The Small California Farm Town That Puts Kids First
Against All Odds, Gonzales—Population 9,000—Offers Services That Touch the Lives of All Its Young People
What if California actually decided to put the needs of its poor kids first? What would that look like?
Here’s one answer: it might look like Gonzales, a small city of 9,000 people—many of them farmworkers—along Highway 101 in the Salinas Valley.
The people of Gonzales don’t have educational credentials (less than 10 percent of adults over 25 have a college degree) or wealth (the median income is less than $17,000 annually). But they do have one incredible resource: youth. Thirty-six percent of the population is under the age of 18, and …