The Brief

Social justice activists who’ve wanted to help Filipinos have traditionally gravitated toward well-known communities near downtown L.A., Carson, Cerritos and other cities. But some Gen Z Filipinos are going straight to the San Fernando Valley, a lesser known enclave where people also need help.

I talked to two of them, Rica Roque and Gigi Gonzales-Palmer, at the Panorama Woodman Center, a strip mall where businesses are now mostly owned by Filipinos. Around us, bakeries and markets were selling prepared Filipino dishes and imported products from the Philippines.

Panorama City has many Filipino businesses, from supermarkets to bakeries.

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Roque is the secretary general of Migrante San Fernando Valley, a group that works with migrant workers and their families. The local branch opened in June this year.

“A huge part of the work that we do is getting to know them, getting to know their stories, their struggles, their conditions,” he said.

At 27 years old, Roque is an older Gen Zer who attended De La Salle University in Manila before moving here in 2017. He’s worked doing freelance photo and video for businesses and nonprofits.

The Filipinos he meets in the Valley — both those who have come to the U.S. from the Philippines and those of Filipino descent — work in a range of jobs and professions, from nurses and other professionals in the healthcare industry to civil servants, as well as restaurant and retail workers.

His group focuses on those experiencing hardships, which in many cases are people working in lower wage service sector jobs.

He grew up in the Philippines and uses that background to reach out to workers, while Gonzales-Palmer draws on her roots in the Valley.

“I love the Valley. I've grown up most of my life here,” she said.

Gonzales-Palmer is secretary general of Anakbayan Panorama City, a national U.S. Filipino youth group with its origins in the Philippines. It opened in March.

Gonzales-Palmer is 23 and earned her bachelor’s degree in film and women’s studies in 2021 and a master’s in documentary film in 2022. She now works part time at a Filipino bakery.

Rica Roque (left) and Gigi Gonzales-Palmer work for social justice groups in the San Fernando Valley.

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The Valley loves the Valley

Working in this area brings its own challenges, they said. Older organizations in other parts of Southern California have storefronts or other spaces for meetings and events. But because Roque and Gonzales-Palmer’s groups are so new, it’s hard for them to find appropriate locations for get-togethers.

“We often do boba shops or businesses that are kind of noisy, or parks that get dark at night and aren't, like, the best to be around,” said Gonzales-Palmer.

Once they start talking to people who live in the area, however, they say they hear people express a desire to help each other out.

“The Valley loves the Valley, people really look out for each other there,” Gonzales-Palmer said.

A lot of her outreach happens at Panorama High School, she said, because the school has a large population of students of Filipino descent and some of them belong to the Filipino student club on campus.

“We fight for the issues of Filipino youth and students and give a voice to the youth. Youth have a strong fighting spirit, especially Filipino youth,” she said.

“Some of these youth have experienced family separation. They've been separated or they're currently separated from family members away in the Philippines. They carry the burden of wanting to go to a good college and get a good job so their family doesn't have to continue struggling,” she said.

Now, however, she sees many people finish college with graduate degrees and still find it difficult to get work — including her.

“I'm struggling through a lot of these same issues that a lot of youth are struggling [with]. I have a master's and I am still not employed,” Gonzales-Palmer said. “The future looks bleak for many people.”

Because of this, helping remove roadblocks for Filipinos younger than her is personal. She works to make the high school students see themselves as belonging on a college campus and talks to them about the college admission process. Without parents or siblings who have gone to college, some students struggle to know the basics about how to enter higher education.

To offer support, her group organized a trip to a national Filipino youth conference at UCLA last year to get students familiar with a college campus — and meet young Filipino activists from other parts of the country.

Gonzales-Palmer said they learned “there’s more ways to be a member of the community beyond just going to school and stuff.”

Starting from the ground up

Roque said they’re building communities from the ground up by helping Filipinos with things like food insecurity and basic needs — and negotiating for their rights at work.

“We talk to a lot of the workers in… North Hills… experiencing wage theft,” Roque said.

He gave an example of a man he talked to recently who had been working for the same food preparation company for 20 years.

“He started off with, I think, $16 or $17 an hour. But he's still receiving the same amount of salary or wage [today],” Roque said.

“When you’re experiencing these issues,” Roque added, “it's a struggle to not lose hope and motivation to keep on fighting. I think that's what we also do as organizers. We make people learn and think that, ‘Oh yeah, we can change these things’ not just for you, but also for other people."

Gonzales-Palmer said many students have a lot of fear around ICE and being an immigrant.

"I think that's actually pushed more students to get involved and be more political," she said. "Earlier this year, students across the San Fernando Valley, including from Panorama High, including from the Filipino Club, participated in walkouts to show the Valley that people care about migrants and that students won't stop and stand for the raids and the way people treat migrants."

The Orange County Board of Supervisors “undermined” the public’s trust when they granted themselves a 25% pay increase, according to the latest OC Grand Jury report released on Monday.

Since 2005, supervisors were set to make 80% of a Superior Court judge’s salary. That changed in June, when the board approved a 25% pay hike, increasing their salaries by about $49,000 to at least $244,000.

The pay increase raised eyebrows over the summer, sparking the Grand Jury investigation. A Grand Jury is a panel of citizens who investigate local government and public agencies. Members serve one year and look into several issues during that time.

It came just weeks after former Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced to five years in federal prison for accepting more than $550,000 in bribes. The county itself is also financially in hot water following the Airport Fire, which has racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in damage claims against the county.

“The timing was especially troubling as the County of Orange (County) has been facing hiring freezes and budget constraints,” the Grand Jury reported. “This decision was not only tone-deaf — it reflected a deeper disconnect from the Board’s duty to serve the public with transparency and fiscal responsibility.”

What does the Grand Jury say? 

The Grand Jury questioned how the item was presented to the public and whether it was purposefully buried within the county budget agenda item.

“The Board added their salary increase into the $10.8 billion 2025-2026 Orange County Annual Budget adoption process. This resulted in a minimal description in the agenda and minimal opportunity for citizen input,” the Grand Jury reported. “Therefore, the Grand Jury investigated: why did they want to conceal their salary increase, was it warranted at this time and who initiated it?”

The board’s vote, the Grand Jury stated, signifies that the board prioritizes personal gain over accountability and public trust.

“Elected officials are entrusted to serve, not to enrich themselves. When this happens, the foundation of representative democracy is undermined,” the Grand Jury said. “The people of Orange County deserve better, and the people must demand it.”

How are officials responding? 

OC Supervisor Katrina Foley — the lone dissenting vote on the raises — said she was not surprised by the Grand Jury’s findings.

“I think most people felt that it was poor form for that to happen at that time, and given our current economic instability due to what's happening at the federal and the state level,” Foley told LAist.

Following the criticism, Supervisors Vicente Sarmiento and Doug Chaffee said they would donate their increased pay to charity.

“I am open to considering the recommendations in the report for changes to the pay ordinance and how future increases are approved, and I have been open to reconsidering the pay increase,” Sarmiento said in a statement.

A county spokesperson and Supervisor Don Wagner declined to comment. Supervisor Doug Chaffee and Janet Nguyen did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What’s next? 

The report made a handful of recommendations, including that the board rescind the pay raise and salary changes by next March “to restore institutional trust and demonstrate a genuine commitment to transparency and accountability.”

It also recommends that the board adopt procedures for proposing, reviewing and approving future supervisor salary changes that include public hearings.

The county has 90 days from the release of the report to respond to the Grand Jury, according to a county spokesperson.

The increase of federal immigration sweeps in Southern California this year made one thing clear to street vendors without authorization to be in the U.S. — running a business outside was risky.

In response, L.A. nonprofit Inclusive Action for the City ramped up an existing program that trains street vendors to work in private catering.

“One of the big successes of the year was the growth of our Hire a Vendor program, where our business coaches essentially became brokers for our street vendors and other entrepreneurs so they can get catering jobs,” said Rudy Espinoza, the group’s CEO.

The program was created in 2024 but the group expanded it this year after the increase of immigration sweeps. The group said in its annual report that 34 small businesses were trained for catering this year and more than 350 catering jobs came to those trainees this year.

The training program includes menu design and pricing, electronic sales systems and marketing

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“Everywhere from the mayor's house to a small backyard party,” Espinoza said.

The group’s effort is part of actions taken by individuals and groups across the region to help people targeted for detention keep sources of income.

That help has included buyouts of daily inventory of fruit and flowers, as well as the awarding of grants to street vendors who lost income because they stayed home.

Advocates said the loss of income through detentions — many carried out through violent means — often affected family members who were U.S. citizens and has created a humanitarian crisis as families have lost the means to pay bills and buy food.

Street vendors in a Hire a Vendor session organized by Inclusive Action for the City.

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The vendor training program sought to alleviate that.

“Sometimes, challenges force us to think, be creative and think about how to adapt,” Espinoza said. “The Hire a Vendor program is just an example of how some entrepreneurs really dedicated themselves to build out a different line of business for themselves.”

How it works

The Hire a Vendor program is free to people who seek and receive micro-loans from Inclusive Action for the City.

Four of the program’s nine sessions are "office hours" in which a business coach works one-on-one with the business owner.

The trainings cover:

• Catering basics such as delivery, set-up and presentation
• Invoicing and electronic sale systems
• Menu design and pricing
• Marketing through social media

The trained vendors are free to pursue their own catering jobs but also get catering work through a portal created by Inclusive Action for the City.

Espinoza said one full-time employee oversaw the program this year, and he’d like to add another full-time worker to expand the trainings in 2026.

The Trump administration will resume garnishing wages from student loan borrowers in default in early 2026, the U.S. Education Department confirmed to NPR.

The move comes after a years-long pause in wage garnishment due to the pandemic.

"We expect the first notices to be sent to approximately 1,000 defaulted borrowers the week of Jan. 7," a department spokesperson told NPR. The spokesperson said wage-garnishment notices are expected to increase on a monthly basis throughout the year.

A borrower is in default when they have not made loan payments in more than 270 days. Once that happens, the federal government can try to collect on the debt by seizing tax refunds and Social Security benefits and also by ordering an employer to withhold up to 15% of a borrower's pay. Borrowers should receive a 30-day notice from the Education Department before this wage garnishment begins.

Betsy Mayotte, the president and founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, says even though borrowers have expected this, the timing is unfortunate.

"It will coincide with the increase in health care costs for many of these defaulted borrowers," she said, referring to the premium increases for Affordable Care Act health insurance that kick in in 2026. "The two will almost certainly put significant economic strain on low- and middle-income borrowers."

About 5.5 million borrowers currently are in default, according to a recent analysis of the latest federal student loan data published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a public policy think tank.

Another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and 2.7 million are in the early stages of delinquency.

"We've got about 12 million borrowers right now who are either delinquent on their loans or in default," Preston Cooper, who studies student loan policy at AEI, told NPR.

That's more than 1 in 4 federal student loan borrowers.

Cory Turner contributed to this story.

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