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Meet Supervisor Luis Alejo

This colored photo shows Supervisor Luis Alejo from the chest up in a front profile pose and a nice smile. He is wearing a white fedora hat with a black strip. He is wearing a black suit and green spotted tie. The background shows a blurred outside view of a building with potted trees.

Profile

Jun. 30, 2023

Krysta Higuchi

Commitment to communities, protecting the environment, and inspiring future leaders

Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo — a champion for the Latine community — is steadfastly committed to improving the lives of working families. Recognizing the interconnectedness of all of our actions, he fights for farmworkers' rights while advocating for the preservation of our environment and the ocean. By instilling these values in our youth, he molds knowledgeable and effective leaders who'll protect our home for future generations.

Question: Tell us a little bit about yourself, your work and goals?

Answer: I’m the chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and I’ve been proud to represent Salinas in District 1 for the last 7 years. I previously served as a California State Assemblymember in Sacramento and as mayor of my hometown of Watsonville. After finishing my undergraduate, graduate, and professional school education in 2003, I returned to work as a legal aid attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, and as a staff attorney for the Monterey County Superior Court.

I’m proud to be a son and grandson of Mexican migrant farmworkers who originally came to work in Soledad in 1955, and who later settled in the Pajaro Valley in 1965. My grandparents and family members joined labor leader Cesar Chavez in 1969 in Watsonville and Salinas to fight to improve working conditions for farmworkers. So, from an early age, I learned the values of social activism and fighting to improve the conditions in our local communities.

 

Q: What is your first memory of the ocean?

A: As part of a low-income family growing up in Watsonville, we'd regularly go to Palm Beach driving west on Beach Street. My family would have picnics on the beach and spend the entire day there. We didn’t have much money for vacations, but having access to our amazing beaches only a couple of miles away was something that left a lasting memory on me. I learned early that the Monterey Bay region is such a beautiful place that's really appreciated by so many of our local working families like mine.

 

Q: What does Latino Conservation Week mean to you?

A: Latino Conservation Week is a time to engage our growing Latino community about our critical role in protecting our environmental, cultural, and recreational resources that we have here in Monterey Bay, and teaching our younger generations about ensuring this beauty for many more generations to come.

  • Q: What experiences shaped your passion for environmental justice and/or ocean conservation?

    A: My family’s first house was less than a block from the Pajaro River that feeds into the Monterey Bay. I remember seeing a lot of fish, crawfish, and wildlife in the local creeks and river. I was fascinated how our creeks and rivers feed into our ocean. When I later became a Watsonville City Councilmember, I represented that same area where I grew up. I quickly joined the Surfrider Foundation in organizing the annual cleanups of the Pajaro River to help prevent trash and debris from ending up in our ocean. We'd have dozens of Latino families and youth come out to help, and they all felt a great sense of pride in cleaning up their neighborhoods. But they also knew that it made a tremendous difference in protecting our ocean too.

    I remember the Watsonville Wetlands Watch championing protection of our wetlands, creating a beautiful trail system along our sloughs, and establishing bilingual programs that educated our Latino families about how critical the sloughs are to our region. It changed the culture and perspectives of an entire community.

    On the city council, I made sure to support policies that reduced plastics in our community, like Styrofoam and plastic bags. When I served in Sacramento, I supported statewide legislation that did the same, including helping phase out the use of single-use plastic bags and microplastics in cosmetic products that also end up in our ocean and harm our wildlife. The Monterey Bay Aquarium and O’Neal Sea Odyssey were effective in working with elected officials to enact needed changes and have them understand the impact of plastics on our local communities and our magnificent ocean.

Q: What projects are you most proud of?

A: I’m most proud of fighting against proposed offshore oil drilling in California under the previous presidential administration. Monterey County has definitely been an environmental leader in so many ways.

 

Q: What keeps you motivated to continue this work?

A: Politics and government are a critical space where you can make good ideas become law. I was a young community activist at the age of 19, and then I became an attorney that worked on cases in our local courts, one at a time. But in politics, you can make a profound difference that impacts hundreds of thousands of people in your county or millions of people all over California. It's where you can truly make a difference to uplift our families and protect our communities.

Cesar Chavez, a tall man with dark brown and grey hair and a striped dark flannel shirt stands in the center of the image smiling with three small farmworker children in front of him. His hands are on the shoulders of the two boys on the outside. Supervisor Luis Alejo at the age of five stands in the middle with a white jacket and light red pants. The child on our left is wearing a light suit and the child on our right is wearing a red jacket and jeans. The group of people are standing outside in an open porch area. The photograph appears old.

Supervisor Alejo at age 5 (center) with Cesar Chavez and other farmworker children. 

This colored photograph is split into a grid of 6 all showing participants of Supervisor Luis Alejo Young Supervisors Program. Our top left shows participants holding framed letters in an official government room. Top right shows participants standing along the staircase and patio of a building. Middle left shows participants standing in front of the Monterey Whale Watching sign. Middle right shows participants helping at a food bank. Bottom left shows participants listening to a man talk in a classroom. Bottom right shows participants doing a mock trial in a political process room. The County of Monterey California 1850 seal is in the middle bottom of the image.

The Summer Young Supervisors Program provides the young people of Salinas and the surrounding areas with an opportunity to develop skills in leadership, team building, problem solving and further comprehend the importance of both civic participation and higher education.
Learn more or apply today

Q: What are some obstacles or challenges you had to work through? Or what are the biggest challenges or obstacles you are facing?

A: There are many local disadvantaged communities that still need a lot of help with environmental justice issues. Climate change is impacting poor communities the most in our state. I keep thinking of the community of Pajaro that recently faced devastating floods last March or San Lucas in South Monterey County who have been struggling to get clean drinking water for the last 12 years. Most people can turn on their faucet and drink clean water. But other communities, like San Lucas, don’t have that luxury. It's an environmental injustice when communities in California still don’t have that basic human right to clean drinking water or don’t get the flood protection they deserve.

  • Q: What's some advice you'd have for people of all ages who’d like to get involved in ocean conservation?

    A: Every summer, I hold a summer Young Supervisors Program, and it has a strong environmental and ocean protection component. The Monterey Bay Aquarium always opens its doors and shares it research with our young leaders. I take our youth on their first tour out in the Monterey Bay to see the humpback whales and other fascinating marine life. I want to teach our young leaders early on that being effective in politics, law, and government, means protecting our water, environment, ocean, and wildlife that will make them more knowledgeable and effective leaders in California. If we don’t take time to teach and mentor our next generation of leaders, then we are missing a big opportunity to solve some of our greatest challenges facing our state and our nation.

Q: Is there anything else you think is important to share that we haven’t asked you about?

A: Monterey County has a rich history, starting with the original indigenous Ohlone people, to the founding of California in Monterey, to the waves of migration and immigration of diverse people who called this place their home. No matter where your family originally came from, what we have in common is that this place is our beautiful home. Let’s take care of it, let's teach others to take care of it, so that our future generations will also hold amazing memories about this special place throughout their lifetimes.

A special thank you to Supervisor Luis Alejo and his staff for their participation and all the important work and continued efforts throughout the community.

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