Another moving, spirited, and well-attended Latino and Latina Roundtable twenty-second Legacy breakfast with State Senator Maria Elena Durazo and Mayor Tim Sandoval setting the spirited tone by speaking to the issues facing our communities and, how more than ever, we need to unite and build our movements. This beginning expression was followed with UNITE-HERE workers at the Fairplex walking together to the front and sharing their victory of winning negotiations for a better contract.

This followed with applause for UFCW 1428 and UNAC also winning their negotiations. The immense contributions to our communities were celebrated through the honoring of Kent Wong, former Director of the UCLA Labor Center and a lifelong social justice activist (posthumously; David Huerta, President of the Service Employees International Union California and long-time labor leader and fighter for immigrant justice; Chara Nicole Swodak, Community Advocate and Founding President of the African American Alliance; LRT Community Star award recipient David Estrada (LRT Board Member and long-time union/ labor/community leader); and local students Manuel Maris, Maricela Vazquez, Michael Papias, and Sarah Venegas who received Social Justice Scholarship awards. Thank you to the LRT staff, Board, volunteers and interns, members, Son Real, and sponsors for all their efforts in making this Legacy Breakfast – one to lift our spirits and to step up our organizing! As one of our members Rachel Kirk proclaimed: “we needed this.”