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.”

“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.

Iconic labor leader Dolores Huerta joins California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta and State Treasurer Fiona Ma in Poplar California to Celebrate Larry Itliong Day.

“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.

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.

Trump’s harsh rhetoric, competitive elections, and efforts to get out the vote all led to significant gains in Latino voter registration in 2020.

In California’s agricultural heartland, farmworkers are fighting back against expensive rents, substandard housing, and economic disenfranchisement.

By David Bacon

The Trump administration has suspended family visa applications – and Trump has ordered an end to the census count three weeks early.

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.