New Voices from the Valley – Board of Contributors Will Reflect Diverse Region

By Dennis Ryerson
San Jose Mercury News
Jan. 19, 2003

At long last, the Mercury News opinion pages are proud to present members of our new board of contributors. Beginning this week, board members will be contributing regular columns for our pages.

They represent one cross section of our region. I used the word “one” purposefully, to acknowledge that a group of 20 individuals cannot possibly represent every slice of cultural, economic, geographic, age or lifestyle diversity in any community, much less one as large and diverse as ours.

But this group will greatly expand the range of voices you read on our pages. From high school student to CEO, social service worker to homemaker, public-benefit organization manager to medical professional, they will offer strong opinions and heartfelt comment that will, I hope, challenge, inform and entertain you.

In addition to columns from board members, we will continue to publish “My View” commentary submitted by individuals with a special knowledge of or interest in specific issues.

And we’ll continue to run a rich mix of letters to the editor, including as always those taking the Mercury News editorial board to task for its views. We can’t print all of the hundreds of letters we receive each week, but we try to ensure that our letters section accurately reflects the views that come to us via mail, e-mail or fax.

We’ll continue to run a blend of syndicated columns from the right, the left and the center.

But the board of contributors should bring new, grass-roots perspectives to the pages.

Sample columns from board members provide a glimpse of what’s coming. Among other things, they are about struggles to find a home in San Jose, challenges facing immigrants to our community, sexism at high schools and out-of-work tech workers.

Their columns are written from the street-level, office-level, classroom-level perspective of people directly involved in the topics they write about. We anticipate running board of contributor columns at least twice a week.

All but two of the writers live in Silicon Valley, and the others have close Valley connections and interests. Here are the board of contributor members, what they do and where they live:

Maribel Alvarez, former executive director MACLA, San Jose.
Rekha Balu, writer, San Jose.
Gloria Chun Hoo, museum director, San Jose.
Harmeet Dhillon, lawyer, Portola Valley.
Lain Chroust Ehmann, writer, Monte Sereno.
Allison Espejo, finance business analyst for Cisco, San Jose.
Alan Feinberg, president of TEKSTART, Los Gatos.
Yolanda Garcia, director, Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development, San Jose.
Jessica Heinzelman, teacher, community activist, San Francisco.
Jerry Hiura, dentist, San Jose.
Hosun Lee, part-time student, former tech worker, San Jose.
Scott Peterson, community college math teacher, San Jose.
Edna Sewill, retired media specialist, San Jose Unified School District, San Jose.
Ragini Srinivasan, Presentation High School student, San Jose.
Truong Tran, poet, creative writing teacher, San Francisco.
Clark Williams, program manager, Santa Clara County Department of Public Health, San Jose.
Robert Wright, teacher, San Jose.
Emerick Woods, President and CEO, Coherity, Palo Alto.
Deanna Wulff, former tech worker, Cupertino.
Steve Yamaguma, president of a design and marketing agency, Santa Clara.

We hope you enjoy their work, and that you'll respond with letters to the editor providing your own thoughts on issues of interest to all of us.