EL CHICANo Weekly
Vol 59, NO. 44
October 20, 202 2
S a n B e r n a r d i n o ’ s f i r s t H i s p a n i c M a y o r J u d i t h Va l l e s
deta ils her fa mil y’s experi ence wit h seg regat ion a nd
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SBCCD Appoints Connie Leyva as executive director o f KVC R & FNX
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PHOTO MANNY SANDOVAL
Retired Educator and Politician Judith Valles at KVCR studios in San Bernardino ahead of the Lopez v. Seccombe reenactment in September 2022.
By Manny Sandoval
ecently, Judith Valles, 89, the first Hispanic mayor of San Bernardino and retired president of Golden West College, sat down with Inland Empire Community News and KVCR to detail her family's experience with segregation at the infa-
T
mous Perris Hill Plunge and a local cemetery.
Valles, born in 1933, is a San Bernardino Valley College Hall of Fame inductee and author of "As My Mother Would Say: Como Decia Mi Mama," didn't achieve this level of success overnight or without a fight through segregation.
"I was raised in an eight-parent family with four brothers and four sisters. My parents were proud Hispanics, but my family endured much suffering in the 1940s," said Valles.
She said when she was nine years old, her older brother, serving in the U.S. Air Force,
was killed during a WWll training accident in 1942. The following experiences were some of her first remembrances of segregation and discrimination. "My brother's body was flown home, and my father went to the cemetery to arrange his burial; everything was set. The Valles cont. on next pg.
American Sports University Dormitory is set to close October 21st, 77 tenants have accepted social services and are being relocated
By Manny Sandoval
SBPD celebrates Coptober with t h e yo u t h o f the IE Pg. 5
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he dilapidated American Sports University dormitory will be permanently closed on October 21st, and thus far, 77 tenants out of about 200 have accepted social services and will be relocated.
According to City of San Bernardino Public Information Officer Jeff Kraus, the city mandated the Owner, Fox Property Holdings and its Principals, Ji Li and Josef Anthony Vittal, to pay relocation benefits to all tenants, but that has yet to happen.
Since Thursday, October 13th, multiple departments from the County of San Bernardino have Dorm, cont. on pg. 2
PHOTO MANNY SANDOVAL A woman waiting in the lobby of the shuttered sports dormitory, on an iPad, while coordinating her move.