Episode 32: Water inheritance and futures
“I think it’s important to remember that, we’re very much reconciling these systems that we’ve inherited. The board 50 years ago was brought together at this really pivotal moment where we were needing to think differently about the way that we were protecting ultimately, as the basis of our economies, clean water, clean air!”
A conversation with Joaquin Esquivel (CA State Water Resources Control Board) about intergenerational systems, water histories, and the future of CA water governance. Released March 11, 2022.
guests on the show
Joaquin Esquivel
E. Joaquin Esquivel was appointed to the State Water Resources Control Board by Governor Jerry Brown in March 2017 and designated by Governor Gavin Newsom as Chair in February 2019. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary for federal water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency in the Governor’s Washington, D.C. office, where he facilitated the development of policy priorities between the agency, the Governor’s Office, the California Congressional delegation, and federal stakeholder agencies. For more than eight years prior to that he worked for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, most recently as her legislative assistant covering the agriculture, Native American, water, oceans, and nutrition portfolios, in addition to being the director of information and technology. He was born and raised in California’s Coachella Valley. He holds a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in English. Follow Joaquin Esquivel @ejesquivel.
Transcript
Faith Kearns
Welcome to Water Talk. Today we're super excited to have the opportunity to talk with Joaquin Esquivel. Joaquin is the chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. He was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019 after having served as a member of the Board since 2017. He previously served as the Assistant Secretary for federal water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency in the Governor's Washington, DC office, after having spent more than eight years working for Senator Barbara Boxer on a wide variety of issues, including water.
We're really excited to have Joaquin on the show today. I think that the State Water Board is something that's a ubiquitous presence in the life of anybody who works on California water issues. And yet, its role can still be somewhat confusing, especially during a time when we're dealing with drought, and all sorts of issues related to water rights and racial equity. There are a lot of things happening at the State Water Board right now. And so, I'm excited to talk with Joaquin about what some of those developments are. How about you, Sam, or Mallika?
Sam Sandoval
I am very excited to have this conversation with him for many different reasons. One of those is all the work that this administration has done related with the drought. Now in this case, the implementation of SGMA, the Human Right to Water, so many interesting things to talk about with Joaquin. The other one thing is that as a Hispanic, it’s good to just listen to Joaquin. I have met with him a couple of times. And he's just a good speaker. What about you, Mallika?
Mallika Nocco
Yes, I'm really just kind of curious to learn more about what he does and his role. And also I think it's a great opportunity to talk to somebody about the future in more of like a cohesive, concrete way in terms of the planning that's being done and some of the different initiatives that the Water Boards are taking as a whole as kind of a solid group. So, I'm excited for that component. And also it's really exciting for us here that we had an opportunity to speak with Felicia Marcus in season two. And I believe she held this same role on the Board. And it's interesting to talk to someone who had held the role in the past and talk to them about their vision, and then talk to the current chair as well and have him share his experiences and think about what his visions are for the future. So I'm really excited for that.
Faith Kearns
I think it'll be a great conversation, we're really lucky because Joaquin has always been very supportive of the podcast. And so, it's fun to be able to actually bring him on and talk with him today. So, let's jump right into our conversation with Joaquin.
Joaquin, welcome, we are so excited to have you on Water Talk. We'd love to start by asking you a bit more about you and your career path as someone who was born and raised in California, who is now working on such a vital issue in the state, and certainly in the area where you are born and raised, the Coachella Valley. So, what was your path like to get to where you are now?
Joaquin Esquivel
It wasn't a direct path. That's for sure. And first, of course, thank you for the opportunity to be able to join you all here. I’m a longtime listener, first time caller. So, the ability to be here with you to answer some questions, to reflect, and have a discussion is just really appreciated. So, thank you.
And yeah, it wasn't a direct path in the least. Taking a step back, I feel very fortunate to have grown up in the Coachella Valley, La Quinta to be exact. I'm just a little older than my actual city incorporated. Being able to grow up in the desert at a time of incredible change and still a lot of change out there, I was fortunate to feel very rooted in my community there in the desert.
On my father's side, third generation, Californian or American here. The family fled during the Mexican Revolution, fled the violence there, I came to the US, settled, but half of the family is settled in Buckeye, Arizona, and then the Esquivel side ultimately settled in Bakersfield. But on my father's side, they met as migrant farmworkers. And ultimately my father's parents decided to settle them there in the Coachella Valley, where my dad taught for 36 years at Oasis Elementary School, ultimately, the place where he attended and where my grandmother then also attended school. And then on my mother's side, I'm first generation, where my grandfather was a bracero, came over during the war, worked in the Coachella Valley. The family is originally from Jalisco and worked at Laughlin Day gardens, now Oasis Day Gardens. And it was through the generosity of Ben Laughlin that the family was sponsored and my mother who was born in Mexicali came and settled there in the Coachella Valley. So, both my parents worked for the school district. And so, I was very fortunate to always be very aware.
My grandparents lived on a ranch in Oasis there in Thermal, in the eastern Coachella Valley at Seaview Ranch, and my grandfather became a foreman on my father's side. So I visited the Salton Sea quite often as a child, and recreated there, and came to always be very aware of how close we - although I had a nice middle class upbringing - were to the challenges that still face so many of our communities, decades on. I say that because it informs a lot of who I am.
Ultimately, I went to UC Santa Barbara, but after a few lost years, and I was a transfer student from the College of the Desert, but I struggled because I was closeted growing up, and came out a couple years after high school and it wasn't until then that I really started to try to figure out what I really wanted to do. And I think like so many of us trying to map out - what is it that I best want to carry through into the years ahead? And for me, it was a love of literature. I was an English major at UC Santa Barbara, I thought ultimately I would go into teaching because of my passion for literature to reflect on other challenging times in human history, but through an understanding of what the factual history of a time may be. Really being able to use literature, in the stories we tell ourselves, the narratives we create, and then consume, as a way to really understand some of the challenges that we face.
Growing up queer and at a time - I graduated high school in the year 2000 - before so much of the changes that we've seen now I think, again, literature and activism and engagement in the challenges that we personally may face, but we can be connected to socially, was something that really kind of spoke to me. But you know, things happen. And I saw a flyer for the University of California's Washington DC program. And I thought, “that sounds like an interesting thing”. Like any good Californian, everything east of the Sierra Nevada is just an amorphous rest of the country. It's easy to become very contained here within the state. And then so I thought, “Well, it's my last quarter at UC Santa Barbara, why not go you find yourself an internship out there, and come back and for myself, be ready to continue my academic career and again, ultimately teach. But I interned in Senator Boxers’ office, and there was a afforded an opportunity to actually work in the Senator’s DC office there afterwards, and I had to make a real decision. “What am I doing here? I'm not a policy person, this isn't my path.”
When I was offered that position, it was to be a research assistant, and also the IT systems administrator. For many reasons, the offer and the path, just seemed to be not really where I was headed, and I had to make a decision whether to embark and I did. That ultimately led to about eight and a half years with the Senator in DC. I started my first issue that was kind of holding on to my own in my portfolio was Native American issues for Senator Boxer. That grew to agriculture and water. And then on the IT side, I became the IT director, where I always had an ability to sort of retreat into technical projects, as opposed to the policy side. We all know, how slow those things can move in DC and can sometimes feel like a Sisyphean and existential “what am I doing with my time if it isn't adding up to something?” and being able to have discrete tech projects to work on to improve was great.
I feel very fortunate for what was, again, an opportunity afforded me that really changed the trajectory of where I thought it was going to be going, and where I thought ultimately, I would be contributing. That opportunity then led to a moment where I was tapped by Governor Brown to work in his Washington DC office, just on water issues, which after doing ag, Native American issues, and water, all those were incredible for me because of the intersections amongst those policies, and the ability to have been exposed to so many incredible communities up and down the State and to be able to help serve.
I think that if there's a common theme, although again, not a direct route here to the Board, it is service and in public service that I've come to really see what it is that I feel I can best contribute to. That appointment out of DC by Governor Brown then led to an appointment here to the Board. And so, again, it wasn't a direct route. My opportunity to have worked with so many communities in California, I think of Susanville Indian Ranch area up north, who inherited military housing that was badly needed for the Tribe, but it came with terrible water quality issues. You can tell there were secondary contaminants such as magnesium and odor and taste issues, and I ultimately worked with the military to get it resolved. But, you know, it was opportunities like that, as I am at the Board, I feel I was provided engagement and opportunities with communities.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much for so candidly sharing your path. I think that there are many pieces of it that we could talk about for many hours. And I think that there are pieces of it that will resonate with lots of our listeners, for sure. We really appreciate hearing about that.
So, as you sort of ended with where you are right now, you're currently chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, I always get questions about what the Water Board is in does. So, for example, just last week, I was talking with a group of folks gathered through the Alameda County Libraries about drought. And they were asking me the difference between our local utility East Bay MUD and the San Francisco Water Quality Control Board. And I gave the best answer I could. But I still don’t feel I can quite always accurately address exactly what the differences are, with the Water Board and DWR, and things like that. So, can you talk a little bit about the Board and its role in California water issues, and then particularly your role as the Chair in that work?
Joaquin Esquivel
There are just a few agencies out there that deal with water in the state! Now with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, we have whole new agencies that are out there, and it can seem quite the Byzantine and complicated landscape. So, I'll do my best for the State Water Board. We oversee water quality in the state of California on the regulatory side with our nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards. Additionally, the State Board administers water rights. We also oversee the Division of Financial assistance, which since 2014, the State Board has been able to commit $9.75 billion in the state of California. Overseeing the Division of Financial Assistance is an incredible asset that we have. And I think sometimes a bit overlooked amongst the Board's general work here as well. And then additionally, we oversee drinking water regulation through our Division of Drinking Water, which only just came over in 2015, during the last drought.
The history of the Board takes from what was an office of water rights that was established in 1914. And then pollution control boards that were established in 1940. And that brought us to this incredible moment 50 years ago. I think it's important to remember that these institutions, especially here at the State Water Board, but you look at the Air Board, you look at all these really critical regulatory bodies that were created 50 years ago. And it was because of the incredible degradation and challenges that we were seeing across the nation. And certainly, even here, especially within our own borders. I think of the oil spill in Santa Barbara as a continuum of these moments that really crystallize that we have challenges, real challenges, with the quality of our waters, their ability to be used for beneficial uses into the future.
And so, 50 years ago, the Porter Cologne Water Quality Act was passed and it’s important to note even predates the Clean Water Act nationally. So, you have this moment where 50 years ago, California really stood up and said we have to better regulate water, we have to have purview, not just over quantity, but quality as well, because you can't separate the two. And you look across the nation and especially here in the West, oftentimes those activities are divided amongst different bodies. The State Board was really created 50 years ago to be that regulatory entity - to really start to move the needle to begin to better protect water quality, to begin to better manage our water resources.
I think it's important to reflect on that 50 year history now, especially as we look at the challenges that are facing our communities. Only what, five or six years ago, and in the height of the last drought was the Division of Drinking water brought over which really complemented, ultimately, this purview that the Board had around water rights around water quality. And then now also drinking water, when we talk about connecting the drops in our watersheds to be able to have a regulatory purview or an institution that for 50 years ago was incredibly innovative to say bring these two authorities together, better protect the state's the state's waters. To have then also this other component where, we have a public health hat, which we've always had in the vein of water quality, but in such a personal way, in our households and our homes, I think has only further sensitized the Board to what are a lot of challenges out there to manage our water resources, particularly in the face of climate change, and historic inequities that we're all inheritors of.
I think it's important to remember that we're very much reconciling these systems that we've inherited. 50 years ago the Board was brought together at this really pivotal moment where we were needing to think differently about the way that we were protecting the basis of our economies: clean water, and clean air, as well. A particular point of pride, again, that California was the model for what became a national effort to really address these incredible challenges that we have, and that we now really take for granted 50 years on, because we don't have as overt challenges. In some cases, there’s great successes that we can point to in the last 50 years when it comes to the quality of our waters. But there's also still a lot of challenges.
You look at our communities, and there have been great inequities in the way that ultimately clean water and drinking water have been addressed. But I feel that we're really critically at a generational moment here to be able to better understand it with all the infusion of funding on the federal side, and on the state side. So yeah, you can think of the State Water Board as for the state, as comprehensive as a regulatory body that we can pull together. But we are incredibly dependent upon where the real work happens in water management, which is on the local level. For all the discussion of programs and frameworks at the state level, we have an incredibly varied geography, it's why we have nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards, and all of that really comes to roost, all those challenges, whether it be climate change, or inequities we face come to roost at the local level. I feel fortunate to be part of this institution that has this incredible purview, but it doesn't automatically translate into some better system, I think it requires us to always be mindful of how we engage these institutions and to be mindful of again these 50-year histories.
Faith Kearns
I really appreciate hearing it explained that way and putting it into that context. And thinking about how folks are so focused on a future where these issues are even more integrated, right, where drinking water and water supply and things like that are thought of as a singular issue, which they are. And, it’s really interesting to think about that history of the Water Board, as you mentioned.
We've got no shortage of challenging water issues in our state right now, and I know it can be kind of hard to narrow down, but what do you see as the most sort of most challenging issue on the horizon when it comes to water in California? And what would be the role of the State Water Board in addressing that issue?
Joaquin Esquivel
Yeah, to your point, there's a lot of challenges that we're having to simultaneously address. I think of COVID as well, which is hard to really completely capture when it comes to the amount of change that so many water agencies have had to have gone through, including our own. It's been incredible to see that we're all continuing to be served clean water, we're all continuing to have our wastewater and sanitation managed. I think it speaks to the resiliency of the industry that COVID, even with all its challenges, didn't cause us to skip a beat. Neither did the economic downturn so far.
But there's huge challenges facing our water systems. And so, it's hard to think what to pluck out and think what might, you know, out of all of that be most important, but I think to me it's that we're living in a time where there's not a lot of trust in our institutions. There's a lot of space often for conspiracy, or just misinformation. And when you talk about water, going back to our points about the complexity of how water is managed in the state, where the State Board fits versus local agencies, there's a lot of space for misinformation and distrust in systems, in our water systems that are so fundamental. That does concern me. The decisions that we're having to make, the challenges that we're faced with now are really requiring us to be able to trust our institutions to work with and to be able to work within them. For me, it's seeing that there is this great distrust in government, there is sometimes here even a lack of seeing the same issue the same information, we're at the State Water Board, nothing but really just a big decision-making entity, you know, with our nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards, who each have seven Board members unto themselves. That’s over 60 individuals having to take in information from the public on individual and really complex water challenges within our watersheds, and try to build consensus. When we're engaging in a time where there seems to be such a lack of ability to use truth to then mobilize us to action, it does concern me.
I think how the Water Boards fit in there is that we're very public facing entities. My seat is, I'm one of five Board members at the State Board level, the public seat. Within the water code is this idea that there's a public seat, and I often reflect: what is it that I'm supposed to with that? We have a water lawyer, we have engineers, we have other specialties called health within the water code for appointments to the Water Board, and then you have a public seat. And for me, it's being able to communicate, and to ensure that there is access to our decision making in a way that encourages public engagement, not demands it, and certainly not requires it. We're looking to ensure that we're accessible, that we don't use jargon, and or otherwise create barriers, to provide public comment or to know when to best provide public comment. And so especially with that IT hat that I had in Senator Boxers’ office where, we were a staff of about 70, and that included state staff and trying to represent, a state of 40 million, requires the use of systems to best engage.
And I think, for me, it's been about how do we improve our website? How do we actually get a content management system on the back end of it? Some very fundamental projects. What I hope is it really bridges to conversations and allows communities to really connect in the decision making that we conduct on our level here, but importantly, as a continuum of decision making that happens water district by water district throughout the state, and there to the ability to access discussions to and to have transparency in decision making is so critical.
One of the greater challenges we have is continuing to be able to ensure that we have a common vision as Californians, and that we're inviting a whole new generation of thought leaders into the water sector, knowing that we're competing with many other sectors out there as well. We are also looking for the best and brightest to lead. And, you know, given the complexity of the challenges we face in the water sector, we really need to continue to open that door. What I'm always mindful of is how do we continue to provide a basis for discussion, show our homework at the Board as we are making our decisions and invite along anyone that's interested to engage in the discussion.
Faith Kearns
I appreciate that as a sort of meta-answer, that it's not just this one technical issue. But the larger issue of trust, which I do hear a lot from folks working on water, for sure, and can see the challenges for the Water Board. Stepping outside of just the Water Board alone, I'm wondering where you see the greatest potential to really make a difference on water in California. I'm thinking of this in the context, potentially, of just advice or thoughts for other folks working on water in the state.
Joaquin Esquivel
I've been incredibly encouraged these last years to really see the embrace of the use of decision support tools really starting to leverage the massive amounts of increased information and data that we have here in the 21st century that I can't help but feel just a little excited. There are projects out there like Open ET, which is a consortium of a number of groups, Environmental Defense Fund, Google, NASA, and state agencies like the Water Boards that have been tracking and helping provide feedback. Importantly, there's been increased trust being developed with agriculture around the use of the tool, where it's an ensemble of models for evapotranspiration. What that allows for is really high-quality data for decision making. And again, the common theme of where I continue to feel our work is best focused is: “How do we support that decision making amongst ourselves, not just at the Board as an institution, but that continuum?” importantly, in decision making from that local level.
It's tools like Open ET that brings me incredible joy to see and excitement, because it's unlocking a lot of potential for us to get past some of those challenges that I just talked about, around trust, around seeing a common vision, and consolidating around information in a way that leads to actual better actions, better decisions, here amongst us. We're looking to apply it in the context of water rights. Whereas we know, in the Delta, the measurement of water can be very tricky, because you have siphon pumps, you have different ways of measuring that can be very costly. And here with Open ET, you can create a proxy for what your evapotranspiration was on your property, what it would be if it wasn't irrigated, and what it is with irrigation to figure out something of a proxy number for applied irrigation in a given amount of time. That’s a project that's bubbling up now, within the next year we're hopeful to really see some progress on it. And, again, it is it is actually the Delta water users themselves that are embracing the tool and embracing the work as a low-cost alternative to what is otherwise a higher cost to try to actually measure and meter each diversion.
We’re at this moment where I think these tools are coming about and supercharged so many of the discussions that we're having in these next years. Whether it's groundwater recharge, whether it's how best to even make improvements on water quality at the landscape level, I think there are these tools that can start to better shine the light, if you will, on the collective work that we can be doing. And I'm excited to innovate ourselves as a regulatory entity. I don't think too many people think of regulations and innovation as something that goes hand in hand. But again, speaking to the kind of the provenance of the Board, and this unique purview, I think we have an opportunity, and I would say an obligation to make sure that we do continue to innovate these 50-year old programs by incorporating these tools. And what's helpful is the Board doesn't have to be the one developing them, which can come with sometimes a jaundiced eye, right? What, why is the Board doing that? The regulator, information coming from us can feel different. But if you have consortiums, you have groups of individuals on the outside, focused on these common decision support tools, these ways in which we can all see in common our landscapes and our watersheds and the challenges facing them. You know, it gives me great hope that we can continue to get into this next generation of challenges we certainly have before us.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much. That was a very concrete answer. So switching gears just a little bit, the Board has recently passed a resolution on racial equity. I'm wondering if you can just tell us a little bit about how that resolution came to be? What's in it, and what the sort of next steps toward real action on it are?
Joaquin Esquivel
I want to say that, if you go back to this lens of the last 50 years, and you go back to when Porter Cologne was passed, you go back to when the Clean Water Act was passed, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, it was this incredible time in the nation where I think we were all waking up, and we're looking around at our communities. And we're realizing they didn't look the way that we wanted them to. We were headed down the wrong path. And that included, importantly, civil rights. Because the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, these huge touchstone pieces of legislation were happening in this time where the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act were also happening.
I think it's important to remember that because now 50 years on, when we look around us again, we kind of have this moment with the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbury, and the list goes on. And what we find is that, again, we have incredible disparities. We're looking across at our communities and realizing that there's incredible inequity in the way that police justice is meted out, the way that water service is provided fundamentally, the way our economies do or don't support our communities. And so for us at the State Water Board, and for me personally, it was incredibly important to stand up and say that the government is part of the solution. We are a government for and by ourselves. And it means that we have to, although difficult, and not easy, race is incredibly difficult thing to discuss, it was incredibly difficult to discuss 50 years ago.
You look at our challenges. And not unlike on the clean water side, on access to clean water and drinking water, we've expanded access, we've taken care of a lot on the wastewater side, the pollution that was really plaguing so many of our communities. But there's still gaps, there's still huge inequities. And I think that we likewise see that, on the Civil Rights side, when we talk about race, and even now, the challenge of having discussions around race, I think it felt for us as a Board, and I know not just myself, but many of our Board, Board Member Firestone and others felt very personally that it was important for us to do our part, to be part of the conversation. And again, difficult, in a very personal way, as well. Because I know, I carry around me with me biases. I myself can become tongue tied as I try to really talk about race. It’s something that I've felt very personally. My first job was as a busser in the Coachella Valley at a high-end restaurant. The treatment that I received then, it stays with you, especially at that age.
I see personally how we're not there, and we're needing to make sure that we engage in a conversation that helps advance things. And that's the Board's resolution, or intention. We had a very public process, very intentionally public, and internal discussion. We didn't want this to be something that we just wrote up at the executive level and passed and felt was done. This was something that we wanted to engage at a very core level, and really explore the disparities within our own institution. Why are we not as reflective as the diversity of California? And to engage the water sector then, as well, in in a discussion around it. And again, not easy. And certainly, I think not with its own controversy to some. I think the greater controversy is to remain silent, and to act as if government institutions aren't important to all of this. And so, we've passed the resolution, we have an action plan that we're developing currently.
The effort is introspective, it's about us as an institution. How are we recruiting? How are we ensuring that we're tapping into the full potential of this state and its communities in the service of our mission. And it's also external facing, because, going back to that figure earlier than nearly $10 billion, that the Board has been able to invest since 2014 within the state. How are we making sure that that is bridging these inequities and these challenges that we see as well and that we're not remaining blind to a problem and then inadvertently contributing to its continuation?
It's certainly not an easy time to discuss these issues. They're currently political hot potato for sure. They're difficult not to then be painted with some of that political discussion. We've done our best to remain academic around the discussion and remain very open, and trying to, again, just best figure out how best we contribute to. Here, a really critical moment, again, 50 years on from so much progress, but also needing to reflect and reconcile that we still we still haven't gotten there, we don't have universal access to clean water, we don't have universal access to drinking water. And so, we end with now the bipartisan infrastructure law, and all these dollars flowing, it's such a critical time to really make sure that we are not perpetuating some of our worst challenges.
Mallika Nocco
So that leads really well into the next question. Thinking about racial equity and how challenging that issue can be and then also water and how contentious of an issue water is in California, what we were wondering is how you personally navigate working on this contentious issue every day? What are some of your self-care strategies? We're interested in hearing about that, because it is such a challenging issue, and you do that every day.
Joaquin Esquivel
Thanks. It's stressful out there, but I have to acknowledge, first and foremost, it's stressful for a lot of communities out there. I don't have to worry about access to clean water on a daily basis. I know I'm very fortunate. And again, you know, reflecting on my family's past and history, and where I come from, I use that to keep myself grounded. For all the stress or frustration or things that I may encounter, it's not nearly as stressful as many of the daily situations that our communities are faced with. I don't have too much to complain about. I try to keep myself as centered as I can. To keep things in context, as much as I can, remembering that, I'm just a single person in all of this decision making. I'm just trying to help create that space that improves all of our collective decision making together. Self-interest on my part, yes. Because then that makes my discussions easier if we have that better community, in the state. I think what I remind myself is to not make it about me. It can be easy to take things personally. There's a lot that gets thrown around in the water space. And I think that, for me, it's always remembering that folks are pursuing their self-interest. And that's okay.
What I'm trying to do is understand those interests in ways that balance. I can only do best by remaining open, and to listening. It’s a lot of remembering not to take things personally. And not to also inhabit an institutional ego. I see it amongst our program staff. Sometimes there's tensions between us and other agencies or there's tensions in the programs. Sometimes because folks feel they have to defend the Board, or that this institution has any feelings outside of what are really our own. It is really important to remember that the Board itself it doesn't have feelings. We impose those onto it.
Sam Sandoval
Thanks Joaquin. I'm seeing that you have a poster of Cesar Chavez behind you. Could you talk about that? Why is a poster of Cesar Chavez behind you?
Joaquin Esquivel
Going back to my family history, my father ended up going to Cal State Long Beach. And, during that time, he ended up marching in the Coachella Valley with Cesar Chavez, participating rather, in the marches in the Coachella Valley and going up to Delano, and ultimately, marching with Cesar there. I grew up always very much knowing that it was a huge part of our identity, the struggle, the ability to educate ourselves out of the fields. My name Joaquin is actually from Corky Gonzalez’ poem, “Yo Soy Joaquin” “I am Joaquin”. And my dad very much self-identifies as a Chicano. I do, as well, and dad had always said, “I'm going to have a son, and I'm going to name him Joaquin” because of his strong affiliation association with the movement. I very much grew up with that, and I am a beneficiary of the organizing, that went on. The improvement of living conditions, and ultimately my path here. And so, it's always a touchstone for me, and a reflection.
Sam Sandoval
Thank you for your public service, thank you for sharing your path. And for our young listeners, to speak to the experiences that you had, at the time, and for the transparency. We always like to end by asking our guests, for us and our listeners, how can we support your efforts and the work that you do?
Joaquin Esquivel
I want to say that you guys have been doing so by having these discussions and by lifting voices and issues here in water that don't often get covered, and certainly not in the way that you all have, through the discussions and interviews that you've had. So, I want to say first and foremost, that you have been doing what is some of the most important work, which is opening up the dialogues, engaging, on just such a myriad of complex issues that are facing our watershed. Continue to do that, please.
For all that water touches, and for all that we engage around it, it's not as deep a bench as sometimes I think it could be. It needs to be and that will continue to grow to be. So, I ask that we continue to inspire each other, to be creative, to be curious about the challenges that are facing our communities and water because we're going to need that curiosity. Hopefully that passion from folks out there, who may or may hear a discussion around water and may think, “You know, I never imagined myself in the career around water,” but may find themselves to be Chair.