Why I am Running: Big Dreams for a Small City
Ontario is a great city that deserves great representation.
✅ I am running to be the first Latina to serve on a City Council for a community that is 85%+ Black and Brown
✅ I am running because Ontario needs a champion for working families and I am ready to fight for our future
✅ I am running to usher in a new generation of leadership and to support young people getting involved in our community
About Me
My mom tells me when I was three or four years old I woke her up in tears. She asked me what was wrong and I cried, “I can’t be a marine biologist because I won’t be able to help enough people.” My poor, exhausted mother comforted me and explained I had time before I had to worry about that and maybe now I should go back to bed.
How I got here.
I have deep roots in Ontario and started my life here in a mixed-culture household. I was deeply influenced by the values instilled in me by my mother an incredibly strong woman who made the journey here from rural Kentucky. And by Mexican-immigrant father and grandparents who taught me so much about hard work. I grew up in a blue Victorian house on D Street where I used to walk to the library with my mom sparking a life long love of learning. I became the first person in my family to go to college and earned my Masters in Violence, Terrorism and Security in Belfast, Northern Ireland at 21. I went on to work in security threat analysis fields, tech, disaster response and recovery, real estate development on mixed-use walkable, rollable communities, and as a senior project manager at federally designated comprehensive cancer center.
At the same time as I pursued my professional career I became an avid volunteer working with organizations like the International Rescue Committee, Catholic Charities, Big Brother Big Sister, Girl Scouts, and Americans for Immigrant Justice. I now sit on a number of non-profit boards aimed at increasing access to art and culture in Ontario and Pomona. I have pursued a career path and do this volunteer work because I am profoundly motivated to serve my community.
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
—Angela Davis
My top priorities:
I want to make Ontario a better place for the folks that live here.
More affordable housing
Safer communities
Better jobs and better pay
More investment in public spaces and public art
Investing in and creating more connected communities
Creative vision.
All of these priorities are tied together because there is one solution that can help solve them all. I am fighting for a future for the next generation, for our elders, and for all of us. One where we can afford to live our lives near our families, and grow our own families in a safe community. Ontario’s problems are varied, but the solutions are tied together in rebuilding the strong people-centered communities we have lost. I believe we can tackle many of Ontario’s problems by working to root out environmental injustice. Ontario began its life as a model colony based on the innovative irrigation system that was the envy of the nation. Today we have the opportunity to tell the comeback story of the century. A once model community devolved into the city with the worst air quality in the nation could once again become a beacon of sustainable community building. We can build new sustainable affordable housing and fight gentrification by investing in strong communities; bring in new good jobs and become an economic model for the region; and we can turn Ontario into a model community for the next 120 years.
It’s not just policy. It’s personal.
I am an environmental justice activist because I have seen impacts of environmental injustice first hand all over the world. I do not want to see more kids growing up in my neighborhood become dependent on inhalers like me. Families should not lose precious years of time and the experience and love of our elders because of bad air quality causing health issues, like the lung issues that took my grandfather too soon. I am a proud older sister to a union federal wildland firefighter so I watch the smoke from massive wildfires that grower bigger every year because of climate change knowing my hermanito is out there fighting risking his health and safety to protect our communities. We all have something to lose if we don’t fight the environmental injustices in our community. We are lucky because these problems have solutions and we can solve them by working together.
Conclusion
I did not take the decision to run for office lightly. I am sacrificing my time and privacy, but it all feels worth it if I can push young people to get more involved, push policy that will give us longer and better lives to spend with the people we love, and to push for a future we can all be proud of leaving behind for the next generation.