d"comunidad del valle." and welcome to i'm damian trujillo, and today, la raza historical society, learn about our roots on your "comunidad del valle." male announcer: nbc bay area presents "comunidad del valle," with damian trujillo. damian: and we begin today with the start of the school year. dr. linda prieto is with the agency called alearn. and also with us is ruben bejinez, who is a student with the program. welcome to the show. welcome back, dr. prieto. both: thank you. damian: tell us about alearn again, and who benefits, and what you're all doing out there. linda prieto: absolutely. so, we are a nonprofit, and we've been around now for 10 years. we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary. we've served over 11,000 students, primarily in santa clara county, but also in san mateo county. we offer programs after school, but really in the summer is when we're the busiest. and so, we get to serve students like ruben, who are either going into their fifth grade year all the way

into their senior year of high school. and we focus on offering them a strong mathematics program, as well as a college readiness program, and a focusing on building a positive growth mindset. damian: is it during the summer--i'm sorry, is it during the summer only, or is it during the school year as well? linda: so, the program that ruben participated in with us was our summer program called map. but we do offer some after school programs during the year as well. damian: mijo, a lot of kids your age, they don't want to do--they don't want to go to school during the summer. how difficult was it for you to say, "i'm going to go to school during the summer," and what do you think you got out of it? ruben bejinez: well, what i got--at first, i didn't really want to go to summer school, but i thought because i wasn't really doing good in fifth grade, so i thought if i go here, i'll probably be more educated for sixth grade. damian: smart. ruben: and it was--it was good. it was really good. i learned a lot of things. the teachers were very helpful.

they wouldn't--they would never get mad, but they would, like, tell you not-- they would never tell you no. they would just tell you, "let's try something else." damian: explain it a little better. so, how much more prepared do you think you are now if you hadn't gone, than compared to if you hadn't gone to this program? ruben: well, i'm doing--like i try not to let the learning possibilities to go away from me because i want to be something big in life. and i don't want to be on the street, be begging for money, because if i do, then what's the whole point of having a life? damian: smart kid. now, i guess what's your reaction to you getting this kind of reaction from the students who participate? linda: we love it because it is a big challenge, right, initially to convince a child, to convince their family to participate in this program with us in the summer when they're just finishing their school year, right? but to be able to engage them in their learning and have it be fun, have them enjoy their teachers and their teaching assistants that are in the class.

and at the end of the summer, come away and say, "i'm so glad that i did that, and i learned so much." and like ruben said, it's helping me to think about what i'm going to do with the rest of my life and with my future. damian: in those 10 years, 11,000 students you've served. what's the ultimate goal, to get them into college? linda: absolutely, absolutely. so, we focus on mathematics because it's the biggest barrier and the biggest hurdle for our students to be prepared to, one, graduate from high school, and second, enter and graduate from college. so, that's why the focus on math. but our number one goal is really to get students to be thinking about themselves as, "i'm going to go to college someday." it's not are you going to go to college or not, but it's really which college are you going to go to now? damian: mijo, how proud are your parents, your family members of the fact that you have these goals that are already set for yourself? linda: my family members, my parents, everybody's really supporters for me 'cause-- even my little sister, even my cousins are very supportive. like, they want to help me learn. they love me. like, if my uncle sees me struggling,

he takes me to a quieter room, and he helps me with my math. and my grandma doesn't know what to do, like she helps me. my mom, she really helps me a lot. like, she goes on google, she even says google is her best friend. and i'm really glad that i have even my dad, and my dad helps me, he tells me about--to do good in school, to go to college someday. my dad never went to college, but my dad says that he wants a better life for me 'cause my dad says that if i want a lamborghini, camaro, or mustang, i have to go to college where i could get that money. damian: there you go, you got to earn it. all right, good for you. any final thoughts, dr. prieto, just about the program or the success-- linda: yes. i mean, our goal is to serve as many students and as many families as we can, right? we want all of the families to be able to support students like ruben and say, "dream bigger," right? "dream bigger than we were able to dream." most of our families, their children will be the first in their family to go to college, and just like you and i were. and so, i think that's another really--a big takeaway for us is parents, call us, look us up on our website,

and let's sign up your kids, and let's change their future as well. damian: all right, we do have that website available for y'all. and it's an important website, it's an important phone number for you to get ahold of it. they are having dream makers dinner there on october 4 at the computer history museum. log onto that website for more information, and call that number, they'll be able to hook you up. mijo, dream big and go after it, all right? all right, good luck. thank you all so much. linda: thank you. damian: all right. and up next here on "comunidad del valle," sonido clash. stay with us.

in the south bay. with me on "comunidad del valle" are the organizers, fernando julian perez and thomas ramon aguilar on the show. welcome back. all right, so tell us about--first of all, tell us about sonido clash, who you all are, what you all doing out there. thomas aguilar: take a stab at it? fernando perez: yeah. sonido clash is a collective that's been around for almost 9 years now. and it's a group of different individuals with different talents, from production, to being an artist,

to graphic design, to event promotions. it's a group much bigger than us, and we've produced events for the last 9 years on a monthly level, sometimes twice, three times a month, do festivals. damian: so, you're doing something right because you keep doing them over and over, right? fernando: there you go. damian: you've kind of clamped onto that niche that you all have. thomas: yeah, we've definitely built a following that understands what we're trying to do. i think we hit a market that was underserved when it comes to, like, you know, events. you know, music events specifically. a lot of it was catered to maybe older latino folks. and when we started 9 years ago, we were much younger than we are now, but it was definitely one of those things, like we love this music, we want other people to hear it, and we think we have a lot more people that might want to join us along. and that's what's happened, we've built something. damian: and you know, i was listening, downloading this video here of your event coming up. and it sounds like, what is it, 80s music in the background?

tell us what's going on here. thomas: yeah, prayers is--they're based out of san diego, and they kind of have this what they call cholo goth music. but it definitely has that kind of 80s synthesizer, 808 drum beats. but i think this is exactly what we try to express with sonido clash. i mean, the sound itself is, you know, sound clash. it's a matter of just getting these different folks who have their different artistic mediums, and presenting those to, again, i think the younger latino community that's open to all these different sounds. 'cause they've grown up, you know, listening to 80s style music or 90s style music. so, what you're seeing is a lot of these artists are-- they're influenced by those sounds. but then they add their kind of cholo-ness to it, or the latinoness to it, and you know, it becomes its own thing. damian: like metalachi, mariachi and metal? thomas: yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. damian: tell us about this festival. i mean, it's going to be another bash, i would imagine. fernando: yeah.

you know, that's just one of the artists on the bill. and they're our headliners. we've actually given them the opportunity to come to san jose and we host them. and for the past 3 years, they're--you know, they've increased in popularity, so we're really happy to have them back as our headlining group. but the other artists that are featured is helado negro from new york city, an ecuadorian-american artist who's just also making huge impact in the musical community. there's a young man from southern california named cuco, he's 19 years old, and he's singing ballads in english and spanish. so, he's really taking on, like, this i guess spirit of sonido clash, right, where you're taking the music from your parents and you're taking the music that's now, and he's just expressing himself. he's gaining a lot of popularity. he's headlining a few other music festivals this year. and probably down the road, he's really growing in popularity. and we're really happy to have el grupo maravilla, which is sort of the traditional group that will be headlining one of our main stages. and that's really to get the generations out to have people

dance, to have people celebrate in a positive space. the mexican heritage plaza is one of the most beautiful venues in san jose. it's huge, so we're expecting to have food, art, a poetry stage that's going to be featuring san jose poets. we're going to have yosimar reyes from the east side of san jose showcased. we're just really happy to have him as sort of one of our celebrated artists that left san jose, is making huge impacts in the world, and he's coming back to do sort of a hometown show. damian: are you the talent scout who has to travel and-- how do you find out about all these artists? or just in the know, huh? thomas: that's--well, that's i think--i think our specialty, you know. shout out to turbo sonidero, who's a part of sonido clash and, you know, mix tape as well, angel. we're all very much--like, we come from a culture of digging for music. you know, where i'm a dj. you know, turbo sonidero is a dj. so, we're always constantly looking out for new things, new sounds, just want that discovery part. so, it's kind of the a&r work that goes into what sonido clash

is made up of. you know, that's what i think puts us apart from other maybe collectives or groups is that we thrive in discovering things first. you know, prayers is the prime example. this is the third time we've brought them out, but the first time we brought them out, i mean, we didn't pay them as much as we're paying them now. they've grown to a different-- damian: they owe you some money. no, that's great sound. if you can show the information, there it is on the screen, sonido clash, september 3. i remember when we had suenatron here, and we asked them, "how come you're not playing corridos and the accordion?" they said, "well, you know what? we do sometimes, but that's my parent's generation. we're playing to the younger generation." great point, another different genre. you guys are finding that out? thomas: yeah, yeah, things are changing much faster and quicker these days with social media, you know. cuco is a prime example. this kid was 18. i mean, it was months before the festival when we booked him. i mean, his price went--where we had him, we could've confirmed it, but we waited like a month, and he just blew up like 2 months later. and you know, we're lucky enough to still get him,

but that's how fast things are moving these days. damian: well, good luck. nice job putting this together. thomas: appreciate it. thank you for your time. damian: thank you for being here. next here on "comunidad del valle," some learning about our roots in la raza here, stay with us.

with me here on "comunidad del valle" are karl soltero and also professor regua on the show to talk about this great venture. welcome to the show. so, tell us about la raza historical society. y'all are on the board, or you guys kind of spearhead things right now? nannette regua: we're board members, carl and i. we are part of a 2--well, 12 people board. and we started in 2015. we started discussing the need for a historical society, a group that would preserve and advocate for latina culture and history.

and so, this is one of--we're looking forward to having one of our first events. damian: all right. when you add la raza to any type of organization, sometimes you get feedback. talk about the power that we as chicanos feel when we use the name la raza because people who are not chicanos might sometimes take offense to it, as we've probably heard. but talk about the use of la raza and why that's important. karl soltero: i'm glad you asked that because we debated at length about that. we wanted, of course, be inclusive of all our cousins from north-- from central america, south america, from the caribbean, from spain. the people that all speak spanish are connected in that sense. so, we wanted to be fair and inclusive to make people think that we wanted to know their stories, and not to maybe make people feel like we're going to exclude them because they weren't mexican-american or chicano. so, the term la raza, of course, goes back to vasconcelos in mexico, la raza cosmica. and so, we decided to use the term "raza" to make people feel that we wanted to hear all the stories of latinos,

chicanos, mexican-americans, whatever you want to call yourself. 'cause we are very connected by the culture, very much so. damian: all right. well, we--dr. martinez sent us some shaky video here. and he's documenting obviously some of the history of san jose. this is el excentrico. talk about the premise behind the cultural society and what you hope the message to be. nannette: well, we would definitely like to celebrate our culture and our history, and especially because we're focusing on santa clara valley. so, we're looking at our valley, our region, and the importance, the contributions of la raza to the history of santa clara valley. so, we are advocates for our culture, and are working to preserve it and document it as well. damian: why is that vital? i mean, we all--we're going to have grandkids, we have grandkids. i'm assuming you want to pass that down and have them

pass it down. karl: for me personally, i'm sure you would agree that our history of oral tradition, our families telling the stories, our abuelos and tios and tias from way back tell their stories. so, to me, it's a blending of those oral history traditions with high tech. in other words, they're going to be able to record stories, document things, let other people know the stories of la raza, how we, in fact, are the real foundation of silicon valley in many ways. i like to use the term "human tech." of course, we always talk about high tech, and that's important to the development of the area, but i feel the foundation no one talks about is the human tech, how we came from the fields, we got into the canneries, we got into the auto companies. we all started going to san jose state and santa clara university and city college, and that was really the beginning of our professional class. and now, we can probably say that we have people in all professions. i did a workshop for history san jose a number of years ago, and we focused on latino athletes. and at one time i think in the early 50s, there was maybe 10.

and when i was at eop in the mid-70s, we were up to 1,400, so i'm very proud of that. and to me, that was the beginning of our professional class. after graduation, people branched out into whatever fields they were going to get into. damian: yeah, i mean, you all laid the groundwork. the one thing that i was fascinated with as i listened in to an interview you all did on kkup, and you learned a lot about your own culture just by what the research that you all have done. for instance, i didn't know that tiburicio vasquez is buried right here in santa clara. nannette: yes, uh huh. damian: talk about the research that's entailed in telling these stories of our culture in this area. nannette: well, as part of it, the way we do our research is using archives that are available, college libraries as well, and public libraries, too. but then also it's from the community. so, we look to the community and ask for them to share their oral histories, as karl mentioned, but also any type of documents or artefacts that they may have. right now, we don't have an actual site where people can

come and look at artefacts, and so we're a virtual museum that we're trying to create. and eventually, we have our hope of actually having a physical building where we could display artefacts. but that's all in the process. but the way that we gather is a lot through networking, meeting people, asking for community members to share their stories, to share anything that they have that promotes and celebrates our history. damian: and it also, i would imagine, it helps other cultures kind of learn from us. at the same time, maybe we can learn from them as well because, i mean, when you talk about latinos in existence in the valley, we're going back generations and centuries. karl: very much so. i come across people that i meet that are vietnamese, asian, people from india, and i tell them that you weren't always able to pick up a phone and punch two to speak in mandarin, or to go into a health clinic and speak your native language.

and due to the sacrifices and the hard work of chicanos and mexican-americans in the 40s and 50s with the cso, that's where you got the drive behind creating forms in your native language, having the health clinic that's specific to your culture. and that was the foundation that helped people that come from all over the world feel welcome, to a great degree due to the efforts of mexican-americans and chicanos during that time. for example, the cso chapter, they were very instrumental, much more than just caesar. not to say he wasn't important, but many people that were part of that organization became part of future organizations. so, that was, once again, the real foundation of how we made silicon valley what it become. damian: real trailblazers. again, that's the la raza historical society here in silicon valley. you can find them on--i find you guys on facebook. any other information that you want to give out if people are looking for you, or just you can just google it because that's a good way to find it. we'll be back to talk more about the raza historical society when we continue. stay with us.

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"comunidad del valle." you have an event coming up. tell us about that. nannette: we do, we're very excited. this is one--as i mentioned, one of our first events. it's going to be on september 15, and it's going to be a tour, walking tour that folks could come and have a one-hour tour in downtown san jose, looking at several sites. and right around the fairmont hotel, we start off at 5:30 at the--and there's dr. ernesto galarza, a table, and we're going to walk around. and then after that, at 6:30, we're going to head to the mezcal restaurant. and we're going to have some local leaders and some politicians and the community coming and celebrating this very important event. it's the kickoff to latino heritage month. and tickets for that are $40. they can pick it up--they can find out more information on our website or our facebook page. so, we're really excited to go public, and to meet

the community, and have them meet us as well, and honor our heritage and our culture here in santa clara valley. damian: that's wonderful. and you have a lot of educated professional folks like yourselves and others, dr. martinez, dr. mora-torres, who are helping you with this research. i mean, does that panel get any smarter? is there any smarter panel than the one you've established? karl: well, we're building the team, and that's very important. we want to have a team that's ready and functioning so we can do it the right way and, like i said, preserve our history, and let people know that, hey, we are definitely a big part of this valley that's not talked about. damian: no, you're right because i would sit in the chicano studies classes with dr. jose carrasco, and i would think at the end, "why didn't i record these lectures and conversations?" because you're right, the oral history of what happened in this valley and across the united states is just really incredible. we're probably just scratching the surface right now, correct? karl: and it's--our history is really--part of it is a neglected part of the civil rights movement

that no one talks about. if you look at california as a whole, the westminster versus board of education in 1947, one of the lawyers for that action was thurgood marshall, who went on to be in the supreme court. and then you look at sophia mendoza, the student walkouts at roosevelt junior high school in '68, the tactics and the strategies that she used to pull that off were copied by the east la walkouts by professor castro in east la. so, there's a template that we've developed that we think is applicable to anywhere you want to go in terms of voter registration, civic engagement, and participating in the political process. so, for me, what i want to do, especially in the time we live in, i think we need to educate the young people about the sacrifices that many people made from way back to lay that foundation for the success we all have now. damian: yeah, you talk about the backbone of the chicano movement, that's right here. karl: yes sir, pretty much so. nannette: and we should also mention that one of the co-organizers of the roosevelt junior high school walkout

in the late 60s is actually one of our board members, dr. consuelo rodriguez. so, we have people who are tied to the community and have been active, you know, a significant amount of their time, and have been working to contribute to san jose, but also make it the wonderful city that it is today, and santa clara valley as well. damian: we've almost omitted your book. a lot of it is told in your book here. nannette: a lot of it. in 2009, we released, myself and my co-author, who's a teaching colleague at evergreen valley college, arturo villareal, this book, "mexicans in san jose." and we document the history of the mexican contribution from 1777 with the founding of san jose. and we end with the opening of the mexican heritage plaza in 1999. so, it tells a significant amount of our history in a small book, right, that people can pick up at any barnes & noble, or go online to arcadia publishing. damian: so, if you didn't do this and if you're not doing

what you've been doing over the years, karl, what happens to our history? what happens to-- karl: it disappears, it disappears. and that's sad, that's very sad. i read up a little bit on the pre-columbian cultures, and they said that if you abandon your culture, you lose your face and your heart. so, that's very important to maintain that. damian: all right, any final thoughts before we let you all go. karl: thank you for your time. nannette: and we look forward to seeing the community come to--the walking tour is free for one hour on september 15 at 5:30 to 6:30. they can come out and join the walking tour. and if they would like to join us at mezcal, please join us as well. damian: all right, you've seen that table you all have outside the fairmont hotel. it's not just a table, it's in honor of ernesto-- dr. ernesto galarza. and here you can--la raza historical society, you can find them there on facebook, and you can just google them as well and learn more about what they're doing. thank you all so much. nannette: thank you. karl: thanks a lot. damian: and now, here's what's happening in your comunidad on que pasa. ♪

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damian: and our saludos to those celebrating a special day, felicidades. ♪ damian: and here is our contact information. you can follow me on twitter, my handle is @newsdamian. also pick up a copy of el observador newspaper, and support your bilingual weeklies all across the bay area. you can also watch us on telemundo canal 48 every sunday. our time slot is 11 a.m. on sundays, your "comunidad del valle" en español. next couple of weeks, we're at 6:30, but watch us at 11. we'll see you again here next week. [speaking foreign language].

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