For immediate release, September 2, 2016
Press contact Estevan Hernandez, 707-227-9803, estavan – at – gmail.com
“In Central California the workers suffer from poverty, racism and the water crisis while the rich just get richer,” said Gloria La Riva before her trip to Central California this weekend.
La Riva will speak with her supporters and people in the community starting at 12 pm on Saturday September 3rd at McNamara park in Merced, and the following day starting at 11am at Mellis park in Modesto.
Out of the five presidential candidates on the California ballot, she is the only Latina, the only person of color, the only worker and the only socialist. In California, La Riva and her VP running mate, Dennis Banks, famed co-founder of the American Indian Movement, are running as the Peace and Freedom Party candidates.
“The hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers who are the backbone of the massive agricultural industry Central California have faced oppression and state neglect for a long time.
“I particularly denounce the extremely racist and dangerous speech that Trump gave last night in Arizona against Latino immigrants. How dare he threaten the workers who are an integral part of the U.S. working class! We stand 100 percent with the immigrant population.”
La Riva was the founder of the Farmworkers Emergency Relief Committee in 1991, following the disastrous citrus freeze that left over 100,000 farmworkers with no income. The committee provided emergency relief for months to thousands of families in Orange Cove and nearby area. The most important accomplishment of the FERC and La Riva was to mobilize public support and force FEMA to open offices in the region and assist the affected families.
La Riva says, “Recently we led a delegation of activists to learn more about the water crisis in East Porterville, where more than twelve thousand people went without running water for more than half a year. The lion’s share of water in the state is used to generate profit for agribusiness, with no regard for the population that needs water for survival.
“There is a clear pattern in California. Corporations reap mega profits while poor and oppressed people do the work. Corporations pollute and destroy the land leaving it unlivable for the people, and the government turns a blind eye. This pattern is particularly daunting considering that climatologists examining corporate water usage and carbon emissions predict the expansion of a mega drought across the region.
“Our presidential campaign says ‘seize the profits to save the planet.’ Under socialism the people would determine what is really necessary in terms of crops to grow and to properly conserve water, in short, to create a sustainable agriculture.
“Our ten-point program also calls for an immediate end to all deportations and full legal status to all immigrant people, an end to police brutality with the offending cops to be put in jail, and full federal equality for all LGBTQ people.”