Jenny Stratton

The Morales family from Delano is part of four generations of Mexican musicians. For the past twenty years, the family has taught hundreds of kids and performed across the U.S.

Lucio Gómez started riding horses at 8 years old in his home state of Puebla. He recalls being strapped to his mom while she rode from the countryside into town. Now he teaches his kids and other farmworkers the art of Cabalgata.The group of farm worker riders he leads, placed first in equestrian at a Cinco de Mayo Parade in Porterville.

Alfonso, 12, is part of a traditional Oaxacan dance group from Farmersville that performs the Danza de los Diablos (Dance of the Devil). 

Four generations of the Manuel family, who are descendants of the Yokuts, the first peoples of the Central Valley.

Elsie Saldaña, known as “El Daña,” is the oldest drag king in the country. In 1980, Saldaña co-founded the Sequoia Empire Court in Visalia, back when it was still a small town. She earned the Emperor’s title three times and raised thousands of dollars for AIDS and other charities.

Tierra Mia festival: honoring Central Valley farmworker communities, in Poplar on July 27, 2024. The festival was an 18-month narrative change project with support from The Center for Cultural Power, the California Arts Council, The Central Valley Empowerment Alliance, and local community-based organizations and artists.

“I would like to remind myself of who I am and who I was and where I came from,” said Clarence Wright, 75, who lived in his three-bedroom house for 40 years, raising four of his children alone after his wife died at an early age. But as the fog of crisis recently lifted, he remembered that his spiral-bound notebooks of poems might have survived after all.

“I said, ‘Oh my God,’ and I just started crying,’” said Laurie Benn, who lost her home in Altadena. Laurie Benn had not realized that she had left home wearing a pair of earrings that once belonged to her mother. Dainty, gold and shaped like horseshoes, they were the last tangible connection to a woman whose love had been profound, whose death from leukemia in 2010 had been shattering.

"It's just been an emotional roller coaster. I keep walking through the house, I keep remembering everything that's there, and that we lost," said Nancy Spiller, a writer and artist, whose home in the Palisades Highlands burned down. She was able to save one of her prized paintings.