Rosario Reyes, widow of Wilfredo Navares, stands in front of the Larry Itliong Resource Center in Poplar, where the couple received food and support during his illness.

The assistant director under Cesar Chavez when the United Farm Workers (UFW) was created, Larry organized and led protests for equal pay and dignified living conditions for farm and cannery workers throughout the West Coast and Alaska from the 1930s to when the UFW was created in 1966.

This is the story we want and need to tell, in all its brilliant beauty, about Larry and the Filipinos who fought for dignity in the fields and united for the first time with the Mexican community in Delano, California.

This is historic and will take the artistry of the creative team but the collective power of stakeholders including the Filipino American and Mexican American communities at-large in San Francisco and beyond. To date, Filipino American artists from the Bay Area to Broadway have joined with us in telling this important story.

POPLAR – What began as a vision and a dream has become a reality for the small community of Poplar. On Saturday, they held a grand opening of Central Valley Empowerment Alliance’s Youth Leadership Center which has been named “Lupe’s Promise.”

POPLAR – Poplar youth went before the Poplar Community Service District regular board meeting on Thursday evening to address what they would like to see in Poplar’s new park. On the agenda were discussions regarding the park’s grant and the park’s blue print. The youth spoke during the Public Comments segment of the meeting.

Support Farmworker Children or Deliver Gifts to: Attn: Farmworker Children’s Toy Drive 14665 Road 192, Poplar, Ca. 93257

“Coming here in the civil rights movement where there was so much movement so much action folks really asserting their rights and their power to change their future. You know I was so happy to be part of that,” said Cynthia Bonta a member of the Board of Directors of Central Valley Empowerment Alliance.

“We had the kids all lined up for the vaccines. We were about to start when we heard someone shouting into a microphone to get out,” said Mari Perez-Ruiz, executive director of Central Valley Empowerment Alliance Services who was hosting the event.

De los tres pozos de la comunidad, dos están en producción en este momento, aunque Rodríguez no sabe cuánto durarán a través de otra sequía. El otro pozo está inactivo porque está contaminado con nitratos. A medida que el acuífero desciende este verano, incluso si los pozos no se secan, corren un mayor riesgo de contaminarse. Los proveedores de agua a menudo se ven obligados a elegir entre un pozo contaminado o sin agua corriente.

De los tres pozos de la comunidad, dos están en producción en este momento, aunque Rodríguez no sabe cuánto durarán a través de otra sequía. El otro pozo está inactivo porque está contaminado con nitratos. A medida que el acuífero desciende este verano, incluso si los pozos no se secan, corren un mayor riesgo de contaminarse. Los proveedores de agua a menudo se ven obligados a elegir entre un pozo contaminado o sin agua corriente.

The first ever Town Hall in the Central Valley results in an additional $500,000.00 to migrant literacy in Tulare County

“We must not allow ourselves to be willfully blind to the realities happening today on the Tule River,” said Arturo Rodriguez, communications/organizing director for Central Valley Empowerment Alliance. More importantly, our own conscience must be motivation enough to address the needs of the humans who call the river home.

Homeless residents in the southern end of the central San Joaquin Valley have filed a lawsuit against the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office for attempting to clear out their encampment.

“The housing crisis is big, and it hasn’t been talked about,” said Mari Perez-Ruiz, chair of the California Democratic Renters Council. “We have found that Prop 21 offers solutions to address the housing crisis.”

New COVID-19 Agriculture Industry Program Services

Community Alliance Newspaper-9/1/20- A statewide measure on the Nov. 3 ballot, Proposition 21, would amend the Costa-Hawkins Act of 1995 to shift decision making on rent control in California toward local government. It will maintain provisions protecting small landlords and give developers some flexibility. However, more properties would be covered, and landlords would be allowed only to increase rent 15% over three years after a vacancy, canceling “sky’s the limit” increases that have been part and parcel of gentrification.

With a population of 2,500, you could say the Tulare County community of Poplar is so small that it could easily to be overlooked when it comes to government help in dealing with all the consequences of the current coronavirus pandemic.

That is why Mari Pérez-Ruíz and Arturo Rodríguez, both with the Central Valley Empowerment Alliance, are kept busy at the Larry Itliong Resource Center handing out food and needed supplies to the homeless and those on the verge of having no home. They also arrange for teachers to help students with at-distance learning for the upcoming school year.