Progressive Newspaper Influence
I feel really happy knowing that the Community Alliance newspaper is still around. I actually grew up in one of the smaller towns of the San Joaquin Valley (Dinuba) before I left the area in 2010 to go to college.
I remembered seeing and reading the newspaper a lot when my fellow LGBTQ friends and I would get to go to the Tower District in Fresno to meet folks in the community. And it was the newspaper that helped expose me to so much of the progressive politics in the San Joaquin Valley.
I really don’t think I would have become as politically engaged as I currently am if it wasn’t for the paper and the great articles y’all wrote and published.
I’m in Minnesota now, but my heart is still in the Valley in so many ways. Thank you again for all the work that you’ve done and continue to do.
Aaron
Re “Tale of Two Cities”
You know, I have been homeless for a very long time. And I’m not out here cause I want to, I am out here because of unfortunate reasons. And I had a job, a good job that I loved, but because I was trying to do the right thing [the] Fresno PD (Police Department) took everything I owned.
All my childhood memories, my dead grandmother’s necklace, poetry that I wrote when I was 11 years old. Gone in the blink of an eye. My uniforms and work shoes. Gone.
I was supposed to go to work that very night. They took all of my food, my wallet with $700 in it, my clothes [and] my shoes. And didn’t give me one chance to get anything.
It has been a few weeks since they did this, and I lost my job because they took my clothes. I could not go buy more because they had my wallet. Now that I haven’t eaten in a few days, I’ve about given up on everyone, even myself.
I’ve tried to get into one of those housing programs, and it would be my luck that I get no response from anyone. I’m tired. About to throw in my towel and surrender.
I’m usually not a quitter, but damn Fresno PD took my way of living, took all my everything. Is there something you can do with that? Cause I can no longer fight by myself.
April Stillwell
Re “Supervisors File Frivolous Lawsuit”
Thank goodness to Roman Rain Tree and Deb Haaland, our first Native American Secretary of the Interior, for finally making history and progressing American human culture past the “squaw” cunt period of American history.
Regardless of what locals say/do/want, it just is something that had to happen and it’s so sad it’s taken so long to accomplish.
I just don’t understand people like the current supervisor of Yokuts Valley. What is their objection? How do they justify use of the word?
Don’t you people, basically backward Republicans, understand the ugly inference and implication of this word? And if you do understand the severity of the word, what is your objection?
It’s a misogynistic, racist American colloquialism that is not a word from any Native American indigenous group, but attributed to them. It’s really a pioneer/Republican/white/genocidal NDN killin’ term that is far past its prime and needs to be retired.
Don’t hold back the future, because the future is here, and we, the rest of the world, are tired of you. If you don’t like it, you should move back to the country your ancestors came from. May your god bless you.
Judith Parker
It will always be S— Valley.
My ancestors were raised here, and my family has owned property here since 1920. My whole family graduated from S— Valley grammar school. I will always refer to this area as S— Valley.
Doug Williams
Yokuts Valley
Regarding Yokuts Valley and the [Fresno County Board of Supervisors] (BOS) suing the state, the justification of “local control” is used by the supervisors. The actual situation is “coerced local control.”
Had the supervisors selected a fair and equitable redistricting map, [Supervisor Buddy] Mendes almost certainly would not have been reelected in 2022. (In one equitable scenario, he would have had to challenge [Supervisor Brian] Pacheco to stay on the Board.)
Given that even the nominal Democrat Pacheco voted to oppose the lawsuit, we can reasonably assume that had there been three Democrats on the body the vote would have gone the other way. It probably wouldn’t have come forward at all.
So, this initiative has nothing to do with local control. It has to do with depriving the locals of their right to legitimate representation.
The irony isn’t lost on us. The BOS wasn’t at all interested in local control regarding redistricting, where the public input was about 8 to 1 in favor of equitable maps.
Saul Ross
Selma
Re “Blooming Beginnings”
Love that you highlighted Latina farmers in the Valley. Great read!
Jessica Martinez
Re “Prison Gladiator Fights”
I have a family member locked up in Corcoran right now. He is from Southern California, and he tells his family that the Latino inmates from Southern California get treated differently from the Black inmates in Corcoran.
Latino inmates from Southern California are not able to get food from the prison for fear of cooks and staff putting things in their food such as razor blades or something else inedible. Black inmates have access to programs, and their food is not tampered with.
He was also locked up in Calipatria prison, and the guards there treated him inhumanely, the fan in his cell went out and they threatened him with disciplinary action for getting a wet towel and trying to cool himself.
The way that men are treated in prison is horrible, and I think that mass incarceration is a big problem in this country that needs to be solved.
Stephen