Panel: “Organizing Latino Immigrants in the Informal Economy: The Successful Case of the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles”

Panelists:

Dr. Alvaro Huerta, Asst. Prof. of Urban & Regional Planning / Ethnic & Women’s Studies,      

Cal Poly Pomona

Adrian Alvarez, Community Activist & Co-founder of ALAGLA

Jaime Aleman, Owner of Contract Gardening Business & Co-founder of ALAGLA

Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Prof. of History, UCLA

Scott L. Cummings, Prof. of Law, UCLA School of Law

Victor Narro, Project Director, UCLA Labor Center; Lecturer in Law, UCLA School of Law

 

Panelists will discuss the successful organizing campaign of a small group of Latino gardeners in conjunction with a few Chicana/o activists against the City of Los Angeles’s draconian leaf blower ban, charging jardineros or gardeners with a misdemeanor, a $1,000 fine, and up to 6 months in jail. To read in advance on this historic grassroots movement of a disenfranchised ethnic niche, see Alvaro Huerta and Alfonso Morales’s essay “The Formation of a Grassroots Movement: The Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles Challenges City Hall” in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies (Fall 2014).

 

A light reception will follow the discussion.

 

This event is FREE.

 

Organized by the CSRC and cosponsored by the UCLA César E. Chávez Dept. of Chicana/o Studies, David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, UCLA Department of History, UCLA Department of Urban Planning, UCLA International Institute, UCLA International Program on International Migration, UCLA Latin American Institute, UCLA Labor Center, UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, plus URBAN-LA.

 

A recording of this event can be found on the UCLA CSRC YouTube channel.