The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority,more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA),is a special district responsible for public transit services,congestion management,specific highway improvement projects,and countywide transportation planning for Santa Clara County,California. It serves San Jose,California,and the surrounding Silicon Valley. It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 2022,the VTA's public transportation services had a combined ridership of 21,381,600,or about 84,800 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
Jesús Gloria Molina was an American politician who served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council,the California State Assembly,the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Reid–Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County is in the eastern part of San Jose,in Santa Clara County,California,United States. It is owned by Santa Clara County and is near the Evergreen district of San Jose where aviation pioneer John J. Montgomery experimented with gliders in 1911. Reid–Hillview Airport was also the official general aviation airport for the 2016 Super Bowl in Levi's Stadium.
Olga Talamante is a Chicana political activist and the past executive director of the California-based Chicana/Latina Foundation.
Cindy Chavez is an American politician who serves as the Santa Clara County supervisor representing district two,which is home to nearly 400,000 residents in Downtown,East,and South San Jose. Her public service career began in the 1990s as a policy analyst for health care,public health,human services and transportation for the Board of Supervisors. She served two terms on the San Jose City Council,where she was also Vice Mayor,and also served on the board leadership of public agencies such as the San Jose Redevelopment Agency,and executive director of Working Partnerships USA and the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council. She has unsuccessfully run for Mayor of San Jose twice. She is a graduate of San Jose State University,is married and has a son in college.
Ken Yeager is an American politician. He served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors,representing District 4. First elected to the board in 2006,he represented the cities of Campbell and Santa Clara,as well as west San Jose and the Burbank and Cambrian neighborhoods. Previously,Yeager served on the San Jose City Council from 2000 to 2006. Before that,he served two terms on the San Jose/Evergreen Community College Board. He was a candidate for the 23rd district seat in the California State Assembly in 1996,coming in second.
David Dominic Cortese is an elected official from San Jose,California. He is currently serving in the California State Senate,representing District 15,which encompasses a majority of Santa Clara County. Before being elected to the California State Senate,Cortese served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors for 12 years,as a Councilmember and Vice Mayor for the City of San Jose for eight years,and for eight years as a trustee for the East Side Union High School District in San Jose. Cortese ran for mayor of San Jose and won the primary,losing the general election to District 3 councilmember Sam Liccardo.
Dominic L. Cortese is a former California State Assemblyman who served from 1980 until 1996. For most of his career,Cortese was a moderate Democrat,but in 1995 he gained national attention when he became a member of Ross Perot's Reform Party. He was the highest ranking elected official of the newly formed party at the time. There were international media reports of this event,including the fact that Cortese was being considered by Perot to be his vice presidential running mate in the 1996 election.
Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez was an American Chicana feminist and a long-time community organizer,activist,author,and educator. She wrote numerous books and articles on different topics relating to social movements in the Americas. Her best-known work is the bilingual 500 years of Chicano History in Pictures,which later formed the basis for the educational video ¡Viva la Causa! 500 Years of Chicano History. Her work was hailed by Angela Y. Davis as comprising "one of the most important living histories of progressive activism in the contemporary era ... [Martínez is] inimitable ... irrepressible ... indefatigable."
Lorna Dee Cervantes is an American poet and activist,who is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. She has been described by Alurista as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."
Santa Clara County,officially the County of Santa Clara,is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California,with a population of 1,936,259,as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together form the U.S. Census Bureau's San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area,which is part of the larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Northern California. The county seat and largest city is San Jose;with about 1,000,000 residents,it is the 10th-most populous city in the United States,California's third-most populous city and the most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area. The second- and third-largest cities are Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.
Rod Diridon Sr. is an American politician known for his leadership in mass transportation. He served as chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority from 2001 to 2003. He currently chairs the advisory board of the United States High Speed Rail Association,and he chairs the National Heritage Area Project for Santa Clara County,California. The New York Times calls Diridon "a tireless advocate of public transport for the Bay Area."
LaDoris Hazzard Cordell is an American retired judge of the Superior Court of California,and a retired Independent Police Auditor for the city of San Jose,California.
Diane Francis Christine Felix,also known as Chili D, is an American disc jockey and LGBT activist. She is a third-generation Chicana from Stockton,California.
Isa Noyola is a Latina transgender activist,national leader in the LGBT immigrant rights movement,and deputy director at the Transgender Law Center. In 2015,she organized the first national trans anti-violence protest. This protest was an event that brought together over 100 activists,mostly trans women of color,to address the epidemic of violence trans communities face,especially as race and gender intersectionality relates to immigration and incarceration as they deal with transphobic systems.
Patricia Zavella is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California,Santa Cruz in the Latin American and Latino Studies department. She has spent a career advancing Latina and Chicana feminism through her scholarship,teaching,and activism. She was president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association. In 2016,Zavella received the American Anthropological Association's award from the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology to recognize her career studying gender discrimination. The awards committee said Zavella’s career accomplishments advancing the status of women,and especially Latina and Chicana women have been exceptional. She has made critical contributions to understanding how gender,race,nation,and class intersect in specific contexts through her scholarship,teaching,advocacy,and mentorship. Zavella’s research focuses on migration,gender and health in Latina/o communities,Latino families in transition,feminist studies,and ethnographic research methods. She has worked on many collaborative projects,including an ongoing partnership with Xóchitl Castañeda where she wrote four articles some were in English and others in Spanish. The Society for the Anthropology of North America awarded Zavella the Distinguished Career Achievement in the Critical Study of North America Award in the year 2010. She has published many books including,most recently,"I'm Neither Here Nor There,Mexicans"Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty,which focuses on working class Mexican Americans struggle for agency and identity in Santa Cruz County.
Elisa Marina Alvarado is an American director,actress,educator,social worker,practitioner of traditional Mexican medicine,and dancer. Born in San Jose,California,Elisa Alvarado is a director and community organizer of Purépecha and Cuban descent. She is perhaps best known as the founder and long-time Artistic Director of the San Jose-based Chicano Teatro Visión theater company. Teatro Visión is a leading Chicano theater company in the Latino theater scene,known especially for adapting classic Mexican novels and films for the stage to increase cultural awareness. She is currently invested in two theater programs Codices and the Instituto de Teatro,which produce new works by Latino playwrights and offer comprehensive training in culture-based theater.
Lorraine Garcia-Nakata is an American artist who works with various mediums including pastel,charcoal,ceramics,printmaking,installation,sculpture,and paint. Her work surrounds themes of the daily life,portraiture,and realism and is known for her large scale artworks. She is a member of the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) artist collective since 1974.
Patricia "Patty" Wong is the city librarian of Santa Clara,California. Wong was the president of the American Library Association (ALA) for the 2021-2022 term and is the first Asian American president of the ALA. She has been on the faculty at the San Jose State University iSchool since 2006,teaching subjects such as equitable access to library services,library management,and library services to young people.
The 1978 San Jose mayoral election was held to elect the mayor of San Jose,California. It saw an initial election held on June 6,1978,followed by a runoff election on November 7,1978,after no candidate managed to obtain a majority in the initial election. The runoff was won by incumbent mayor Janet Gray Hayes.
