In The News
Watsonville City Councilman to receive inaugural Tony Hill Award at MLK Convocation on Feb. 12
Friday February 06, 2009
By UC SANTA CRUZ NEWS ROOM
-
Watsonville City Councilman to receive inaugural Tony Hill Award at MLK Convocation on Feb. 12
-
By Gwen Mickelson, (831) 459-2495, gwenm@ucsc.edu
 Watsonville City Councilman Luis Alejo will receive the Tony Hill Award at UCSC's 25th annual MLK Jr. Memorial Convocation, which is 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 12, at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. |
The inaugural Tony Hill Award will be given to attorney Luis Alejo at the 25th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation on Thursday, February 12.
Alejo, who is a staff attorney with the Monterey County Superior Court and also a Watsonville City Councilman, will be presented with the award before the talk by the featured speaker, environmental activist Van Jones.
Hill, a prominent community activist and treasured mentor who died in 2007, had been involved in planning the convocation every year since its start.
In choosing among the 14 nominees for the award, the selection committee decided on someone who demonstrated the hallmarks of Hill's life: mentor, inspirational leader, gifted mediator, and bridge-builder in the community.
A Watsonville native, Alejo, 34, has a long history of serving county residents as an attorney, advocate, and active community member.
"Luis has truly represented the values that Tony practiced and provided in our community," said Hill's widow, Melanie Stern-Hill. "So the team looked at his work around social and economic justice for people who are often disenfranchised."
Also, said Stern-Hill, Alejo is a collaborator.
"He, like Tony, would bring people to the table from diverse backgrounds," she said. "He and Tony worked closely in bridging north and south in Santa Cruz County. That was something Tony greatly valued—how to bring our region together."
Alejo will receive a $500 cash contribution from UC Santa Cruz to the nonprofit of his choice. He's selected the Bike Shack program in Watsonville, a grassroots effort run by Watsonville students that's part of the Resource Center for Nonviolence and the Watsonville Brown Berets. The program promotes alternative transportation, exercise, and healthy lifestyles, and teaches young people how to repair their own bicycles.
Alejo said he was "deeply honored" to be the first recipient of an award named after Hill.
"Tony was a good friend, and he built bridges by working and supporting the organizing we were doing in South County," Alejo said. "He fought for social justice along with us, spoke truth to power, and turned walls into bridges."
The last thing Alejo and Hill worked on together was a committee that encouraged young people of color to step up to leadership positions in their communities, including joining city commissions or running for office.
"I learned a lot from Tony, and he influenced me in running for office in my hometown," Alejo said. "When he tragically passed away, I committed to continue his work in all I do."
Most recently, Alejo has worked to defeat an effort to place a trash incinerator in South County, advocated for quality education for local students, and championed immigrant and farm worker rights in the Pajaro Valley.
But, he said, "I have been active since I was a child, when my grandfather used to take me along with him to many United Farm Worker marches along with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. My family was one of the first in the Pajaro Valley to join the farm worker movement when the UFW first came to Watsonville in about 1970. We all followed the principles of nonviolence that Cesar Chavez learned from Dr. King."
Alejo earned an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, a law degree from UC Davis School of Law, and a master of education degree from Harvard University. He returned to Watsonville to work as a staff attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, a statewide nonprofit legal advocacy organization that champions the rights of the poor in California. Now, in his job as a staff attorney for the Monterey County Superior Court, he assists self-represented litigants who cannot afford private attorneys.
Alejo was previously a Jesse M. Unruh Fellow for the California State Assembly, where he worked as a legislative aide to Assemblymember Manny Diaz (D-San Jose). In the 2002 legislative session, he drafted and staffed numerous bills including education, farm worker, and immigrant rights legislation. He is also a former high school teacher in Watsonville, and is currently a California State Advisory Committee member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
He has served on boards and committees including the Watsonville Library Board, the Watsonville General Plan Steering Committee, the County Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Commission, and the English Learner Master Plan Task Force.
The award selection committee consisted of Stern-Hill, her daughter Tara Kemp, Tara's husband Josh Kemp, George Ow Jr., Geoff Dunn, Sally Blumenthal-McGannon, and UCSC representatives.