6 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY FEBRUARY 12-18, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com 831 On a recent Friday morning, a white van arrives at Sabino Lopez’s home in Salinas, ready for a crew to load up boxes. They are full of materials collected by the community organizer over decades and are set to be transported to Stanford. Earlier, Lopez had turned to the Archival Collections at Stanford University, an extensive historical archive with documents, journals, photographs and more, seeking to preserve and share his documents with future generations. Lopez says he originally thought these documents collecting dust were just junk that he had accumulated over the years, some of which were even recovered from the dumpster. In reality, those boxes contain the paper trail that put him at various places advocating for many causes on the Central Coast and San Diego, documenting his long-standing career as a community advocate and organizer with various organizations, including the United Farm Workers, California Rural Legal Assistance and Center for Community Advocacy, where he has worked since 1990. The boxes contain complaints from farmworkers about their living conditions, their demands and records of decision-making around those issues. Also included are flyers and documents about his time with the UFW as well as his journals and notes in Spanish. In Mexico, Lopez says he saw union workers had a better quality of life, and he wanted the same for American farmworkers, which was what motived him to get involved. He remembers thinking, “I have to do something to change my future.” Lopez says his time at the UFW helped him solidify his path. “Thanks to it I grew, I advanced,” he says. “What I do, who I am, is part of it.” His advocacy and activism grew in the 1970s during the conflict between the UFW and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to represent farmworkers, which led to the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farmworker strike in the U.S. He’s one of the voices in The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement by Miriam Pawel. The book describes UFW’s rise, fall and aftermath. “I was a troublemaker,” Lopez recalls as he struggled to find a job in the fields. It led to depression that later turned into determination to go to school and learn English and develop his organizing skills. Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez, a historian who works in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford, met Lopez while researching locals who were involved in social justice causes. In 2014, Ornelas Rodriguez invited Lopez to be a panelist at Stanford where he talked about “El Cortito,” a now-banned tool that caused severe back injuries for farmworkers. Ornelas Rodriguez says he invited Lopez because of his unique perspective as a former farmworker who moved from the fields to become a community leader and civil rights advocate. “Sabino has always been someone that is a very strong collective person, who tries to bring key players to the table to settle issues and negotiate agreements,” Ornelas Rodriguez says. He adds that sometimes it is hard for people to let go of their personal archives, but says Lopez seriously considered it after the Covid-19 pandemic. “There are agendas of meetings he attended, who was in the meetings, the minutes of those meetings,” Ornelas Rodriguez says. “A lot of different types of notes and writings that are a part of the archive that will allow historians like myself and researchers to really find evidence.” The goal is to preserve the archives for posterity and make them available for others to research and learn. “The archive gives visibility to a population that can often get demonized: the immigrant community,” he says. Lopez’s archive will become part of the Special Collections at Stanford, which also acquired the collections of other prominent figures in the region, including Crecencio Padilla, a civil rights activist and former LULAC president, and Joaquin Avila, a voting rights activist. In a time where history is being erased or diluted, Ornelas Rodriguez says it is important to preserve it and have tangible evidence of the past. “If people try to erase history, we can remind them,” he says. On the Record Longtime organizer Sabino Lopez donates his extensive archive of historical documents to Stanford University. By Celia Jiménez “If people try to erase history, we can remind them.” TALES FROM THE AREA CODE CELIA JIMÉNEZ Sabino Lopez kept part of his photographic records, including those when he was at La Paz, UFW’s former headquarters in Keene, California which is now the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument. Lopez hopes to include some of them in a book he is writing. Retired Lt. Colonel Anthony Aguilar and Dr. Rolla Alaydi will discuss the violation of international humanitarian law by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the connection between Israeli counterterrorism tactics and those being used by ICE and CBP agents on the streets of Minneapolis and other U.S. Cities. Free event. Monday, Feb 16, 4-6 pm Peoples Center for Progressive Change 1238 Fremont Blvd, Seaside kazu 90.3 a community service of CSU Monterey Bay NPRsm for the Monterey Bay Area
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