Paul Dudley, KSBW News Anchor | View full article and video here.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. —

Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez, a local leader in Santa Cruz, has dedicated his life to community service after overcoming significant personal challenges, including addiction and the struggles of returning from the Vietnam War. 

Alejandrez, who was born into a farm worker family from Mexico, found hope and support at UC Santa Cruz, particularly through the community studies program. He said, “A lot of people thought I didn’t deserve to go to school, but I did go to war.”

Upon returning from Vietnam, Alejandrez faced a new battle on the streets, struggling with heroin addiction. He found hope at UC Santa Cruz. He said, “I was 27-years old, I had two children, and I was trying to look for the best for my family. I wanted an education. I wanted to do something with my life. I wanted to change the direction I had been going. It was challenging but it literally saved my life.”

Alejandrez credits his recovery to the spirit of “Ganas. “What saved me is what I call ‘Ganas,’ the spirit, that you do want to change,” he said. Now sober for over 40 years, Alejandrez has made “Ganas” the core of his life’s work. While a student, he founded the nonprofit Barrios Unidos from his dorm room at UC Santa Cruz. “Barrios Unidos was a crying call for many of us throughout the state, united neighborhoods. We wanted to call for unity. There was too much violence in the streets,” he said.

In the early years, Alejandrez faced skepticism when promoting peace and justice.

“When you are out there by yourself and you start talking peace, justice and end Barrio Warfare, a lot of people didn’t understand what we were saying, they were looking at the way we dress, looking at the way we talk, so the challenge became how do we change those naysayers,” he said.

Barrios Unidos grew over the years, eventually catching the attention of A&E, which featured Alejandrez in a documentary. His violence prevention work was also highlighted by Walter Cronkite in a series called The Hero Report. “At that time, we were doing a lot of policy change, trying to bring resources to communities to deal with the issue of violence, nationally — bringing peace summits together. In 1993 we had a national peace summit. We brought 26 cities to Kansas City to talk about peace,” Alejandrez said.

Today, the Barrios Unidos building spans most of a city block on Soquel Ave in Santa Cruz, offering various services, including a reentry program for people coming out of prison. Sam Cunningham, the program director at Barrios Unidos, shared his transformation story, saying, “I was incarcerated for a lengthy amount of time, and Nane became my mentor.” Cunningham, who was heavily involved in gangs, served 30 years in prison. “When I was getting ready to come home, I didn’t really have anywhere to go, and he told me to find my way to Santa Cruz, he would make sure I was ok in my transition back home,” Cunningham said.

With Alejandrez’s support, Cunningham now works at Barrios Unidos and visits Soledad State Prison twice weekly, offering anger management, domestic violence classes, and mentoring. He tells the men and women inside that they are not always defined by the worst moment in their life. “I try to share that message every single day I go into the institutions and talk to the men and women, their worst decision in their life doesn’t define them,” Cunningham said. 

Barrios Unidos also offers support through a food pantry, partnering with several companies to serve hundreds weekly, and a job training program with a screen-printing shop that helps local students. Joaquin Alejandrez, operations director at Barrios Unidos, said, “It builds confidence. It gives them money in their pocket. They are able to help out the family, maybe put food on the table.”

Maya Mendoza from Barrios Unidos emphasized the importance of the organization, saying, “I hear a lot from people that we work with talk about how important it is to literally just have the space.” Mendoza added, “The nonprofit world is obviously very big and diverse but to be a part of a space that has been around so long, and with a man who has done so much work, I feel like I am getting a very well-rounded version of what it means to work in community.”

At its core, Barrios Unidos is about mentorship, with Alejandrez guided by leaders like Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, César Chávez, and Dolores Huerta. “I have put in over 50 years in this work, so now is about passing it on to the younger generation, as those who went before,” Alejandrez said. 

Guided by “Ganas” and the spirit of strength, the work lives on. In the future, Barrios Unidos hopes to expand their facility on Soquel Ave to add affordable housing so people born in Santa Cruz can stay in Santa Cruz.

The post From addiction to advocate: Daniel Alejandrez builds Barrios Unidos in Santa Cruz first appeared on Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.

February 26, 2025

By Haneen Zain

Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez (Merrill ’81, community studies) has dedicated his life to justice, healing, and empowerment. As the founder of Barrios Unidos (BU) in Santa Cruz, he has worked tirelessly to uplift underrepresented communities, support incarcerated individuals, and promote violence prevention. What started as a group that met inside UCSC student housing, has become a beacon in Santa Cruz County, serving as a local hub of social justice work. 

Alejandrez was deeply influenced by renowned figures like Harry Belafonte, who acted as a close mentor and entrusted him with career-defining opportunities, and César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, who instilled in him a commitment to grassroots activism. Father Greg Boyle shaped his approach to gang intervention and reentry support, while global leaders like Hugo Chávez exposed him to international discussions on justice. 

These relationships reinforced Alejandrez’s dedication to mentorship, nonviolence, and community empowerment, driving his lifelong mission to uplift marginalized communities and provide alternatives to violence for future generations.

“Today, I sit here at Barrios Unidos trying to decide the best way to keep that legacy going, because it’s not just my legacy,” Alejandrez said. “It’s the legacy of all these people I had the privilege to be with.” 

BU runs ten programs spanning at-risk youth engagement to reintegration programs for incarcerated individuals. These programs serve Barrios Unidos’s mission to promote multicultural social justice, nonviolence, and economic equity through cultural healing, civic leadership, and community development.

Dozens of UCSC students intern with Barrios Unidos every year, gaining valuable frontline experience that sets them apart in their careers, including UCSC alumna Carmen Perez. Perez, who once sat in Alejandrez’s office as a UCSC student, led the Women’s March in DC in 2017. Other former students have made an impact globally, from Africa to Albuquerque. 

Alejandrez, who strongly credits UC Santa Cruz with helping to shape his vision and setting him on a lifelong path of preaching nonviolence, is grateful to be able to pay forward opportunities to UCSC students. 

“I always say that UC Santa Cruz saved my life,” Alejandrez said. “UC Santa Cruz gave me an opportunity, and I take that very seriously.”

A Vietnam War veteran struggling with addiction and violence in his Fresno neighborhood, Alejandrez sought an escape from the cycle of street wars and drug trafficking that surrounded him. Initially aiming for La Raza Studies at Hayward, a wrong turn led him to Santa Cruz, where he found himself in the midst of a campus protest—his first encounter with UCSC. Staff within the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) welcomed him and helped him enroll. 

Alejandrez’s time at UC Santa Cruz was transformative, giving him the structure and flexibility to channel his lived experiences into activism and community work. He had dipped into community organizing while a student at Fresno City College, so EOP staff encouraged Alejandrez to pursue the community studies major. 

Alejandrez engaged in cultural and community-based projects, started a theater group, organized lowrider car shows, and taught media production classes. He also launched Barrios Unidos, initially holding meetings in student housing and expanding outreach to surrounding communities, advocating for peace and nonviolence. 

“I knew I was going to stay in Santa Cruz and definitely wasn’t going back to Fresno or anywhere in the Central Valley at that point,” Alejandrez said. “Santa Cruz is a beautiful place.”

UCSC alumna Barbara Garcia gave him his first job with Salud Para La Gente.

“She believed in me,” Alejandrez said, who struggled to find a job post-graduation. “That’s really what I needed. I needed someone to believe in me.” 

Alejandrez found stability in Santa Cruz and built a life in the county.

Now 40 years sober, Alejandrez continues to put belief in others the way Garcia did for him through Barrios Unidos.

All of Alejandrez’s work in Santa Cruz traces back to the start he got at UCSC. 

“All these things in my life today, I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t come to UC Santa Cruz,” Alejandrez said. “If I had stayed in Fresno, I wouldn’t be here today. So when I hug my grandkids, I always say it’s like hugging the trees at UC Santa Cruz. That’s how I feel.” 

The post UCSC News Center; A legacy of hope and healing first appeared on Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.

By Wendy Medina | wmedina@santacruzsentinel.com

PUBLISHED: November 22, 2024 at 3:13 PM PST

SANTA CRUZ — A local nonprofit committed to healing communities through restorative justice and supporting incarcerated individuals, as well as those in reentry, will host its “Free Leonard Peltier” event on Nov. 29, Native American Heritage Day. Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos will honor Peltier, a Native American activist who has been imprisoned since 1977.

The centerpiece of the event will be the unveiling of a 12-foot statue of Peltier, adapted from his original self-portrait and built by Bay Area artist Rigo 23, symbolizing his resilience and ongoing fight for justice. The commemoration will not only shed light on the case of Peltier — who has long maintained his innocence in the 1975 murders of two FBI agents — but also celebrates his enduring legacy as a beacon of resistance and human rights. Calls for his freedom have echoed from 250 Native American tribes, Amnesty International, the Assembly of First Nations in Canada and countless other political and religious leaders spanning generations. Since 2022, Peltier has been incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex, Coleman in Sumter County, Florida.

The exhibit will also feature never-before-seen historical photos, art and campaign posters from the American Indian Movement, an organization that has been advocating for the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples since 1968, as well as a replica installation of a Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit, also known as solitary confinement. It is worth noting that the high-profile activism associated with Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit has contributed to its infamy.

The Pelican Bay State Prison SHU replica installation will be on display for the “Free Leonard Peltier” event at Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos on Nov. 29. (Wendy Medina – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Director and founder of Barrios Unidos, Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez, told the Sentinel that the organization serves the Santa Cruz and Central Coast communities as “an island of hope” for those grappling with the challenges of poverty, incarceration, housing and survival. Not only does Barrios Unidos provide a weekly food pantry on Fridays and Saturdays, but is host to a tiny home village that houses formerly incarcerated people, offers immigration services, holds a poet’s corner and more. Despite Peltier being denied parole in July of this year and now at 80 years old, Alejandrez hopes the event will educate more people about his case and urge the Biden administration to act on a potential pardon.

“Judges and lawyers and international community activists, organizations, the U.N. have recognized that Leonard is innocent and yet he’s still in prison,” Alejandrez said. “We work very hard for years to change the system — the criminal justice system, the prison system — to be able to provide access to our relatives in prison to come out back to communities, back to their families.”

The grassroots founder additionally noted that although Proposition 6, the state ballot measure aimed at banning involuntary servitude in prisons, didn’t pass the Nov. 5 election, there is still hope — and similarly, hope for Peltier. “It doesn’t mean that we give up.
We got to continue fighting for it. We got to keep (demonstrating) why it’s not right,” Alejandrez said. “Now we have to fight again. Harder. Continue.”

According to the FBI, Peltier was responsible for the murder of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. Two years later, Peltier was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. The Indigenous activist has always maintained his innocence and has since been rejected for parole during a 2009 hearing, a 2017 clemency request to then-President Barack Obama and the July hearing this year. The U.S. Parole Commission stated that Peltier will not be eligible for another parole hearing until June 2026.

In her statement for this year’s parole request, President of the FBI Agents Association Natalie Bara referred to Peltier as an “unremorseful murderer” and said that his “continued incarceration is necessary to ensure public safety and respect for the law.” Advocates, however, remain steadfast in their belief that Peltier’s innocence, nonviolent record, advanced age and deteriorating health warrant his release, and they continue to fight for his freedom.

Political artist Rigo 23, born Ricardo Gouveia, first used his platform to raise awareness about Peltier after reading his memoir “Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sundance” upon its release in 1999, and organized a showing of some of Peltier’s original paintings at the De Young Museum in San Francisco that same year. After seeing Peltier’s iconic self-portrait, “with its echoes of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker,’” he described, in which the man sits in his cell while an eagle soars freely beyond the barred windows, the Portuguese-born artist was inspired to create the larger-than-life sculpture. “It occurred to me to make a 3D version of his painting, taking advantage of my access to materials and means beyond his reach,” Gouveia told the Sentinel in an email. “In that sense, my statue is a ripple from his pebble.”

The statue, titled “Leonard Peltier – Waiting,” made of epoxy, steel and redwood, was originally created for a temporary installation at Syracuse University in 2011. Since then, the 12-by-9-foot sculpture has evolved from its original form and traveled to venues across the country, including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Richmond and San Francisco, and will now find its permanent home at Barrios Unidos. “Art is a form of creativity, a concept rooted in creation, whose opposite is destruction, and that is the thrust of the message from all Indigenous peoples this Earth over: we have to side with life and against destruction,” Gouveia said.

Barrios Unidos founder “Nane” Alejandrez points out the part of the Leonard Peltier statue that was damaged during the FBI’s dismantling at American University in Washington, D.C., in 2016. (Wendy Medina – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

In a Nov. 13 interview on KPFA-FM, the artist recounted the tumultuous journey the statue has endured since its creation, marked by battles that mirror Peltier’s own. It has withstood a bomb threat, an FBI-directed dismantling and an 11-month hostage situation all at the American University in Washington, D.C., a theft in East Oakland and dismemberment, its endurance reflecting the spirit of the man it immortalizes.

“Time has become a weapon they use to try and annihilate the essence of who I am,” writes Peltier in his most recent statement from Feb. 6. “They have done their best to break me. … But no one can break the spirit of a Sundancer.”

He continued to urge his supporters, “Keep fighting. Fight the parasitical influence of colonialism. Fight the lies, the greed, the corruption of the oppressor. Fight for the survival of our people.”

Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos’ “Free Leonard Peltier” opening event will be held at 1817 Soquel Ave., from 4 to 9 p.m. on Nov. 29. There will be danzates, food, singers and guest speaker Ohlone elder Patrick Orozco will lead in prayer. Attendees are encouraged to place photographs of loved ones or other items at the base of the Peltier statue, as a makeshift altar, to serve as a reminder that they are not forgotten and that their spirit is still alive, Alejandrez said. The exhibit is set to run until Dec. 29, which will mark the 134th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Asked about what Gouveia hopes people will take away from experiencing his art piece, he said, “That ultimately it invites further curiosity towards and involvement with the ongoing struggle of Native peoples and Nations.”

To learn more about Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos, visit barriosunidos.net.

IF YOU GO

What: “Free Leonard Peltier” event

When: 4-9 p.m., Friday Nov. 29; exhibit runs through Dec. 29, Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (hours may vary)

Where: Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos, 1817 Soquel Ave.

The post Santa Cruz Sentinel; Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos to host ‘Free Leonard Peltier’ event first appeared on Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.

by Wallace Baine April 7, 2024 (view article at The Lookout Santa Cruz)

The trailblazing singer and civil-rights activist Harry Belafonte was 96 when he died almost a year ago. But even at that advanced age, Belafonte remained politically active. Though the American public remembered his activism mostly as a product of the MLK years, he was still advocating for social justice, often loudly and bluntly, through the eras of Trump and Biden.

From his perch as the founder and executive director of Barrios Unidos in Santa Cruz, Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez saw Belafonte’s passions up close. Though two decades younger, Alejandrez counted himself as a friend and acolyte. He traveled widely with Belafonte — “I was standing right beside him when he called George [W.] Bush ‘the greatest terrorist in the world,’” said Alejandrez. And he looked to Belafonte as a mentor. 

Shortly before the older man died, the two were talking when someone mentioned the word “retirement.” Belafonte looked soberly at Alejandrez and said, “I never want to hear that word come out of your mouth.”

At 75, the man known throughout Santa Cruz County, and indeed throughout California, simply as “Nane” (NAH-nay), is, true to Belafonte’s example, entertaining no thoughts of retiring from what he has done for almost 50 years from his home base in Santa Cruz. Alejandrez is the founder, leader and iconic voice of Barrios Unidos, a thriving and multifaceted community of its own centered on a sprawling “campus” that takes up most of a city block on Soquel Avenue. 

Out in front of the Barrios Unidos building stands a long-neglected sign advertising Wilson Tire Service, a reminder of what the storefront structure used to be. Under the old tire sign, literally in its shadow, is a portrait of iconic civil-rights leader Cesar Chavez alongside the quote “Nonviolence is more powerful than violence.”

The BU hub

For almost five decades now, the space has been a hub of activity all to provide guidance, assistance and support to a wide variety of constituencies, from children and young families, to people newly released from prison. It is both a charitable nonprofit and a small business, its on-site screen-printing shop (BU Productions) serving as a kind of work/apprentice shop for those looking to establish marketable skills.

Also on the grounds is a professionally equipped recording studio and an auto shop to create a kind of learning center for young people and people reentering society after having served time. (Alejandrez is also a big car buff, and he allows young people and those in need of job training to help him restore old cars.) There is a dance hall and another performance space, meeting spaces and a warren of offices, all presided over by Alejandrez, his wife Jenny, sister Mary Lou, and son Joaquin. The organization’s staff and volunteer roster runs the gamut from UC Santa Cruz students to ex-convicts like Sam Cunningham, who serves as BU’s reentry programs coordinator.

It is here where Nane Alejandrez has built a mini-empire devoted to helping people. Behind the storefront building are a couple of small (very small) houses, set aside for those just getting out of prison with no other place to go. 

“We built that house right there for $1,500,” he said, pointing to one of the tiny houses. “If people got nowhere to go, then they’re going to be back in prison. That we know.”

Nearby, on a trailer so it can travel, is a life-sized model of a prison cell to let those on the outside know what conditions people in prison are enduring. Inside, the model cell is shockingly small, a bunk bed with two mattresses and a toilet in a space many people might find inadequate as a walk-in closet. In the bottom bunk is a dummy of a sleeping cellmate. 

“This is to show people what Pelican Bay [State Prison] is like,” said Alejandrez. “This is the real cell. I even tried to get the same color.”

At the heart of Alejandrez’s mission is confronting and turning around the culture of violence that is part of many Latinos’ lives in California, be it gang violence in the streets or the retributive violence of the state. Barrios Unidos dates back to the late 1970s when street violence (real and imagined) was a predominant obsession of the political mainstream. 

“This was an all-white neighborhood, when we first came here,” said Alejandrez, gesturing to the area beyond his back fence. “And they used to throw eggs and tomatoes at us. I should show you the signs they plastered all over the neighborhood: ‘Stop Barrios Unidos from busing gang members into our neighborhoods.’ So, we went to the city council and we got all the little kids from Beach Flats to sit in the front row. ‘These are the gang members they’re talking about.’”

In an essay he wrote for the Christian-based activist group Sojourners titled “César Chávez Saved My Life,” he called Barrios Unidos a “spiritual movement.” Though the organization is officially nonreligious and is not affiliated directly with any church, Alejandrez has always maintained a strong moral sense of his mission. And he had to work to convince many that his aims were more spiritual than political.

“As community-based organizations,” he wrote, “we have had to prove to the correctional institutions that we’re not in there to create any revolution. We’re there to try to help. I’m asking, How can I change the men that have been violent? How do I help change their attitude toward society and toward their own relatives? We see them as our relatives — these are our relatives that are incarcerated. How can we support them?”Alejandrez has demonstrated a remarkable skill at trans-personal relationships, equally comfortable talking to, and forging agreements with, prominent political figures and gang leaders.”

Felipe Hernandez grew up in Watsonville, mentored by Alejandrez on the legacy of Chicano political activism. Hernandez now sits on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, representing the Fourth District, which includes Watsonville. “I’ll always respect and admire Nane,” he said, “especially since he was one of the few who worked for a truce between gangs in the late ’70s in Watsonville.”

MariaElena De La Garza is the CEO of the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County in Watsonville, where she was born and rarised. When she first applied for the leadership role at CAB, she approached Alejandrez for advice. “He willingly and lovingly encouraged me to apply,” she said. “And I’m just one of probably thousands – tens of thousands – of people that Nane has mentored. He has taught me some important lessons that I use in my leadership role every day.”

Nane’s story

Alejandrez arrived in Santa Cruz from Fresno in the early 1970s. “My family was a migrant family from Texas and we migrated all over the Southwest,” he said. “I was born in Mississippi, in a cotton field. But I’ve got siblings born in Texas, Arizona, some relatives in California, Idaho, Wyoming.”

The family eventually settled in Fresno, and it’s there where a young Nane was drafted to serve during the Vietnam War. He returned from Vietnam in 1971, shocked at what he found. 

“I came from one war into another war, a street war,” he said. “There was a lot of violence happening on the street back then throughout California. And I just wanted to find a way to stop it.”

His family had been drawn into the illegal drug trade and he himself had become a heroin addict in Vietnam. It was then that he met Jenny and began looking for a way out. He attended Fresno City College, but after two years, he wanted to continue his education somewhere else: “In 1977, there were 20 killings of my own people around the neighborhoods where I was hanging out in Fresno.”

By happenstance, he stumbled upon UCSC, and, at 27, enrolled there in the Community Studies program. “I always say, UCSC saved my life, you know?”

After graduation, he decided “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay here and build something.”

That something was Barrios Unidos. Though he founded the organization in Santa Cruz, most of his work in the early years was focused on addressing the gang activity in Watsonville, putting the credibility of his background in Fresno on the line to speak to local gangs. At the same time, he began reaching out to the political players of the era. He hosted a “Mayors’ Conference on Youth Violence” and invited all the local politicians. The mayor of Watsonville didn’t show. In fact, the only mayor who did show up was Santa Cruz’s John Laird, today a California state senator. “Ever since then, whenever he needs me or I need him, he’s there,” said Alejandrez of Laird.

Laird first got to know Alejandrez in the early 1980s as the director of the Santa Cruz AIDS Project, which rented a few rooms to Barrios Unidos. As a neighbor, Laird watched what was happening next door. “There were people in braids, in Native dress,” he said. “There were people with tattoos on every place that you can see could be tattooed. These were people that nobody else was helping and nobody else was reaching. And that’s what he did. To me that’s been the common theme through Nane’s entire work. Whether it’s people just getting out of prison and [who] need a leg up for a job, or in a whole host of other ways, he just helps people.”

Alejandrez became close associates with many progressive Santa Cruz politicos, from former mayor Bert Muhly to ex-supervisor Chris Matthews. As much as he was focused on community efforts, he was also interested in enlarging the vision to other communities. In 1997, he was able to purchase the site where Barrios Unidos now stands. 

California is listening

That same year he made a big impact on the state level.

Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley keeps a photo of himself standing alongside Nane Alejandrez in his city hall office. The two men worked together in the late 1990s when Keeley served in the California Assembly. Keeley authored a bill inspired by Alejandrez and Barrios Unidos that allowed the state to give funds directly to community nonprofits with violence-prevention programs. The bill was passed by the Legislature and, remarkably, signed into law by conservative Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, the most prominent proponent of the notorious Proposition 187, which sought to deny state social services to undocumented immigrants. (The initiative was approved, but later struck down as unconstitutional.)

The sprawling complex of Barrios Unidos on Soquel Avenue is a landmark in Eastside Santa Cruz. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Keeley said that, even at that time, Alejandrez had developed relationships with key figures and organizations across the state of California. “The Department of Corrections, the Department of Justice, law enforcement, they all know Nane,” he said. Keeley watched up close Alejandrez’s efforts to lobby for the bill, and was amazed at his effectiveness in talking to legislators from wildly varying political perspectives, the same gift of negotiation he has employed for generations with street gangs.

“With that soft, gentle voice of his, that slow cadence that gets you, that draws you in. You can see why his personality is a tremendous calming influence, where people can be heard who have not just vehement disagreements, but sometimes violent disagreements,” Keeley said. “And he has that capacity because of his background credibility, his years of work, and all the stuff that engenders trust and confidence.”

It’s only in recent years that Nane Alejandrez has begun to reap the recognition for his decades of work making people’s lives better. In 2021, for example, he won the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, presented by the American Civil Liberties Union, an award that’s also gone to the likes of Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks. He became a friend and colleague of celebrity activists like Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover. He has developed effective, yearslong relationships with many in the state prison system. And throughout it all, he’s changed countless lives.

“Nane is someone who humanizes people who’ve maybe made a mistake, and they’ve had to do time,” said Third District Supervisor Justin Cummings. “He gives them that pathway forward. I think that our community really should value him more and do more to support him because of his willingness to take on something that many people have shunted.”

The post The Lookout; The Shapers: Nane Alejandrez has been lending a hand and changing lives for 50 years first appeared on Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.

By Joshua Patstone | October 7, 2023 (view article at Santa Cruz Vibes Magazine)

It’s been almost two decades since Frank de Jesus Acosta and the legendary Harry Belafonte shared these sentiments about Barrios Unidos in the book, “The History of Barrios Unidos: Healing Community Violence.” Much has changed since then. While Barrios Unidos continues its community work, many of its movement leaders, partners, and loved ones have passed away, including Harry Belafonte.

The political and social landscape has also changed, with rising violence and social unrest at home and around the world. However, by adhering to its guiding principle of “La Cultura Cura” (Culture Cures), Barrios Unidos has persevered and made substantial progress toward its ultimate goal: social justice and equity.

“The story of the Barrios Unidos Community peace movement now spans about 30 years. It’s a tale of individual struggle and redemption by its early pioneers who found a way out of street gang warfare, addiction, and poverty gripping America’s barrios. It’s also the narrative of an evolving grassroots mobilization rooted in the Mexican American (or Chicano) civil rights and antiwar movements of the 60s and 70s. Over a quarter-century, BU’s work has expanded, engaging thousands, saving countless lives, nurturing leaders, and sowing transformative hope across the nation.”Frank de Jesus Acosta“The History of Barrios Unidos: Healing Community Violence,” 2007

To grasp Barrios Unidos, one must understand the Chicano movement. We often get bombarded with images of lowriders, tattoos, and the all-too-familiar gang and prison culture. While many of these images are undeniably part of Chicano culture, they don’t provide a comprehensive representation. Media depictions often ignore the rich history of community organizing, intellectual contributions, art, and resistance that define the movement. Chicano history should be understood as emerging from specific materials and historical circumstances, like colonization, class relations, religious and political ideologies, organization, policies, migration, and more.

The Chicano movement traces its roots back to struggle, starting from the time of violent European colonization of the Americas, through the Mexican American War, and up to the present day. It’s a culture and ideology born out of resistance against the genocide and state violence faced by Indigenous populations in the Americas. 

Chicanismo, or the identification and practice of being Chicano, involves reclaiming a culture that has been attacked, misused, and nearly wiped out due to Western colonization. Chicanismo simultaneously holds a political stance, a cultural and racial identity, and a way of life that keeps changing and evolving to fit the current historical context. It’s the fight for independence, sovereignty, and dignity in the midst of ongoing racialized violence and white supremacy.

Corky Gonzales beautifully explains chicanismo in his famous poem “I am Joaquin” when he says, “And now! I must choose between the paradox of victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger, or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul and a full stomach.”

Barrios Unidos is a vital aspect of the Chicano movement, carrying the responsibility of its continuation. The organization’s history is extensive, and capturing its entirety in one document is impractical. Recognized globally for advocating incarcerated individuals, nonviolence, peace among gangs, mentoring youth and leaders, and policy transformation, Barrios Unidos remains dedicated to creating peace and justice, not only in Santa Cruz but around the world.

“Barrios Unidos follows in the positive spiritual traditions of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Malcolm X after his pilgrimage to Mecca. The story and example of Barrios Unidos inspire everyone in the movement.Harry Belafonte

Founded by Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez, a child of Fresno’s Westside farmworker community, Barrios Unidos emerged from a commitment to make a difference. His journey, marked by personal struggles and an encounter with Cesar Chavez’s teachings, fueled the organization’s inception. The collaboration of individuals like Henry Dominguez, Walter Guzman, Otilio “OT” Quintero, Mary Lou Alejandrez, Danny Glover, and more solidified Barrios Unidos’ impact on countless lives.

Barrios Unidos’ history is profound, touching communities worldwide, facilitating peace treaties between gangs, advocating for incarcerated individuals, and mentoring individuals who have achieved historic milestones for peace and justice. Now, Barrios Unidos aims to pass its knowledge to the next generation, ensuring the actualization of peace and justice.

The post Santa Cruz Vibes Magazine; Chicano Culture in Action, Barrios Unidos’ Impact on Peace and Justice first appeared on Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.

December 14, 2021

When Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez returned home from the Vietnam War in the 1970s, he says that it was clear that his true fight had just begun. 

“It seemed like I came from one war to another one,” Alejandrez says.

A son of migrant farmworkers from Texas who was born in a cotton field in Merigold, Mississippi, Alejandrez says violence and poverty among the Chicano population in his eventual hometown of Fresno had reached a dangerous tipping point. And after he arrived in Santa Cruz with hopes of earning a film degree at UCSC, Alejandrez says he remembers seeing the same violence around Santa Cruz County’s Chicanos.

It was clear then that if anything was going to improve in the community, he says, the change would need to come from within.

“We knew that no one was coming to our communities,” he says. “We had to rise ourselves.”

Alejandrez is the executive director of Barrios Unidos, a nonprofit he first started as a volunteer organization in 1977, and then officially incorporated in 1993. For more than 40 years, Barrios Unidos has helped tackle the social issues affecting Santa Cruz County’s Latinx youth, while also playing a key role in the move toward restorative justice in this area and beyond.

Barrios Unidos, which at a time had 27 chapters throughout the nation, does this through preventive programs offered at its headquarters in Santa Cruz, dubbed The Spot. There the organization offers afterschool programs, a food pantry and job training through its silkscreen business, recording studio and tiny-home project in which youth are taught how to construct the small houses.

It also does the work that many organizations would not: working with incarcerated individuals—both youth and adult offenders—that society has allowed to fall through the cracks. On top of steering youth in juvenile hall away from a life behind bars, Barrios Unidos offers an adult ReEntry program and Prison Project that addresses recidivism by dealing with one of the largest root causes of crime: a lacking support system.

Alejandrez says that at a recent visit to Soledad State Prison, Barrios Unidos had some 40 men graduate as “Peace Warriors,” taking an oath of nonviolence. The graduates, Alejandrez says, had been in prison for as long as 46 years. 

“All those men at some point didn’t have someone in their lives as kids, and they made wrong decisions, or they were involved in the wrong things,” he says. “And they all said, ‘If we had somebody like you guys, it would’ve made a difference.’”

Participating in Santa Cruz Gives for the first time in the holiday crowdsourcing campaign’s seven-year run, Barrios Unidos aims to make a bigger difference in 2022. The organization’s “Big Idea” for the upcoming year is “Santa Cruz Cares for Kids,” an initiative that would build on the nonprofit’s popular after-school program for children ages 5-17.

Barrios Unidos’ youth offerings are unique. The organization not only provides a safe place for kids, but also emphasizes cultural teachings that are sometimes not passed down from the previous generation because of split households. Alejandrez says Barrios Unidos helps these young people, the majority of whom are Latinx, reconnect with their roots.

“You have to teach that, you have to keep that alive so they feel proud of who they are and they know who they are,” Alejandrez says.

It’s this pride in what Barrios Unidos calls the “authentic self,” Alejandrez argues, that will ultimately bring about change in the Latinx community. It’s not lost on him that the majority of kids in juvenile hall are Latinx residents from Watsonville, and that the county’s jail population is 58% Latinx. In contrast, he says, there are few Latinx people that hold key positions of power in the county.

“There’s an inequity there that needs to be addressed, and if we start educating our young kids in a safe place to look at that dream and say, ‘One of these days, I’m going to be the district attorney or the judge in this county,’ then we’ll start to see real change,” he says.

Alejandrez’s impact on the community and his impressive resume could serve as inspiration for young people, too. He’s been mentored by Harry Belafonte, Delores Huerta and Danny Glover. He’s also traveled to Columbia, El Salvador, Kenya and Tanzania to share his teachings. In addition, he’s spoken to the United Nations multiple times about Barrios Unidos’ work, and was most recently awarded the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, an honor that has gone to the likes of Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks.

Even more rewarding, Alejandrez says, is seeing some of Barrios Unidos’ alumni now leading organizations throughout the country.

“This community has given me and my family so much,” he says. “I have to give back.”

But his work is far from over, and in many ways, the battle he took up some 44 years ago has only become tougher because of the ongoing housing crisis and the economic downturn as a result of the pandemic.

“We have to give a way for our young people that were born and raised in this county, whether it be Watsonville or Santa Cruz, a way to be able to stay here,” he says. “In the long run, that’s what we’re trying to create in Barrios. We can have a place for kids, we can have teachings for the community and we can have housing. But we can’t do it alone. That’s why we need the community to step up.”

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SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos founder and Executive Director Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez on Tuesday will be honored with the prestigious ACLU of Northern California Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award.

Alejandrez established the violence prevention organization in 1977, in effort to provide opportunities to at-risk youth and to cultivate pathways for people who have been incarcerated back into society.

The Santa Cruz icon joins previous honorees of the award such as Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall and Dolores Huerta.

“After all the years of putting in the work it’s an honor to receive this. It’s heartfelt and it communicates to others in the community that they can also do great things,” Alejandrez said.

Barrios Unidos organized the first transcultural, incarcerated gang prevention summit — known as the Kansas City Peace Summit — in 1993. The nonprofit continues to work to reestablish social, economic and racial equity.

“I am thrilled to get to pass this on to the next generation,” Alejandrez said. “For me, seeking the truth is what it is all about.”

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“When I go to Santa Cruz, one of my greatest joys is visiting the Barrios Unidos headquarters and their retreat center in the Santa Cruz mountains,” says award-winning actor and producer Danny Glover. Anyone who’s been an activist as long as Glover understands the necessity of a place to heal. Long before starring in the blockbuster Lethal Weapon franchise, having hit television productions like Lonesome Dove and Brothers & Sisters, and giving acclaimed performances in such classic films as The Color Purple, Mandela, Beloved, Grand Canyon, and Places in the Heart, Glover was working for racial and social justice.

For decades Glover has supported and championed Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos. This 40-year-old institution, led by Vietnam veteran and Chicano/Latino activist Nane Alejandrez, struggles for racial justice, advances prison reform through restorative justice, and supports formerly incarcerated citizens’ successful re-entry into society. Barrios Unidos provides extensive trauma-informed prison and neighborhood-based services to help at-risk young people and their families recover from violence and thrive. As part of its “La Cultura Cura” (culture cures) philosophy, the organization also relies on nature and traditional Native American ceremony at its five-acre mountain Walter Guzman Retreat Center outside Santa Cruz, California to build people back up and give them the strength and perspective to persevere.

Why Organizations Like Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos Need More Support.

Glover and Alejandrez both know first-hand the relentlessness of social justice work: working to change systems and empowering the next generation of leaders of color, while at the same time engaging in never-ending fundraising. Like so many leaders of color, they are tired. Tired of combatting toxic institutional racism that grinds them and the people they love down. Tired of corrupt prisons where people of color suffer mass incarceration. And tired of long-standing cycles of violence and injustice that tear people, families, and communities apart.

Yet they persevere, year after year, decade after decade, facing down and overcoming one challenge after another. In addition to cultural richness and competence and an incredible will to carry on, organizations like Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos bring deep and long-standing relationship skills based in trust on both sides of the prison walls. For example, the State of California funds their prisoner re-entry work, state prisons allow them to run programs, and incarcerated individuals welcome their participation.

The post Forbes Magazine; Danny Glover’s Social Justice Secret: Organizations Like Barrios Unidos Make The Difference first appeared on Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos.