Longtime Ivanhoe resident, Parent, Ivanhoe Community Council member, and Ivanhoe Sol co-founder, the San Joaquin Valley’s only fully bilingual newspaper.
“We live here [in the community]….which helps us write more relatable stories. We can give more insight because we live in the town, as opposed to someone who doesn’t. People see us in the community, and they learn to trust us. We start building trust. When we do, community members open up to us, attend events, and get involved. Trust is important, and living and being a part of the Ivanhoe community helps that and makes us even more unique.”
Para leer esta historia en Español
Origin Story
I grew up in a Spanish-speaking home and was the oldest of three children. On Saturdays, we’d dust, vacuum, or clean the house and watch cartoons. We were brought up to work and have responsibilities, but sometimes, we were sheltered.
My dad took care of citrus orchards. When there was a freeze, it affected us because our livelihood came from agriculture. I remember there were certain programs that helped us. My mom was able to go to school to learn English at the adult school. I remember thinking, ‘Why are these people doing this stuff? Why are they helping us if they don’t even know us?’ I thought that was neat. So that implanted a seed into wanting to be like that – helping others when they didn’t even know us.
My parents only spoke Spanish, so I was always their translator. I told myself that when I got older, I would find a career helping people who speak English as a second language. I wanted to communicate with them and make sure they could understand information. It’s not normal not to be able to communicate or receive information that we need. Little things like that have affected how I see things and made me more open-minded about many situations.
My parents grew up in the small town of Santa Rosa in Zacatecas, Mexico. My mom has been a citrus packer. She started very young and has been packing oranges her entire life. That’s all she wants to do, and she loves it. I’m really happy that now, as an adult, I’m able to talk to her. She sometimes thought [the news] was chisme, but I told her it wasn’t.
At one point, I felt like she needed to find another job, and I remember telling her, ‘You’re getting older, and I know you like to work, but maybe there is something else that you might like.’ She told me, ‘No, I love doing this job.’ My mom was willing to share her story in the newspaper, and we recognized her in the Community Spotlight section.
There’s a saying in Spanish, Calladita Te Miras Mas Bonita. It means that if you don’t speak, you look prettier. And I feel that that’s so incorrect. We should be able to voice what’s right.
Since my son started preschool, I have been working in education. I obtained work experience through a county program called Welfare to Work. This program helped my son and me after we became homeless. I’ve always tried to be involved; hopefully, he will become more involved someday. Setting an example of communicating and understanding what’s being communicated, knowing that you have a voice, building community, and helping others are important.
Why Ivanhoe is unique
We’re an unincorporated rural community that depends heavily on the public system. This was a place where we would play in the orchards, or we knew not to be outside at night when we heard the sprayers going, or we looked forward to summer events at the church.
We grow walnuts, pecans, oranges, and all kinds of beautiful fruit. We’re often the last people to taste that fruit because it gets shipped out, yet people around here are the ones who are being affected. In a way, it does provide income. But the growers don’t get enough credit for all the work that goes into planting, cultivating, and harvesting.
Although we’re a small community, we have a lot of people who have accomplished things. We have a professional rodeo cowboy who lives in our community, someone who just graduated law school and will be practicing law, and students who are college athletes playing football.
There’s a lot of history behind Ivanhoe, and it’s interesting to learn about it.
Sharing the news
Here in this small community, there tend to be many headlines, but they’re usually related to crime or bad news. We’d rather not watch or listen to bad news. It is important to be able to deliver or receive positive news in English and Spanish because so many people speak Spanish here.
I remember the Listening Post coming to the Community Council’s meetings and asking what we needed in the community and what was important to us. We said we wanted safer streets. We didn’t even have sidewalks at that time. They asked us how news was being delivered, and it wasn’t something we felt was important, but we wanted to know what was going on. A lot of times, things the community needed would be available, and we would ask ourselves, ‘How did we not hear about that?’ So that gave us a chance to voice our concerns about what we wanted to see.
I was super excited. I felt that a community newspaper would address concerns that were important to us. We thought it needed to be different from a paper in the city. It would need to provide information on food drives or summer nightlight events—information that was important to our community.
We share information that can really help people, like health information or information on voting and polling places.
We featured a 40-year resident of Ivanhoe in the Community Spotlight, who was left with five children to care for and became their sole provider when her husband passed away.
For us, being that little spot on the map that printed newspapers in both English and Spanish with the help of a trusted, well-known publishing company like the Sun-Gazette is a good thing. They’ve helped us so much, and we’re learning every day.
Because we live here where these things happen, it helps us write more relatable stories. We can give more insight because we live in the town, as opposed to someone who doesn’t.
People see us in the community, and they learn to trust us. We start building trust. Community members open up to us, attend events, and get involved when we do. Trust is important, and living and being a part of the Ivanhoe community helps that and makes us even more unique.
Opportunities over challenges
One of the biggest challenges is people showing up. Some people think they know what’s going on, but they don’t because they don’t attend community meetings. Sometimes, they don’t have the patience to really be involved. Sometimes, time, accessibility, or work don’t allow them to be involved. If people show up and are willing to give or make time, that will help make the community better.
We want to build community and have events, but we need help. Giving a few minutes of your time is valuable and doesn’t cost any money. It’s your presence. So, if we stay consistent, we become like magnets and keep attracting more people. We put in the work, volunteer, receive grants, improve, grow, and make connections. People can see that something positive is happening. We will slowly but surely get the support we want from the community.
Leadership in the day-to-day
I believe in leading by example. Sometimes, people say, ‘I don’t care what people think.’ And obviously, we are not responsible for the way other people think. But it is important to be able to show up, represent something important to you, treat others the way you want to be treated, do things without expecting something in return, be humble, and be culturally aware of your surroundings.
Sometimes, people may think, ‘I’m an immigrant; I don’t have a voice because of my status.’ No matter what, you’re still human and have the right to ask for help. Feeling like you belong is important. There’s always a way for you to be not alone.
Our district supervisor is a great leader, and we, as a community, help him be a great leader by voicing our concerns. For instance, during COVID-19, we would attend community meetings virtually and listen over the phone. At one meeting, our supervisor was about to ask a question, and someone said, ‘Oh, they want another bite at the tortilla.’ This was the chairperson referring to the only Hispanic on the Board.
We need to back people up when things like that happen. That helped bring awareness to district supervisors and people who lead the community to help them realize it’s not okay. It’s important not to be afraid of saying what’s right. People say, ‘I don’t need to cause any drama.’ But it’s not drama; it’s awareness. You gain nothing by acting in the same negative way as they do, but I feel it’s important to bring it up so that it doesn’t happen again.
It’s about taking accountability. We’re all part of the same county. We’re all in this together. Leaders and those holding higher positions should have the community’s best interest at heart.
Hopes and Aspirations
I hope we stay consistent with the paper and obtain the necessary funding to keep going. I hope we get youth involved and connected with the school so that youth, students, and college students someday run it.
Maybe we can help another rural community obtain this type of opportunity to deliver news to their community where it’s accessible and maintained.
Being engaged with the community is so important. Keeping or gaining that trust from the community and helping improve it, making sure people do not think it’s chisme or false news; it’s necessary for us as human beings to be aware of what’s going on in a positive way.
This story was produced as part of the Sunrise Futures campaign developed by the James B. McClatchy Foundation. It was developed using the StoryEngine methodology, an open-sourced, narrative-based data collection tool developed by Loup Design.
Copyright James B. McClatchy Foundation. Published on the James B. McClatchy Foundation website using the Creative Commons License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ : Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)