La Raza Law Student Association will host José R. Padilla, Executive Director of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., (CRLA) from noon to 1 p.m., Tuesday, April 12, in Bannan 127. Padilla, who co-drafted the state’s migrant education law, also helped to develop a community-based low-income credit union, a bilingual community radio station and an immigration center to assist Central American refugees in political asylum matters.
In addition to the noontime event, La Raza and the Center for Social Justice will host former CRLA attorney and author, Maurice “Mo” Jourdane at a reception from 4 to 5:15 p.m. on April 12 in the Strong Common Room of Bergin Hall. Mr. Jourdane is the author of The Struggle for the Health and Legal Protection of Farm Workers: El Cortito (Hispanic Civil Rights). At the CRLA, Mr. Jourdane represented farm workers with day-to-day legal problems and handled a case banning short-handled hoes from fields across California.
While on campus, José Padilla will discuss how CRLA provides more than 20,000 poor rural Californians with no-cost legal services that grapple with the root causes of poverty as well as a variety of community education and outreach programs. At its 22 offices, many in rural communities from the Mexican border to Northern California, CRLA works to improve conditions for farmworkers, new immigrants, welfare parents, school children, the elderly, the physically-challenged and entire communities.
Padilla was born in a small rural community in Imperial County, California. He attended Stanford University, graduating in 1974 with an A.B. in Psychology, and then worked as a head teacher with a farm worker poverty group that provided preschool services to migrant children. In 1978, he was awarded a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law.
He began working for CRLA’s El Centro Office He later became directing attorney of that office, and in 1984 he was appointed executive director of CRLA.
CRLA, founded in 1966 as a nonprofit legal services program, today is viewed as one of the premier legal-aid programs in the country. Its executive director oversees a $9 million statewide law firm with an 88-advocate workforce (including 51 attorneys) that serves the rural poor in 23 California counties. CRLA’s legal work emphasizes the defense of the rural farm worker community in cases involving pesticide exposure, housing, labor, education, civil rights, immigration and environmental justice.
