Vida En El Valle Blogs: The Latin voice of the central valley.

Antonio José Elgorriaga, the greatest soccer coach the San Joaquín Valley has been blessed with, died yesterday (Dec. 16) following a long illness. He was 82 years old. We — both the soccer community, Latinos and the overall community — have lost a great man. Known as ‘The Eagle’ by those in his soccer circle [...]

When news broke this week (check Rebecca Plevin’s excellent report in this week’s issue of Vida en el Valle) that the 28th annual ¡Viva El Mariachi! Festival would not happen this spring, I immediately thought about all the great music I have been privileged to hear because of the festival. But first, I have to [...]

¡Felicidades! to Salma Hayek, who married French gazillionaire Francois-Henri Pinault on Valentine’s Day in Paris. I guess the Mexican defeat of the French on Cinco de Mayo is now meaningless. To the loser goes the spoils.           I’m not crying ¡injusto! about the marriage … after all, I’m a happily married [...]

Props to the Fresno County Office of Education for always making the Academic Decathlon a colorful experience for participating students and their families. In the past, the festivities have included Civil War enacters and Chinese dragon dancers. Last Saturday at the Clovis East High School gym, members of the Mexican dance group Los Paisanos de [...]

I’m not sure if you watched KMPH Channel 26′s news last evening and if your mouth was left wide open with remarks made by Lloyd Carter of the California Water Impact Network. In response to reporter Ashley Ritchie’s question about the impact that the water cutoff from the Delta would have on thousands of farmworker [...]

I can’t help but think about the impact that a 17-year-old Ritchie Valens had on the music industry by the time he died in a tragic airplane crash in a frozen cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa half a century ago. When I was his age, I wrote for the Delano High School Live Wire but [...]