In the face of top-down federal changes, community changemakers are tackling some of California’s most urgent issues.
This year, a cohort of seven women from six nonprofits received $350,000 leadership awards from the James Irvine Foundation to make change on the grassroots level, from improving environmental pollution to promoting Indigenous food sovereignty.
“In this time where it seems that everybody else is making decisions that we don’t have a voice in, the only way we’re going to have agency is if we organize ourselves,” said awardee Nayamin Martinez, executive director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN), at a Tuesday, February 18 Ethnic Media Services briefing about the awards.
“If we just remain silent, they’ll run over us,” she added.
Through the Fresno-based CCEJN, Martinez supports people in the Central Valley disproportionately impacted by air and water pollution, pesticide exposure and extreme heat, through both community mitigation projects like free air and water filter distribution, and major policy wins like California’s first statewide pesticide notification system and bans on oil drilling near populated areas.
“One of the things we’re proudest of is giving a voice to farm workers,” she said. “In collaboration with the state Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, we hosted the very first farm worker hearing in Sacramento last February. From that came an audit commission for Cal/OSHA that enforced regulations to better protect farm workers.”
Through a state-led Sustainable Pest Management Work Group Martinez also helped draft a plan for California to reduce pesticide use by 80% in the next 20 years.
Within the first few weeks of the new presidential administration, however, she said CCEJN already faced setbacks.
“The fear of raids and deportations is causing people not to show up to work. Right now it’s the peak season for citrus, and some farmers in the industry here don’t have enough workers,” Martinez explained. “We are recipients of an EPA grant that’s frozen, and local food banks that were receiving money from the Department of Food and Agriculture to provide food in struggling communities have also gotten their funds frozen.”
In response, “we’re focusing much more on educating our community about knowing their rights,” she added. “We can’t help people focus on cleaning the air or water, if they’re afraid that they or their children won’t be here in the next month or year … It’s in all of our best interest to defend these agricultural jobs, because if we don’t, we won’t have billions of dollars in income.”
In 2022, California generated around $57.7 billion in agricultural revenue, making it the largest agricultural producer in the country.
Between one-third to one-half of U.S. farm workers live in California; an estimated 75% of these are undocumented.
To address both food and climate resiliency, “we need to look to Indigenous peoples’ knowledge,” said Irvine awardee Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy, co-director of the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute at Cal Poly Humboldt and a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
“In Western conceptions of conservation or preservation, humans are often considered outside of nature. In our knowledge, humans are part of nature, and we need to think about how the ecosystem works together so that everyone can breathe, drink the water and have the food they need,” she continued.
“Indigenous peoples know that’s possible because we lived in that world before colonization … of working with the land in a relationship, rather than just as a resource,” said Baldy. “Lately, my elders have been reminding me how we’ve been navigating a federal government that has been trying to control and erase us from the very start, in agreeing to treaties and then breaking them.”
At the Food Sovereignty Lab, Baldy mentors students in projects promoting Indigenous sovereignty in ecology, food and even in the cultural sphere, having revitalized the local Hoopa Flower Dance, a coming-of-age ceremony for girls.
She has enlisted over 200 community volunteers to build and maintain an on-campus Indigenous Garden including medicinal plants and herbs; launched a mental health and wellness initiative to reduce drug and alcohol abuse among youth; and helped students create and deliver 125 food boxes with regional food and recipe cards to Indigenous people in need.
“Sometimes it feels like we’re all alone in the things that we want to do, but we need to start by telling a story about the future that we want to see,” said Baldy. “That’s how we begin building it together, by claiming for yourself: ‘I believe that we can have a world where everyone lives well together.’”
Recent political and economic setbacks faced by community/ organizations like these “are not new territory,” said awardee Helen Iris Torres, CEO of Hispanas Organized for Political Equity (HOPE). “It’s a moment of reflection to say: ‘Why are we still here?’ I truly believe that we repeat history because we haven’t learned our lesson.”
In 2022, Latinas comprised 20% of California’s population and 40% of Californian women; yet the wage gap for Latinas is larger than any other state in the nation, with Latinas making 39.5 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men.
Since Torres became executive director of the Los Angeles-based statewide civic advocacy organization in 2000, she has trained over 60,000 Latinas and created an alumni network with 61% serving on government boards or commissions, 41% serving executive-level roles and 16% holding or running for elected office.
“Either we can keep bearing witness to the injustice of the world, or we can do something about it,” she said. “My passion stems from seeing my mother, who brought me and my sister from Puerto Rico to Detroit as a monolingual Spanish speaker to raise us alone … I had a very serious heart disease growing up, and she had to navigate a public education and health care system that, frankly, discriminated against her for being a single mother.”
“The governmental changes we’re facing now, too, will pass, but only if we ensure our place at the decision-making table,” she added. “If you’re not invited to that table, set up your own; that’s where we need to be right now.”
Nominations for the 2026 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards are now open, with an easier process to nominate people this year.
The deadline for an initial nomination involving three questions about the candidate is March 12, and the deadline for a more detailed submission from accepted nominated candidates is April 30.
“These are leaders who are confronting California’s most critical challenges by building up a better future for our state,” said Cindy Downing, program officer of The James Irvine Foundation. “We may feel much like the times are quite daunting, but here is what happens when folks step up with a bold vision.”
