Nazario traveled to Dharamshala, India as part of a team of attorneys and psychologists sent by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to interview Tibetan children who escaped Tibet and went to India as refugees. The report, A Generation in Peril, The Lives of Tibetan Children under Chinese Rule, documented human rights abuses by the Chinese government against Tibetan children and their families as well as the children's lives after arriving in India. The report was presented to the UN in 2005. Since that time, Nazario has worked as an Inspector for the UN and other agencies documenting human rights violations involving women and children. In this capacity Nazario has also visited child soldiers in Rwanda, children living in sewers in Romania, children orphaned by AIDS in Botswana, and children sold in sexual slavery in the brothels of Thailand.
As a Senior Trainer for the U.S. State Department, he has conducted workshops around the world designed to train officials within police agencies to work more humanely with the public.
Living on a Dollar a Day
In 2014 Nazario partnered with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Renée C. Byer to produce the book, Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World's Poor, detailing the lives of women, children, and families around the world living in extreme poverty. While Jim Colton, editor of zPhotoJournal, calls it, "one of the most important books published this century," the narratives and imagery have been connected to debate about the effectiveness of philanthropy in eradicating poverty
Books
Nazario, Thomas A. & Quayle, Kelly (2017). Doing Good: Inspiring Activities and Ideas for Young People to Make the World a Better Place. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4758-3246-4 (Forthcoming February 2017)
Nazario, Thomas A. & Byer, Renée C. (2014). Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World's Poor. Quantuck Lane Press. ISBN 978-1593720568
Nazario, Thomas A. & Scarpello, Christine (1997). California Supplement to Street Law: a Course in Practical Law, 5th ed. West Pub. Co.
Nazario, Thomas A., Kids and the Law: an A-to-Z Guide for Parents (1996). [San Francisco, Calif.]: State Bar of California ("A community service of the State Bar of California." Developed and distributed with the support of the California Congress of Parents, Teachers, and Students, Inc.
Nazario, Thomas A. & Jannke, Samantha, ed. (1995). Teenage Pregnancy, Single Parents and the Law: a Legal Guide for Those Who Work with California'sYouth: the Answers to Questions Most Often Asked. Sacramento, CA:California Alliance Concerned with School Age Parents.
Nazario, Thomas A., ed. (1995). A Curriculum and Program Guide for Teens on Law. The Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation, San Francisco, CA.
Nazario, Thomas A. with Blum, Pamela, Hirschfeld, Steven & Miljanich, Patricia Henderson (1988). In Defense of Children: Understanding the Rights, Needs, and Interests of the Child: a Resource for Parents and Professionals. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Nazario, Thomas A., O'Brien, Edward L., & Arbetman, Lee (1990). Street Law: a Course in Practical Law, 4th ed. St. Paul: West-Pub. Co. (with California state supplement prepared by Thomas A. Nazario.)
Nazario, Thomas A., O'Brien, Edward L., McMahon, Edward & Arbetman, Lee (1987). Street Law: a Course in Practical Law, 3rd ed. St. Paul: West Pub. Co. (with California state supplement prepared by Thomas A. Nazario.
Nazario, Thomas A., O'Brien, Edward L., & Arbetman, Lee (1984). Street Law: a Course in Practical Law, 2nd ed. St. Paul: West Pub. Co. ("A publication of the National Institute for Citizen Education in the Law." "California state supplement prepared by Thomas A. Nazario.")