Equality and housing in Santa Clara County
Last month’s Women’s Equality Day Celebration hosted by the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women bore witness to the triumphs and challenges women still face. It is staggering to think that 2019 marks the 99th year since the passage of the...
Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting victims: We owe them a memorial
The large teddy bear has a layer of dust, and the candles are burned out. The cut flowers are wilted. Some of the handwritten notes are smudged by the morning dew, others are faded by the late-summer sun or were distributed along the Uvas...
Reinforcing the future
Last month I was invited to photograph remnants from Gilroy’s past, several fragments of circus posters from the 1800s revealed when rafters were exposed during renovations at 7533 Monterey Street, once the home of Mafalda’s Bridal Shop. As the circuses involved operated in the...
Moon landing saved Joe
On July 20, 1969—50 years ago—a team of about five American soldiers was surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of Vietnamese. As the enemy closed in, all the brave Americans could do was hunker down and wait for the inevitable—scared, as flashbacks of home...
We shall overcome
The Gilroy Unified School District has been working cooperatively with the Gilroy Police Department since the tragic shooting occurred. Multiple school facilities have been made available for evacuations, space for law enforcement to use as they see fit and housing for people who couldn’t...
Gilroy, stay strong
Gilroy is where my home and businesses are located.
My family and lifelong friends also have their families, lives, homes and businesses in the Garlic Capital of the World.
We are a close-knit community. My family and I volunteer at the Garlic Festival to help raise...
Mental illness doesn’t explain gun violence
The notion that mental illness drives the current spate of mass shootings is a dangerous oversimplification. Some shooters, such as the Aurora. Col., movie theater gunman James Holmes, yes, have had diagnosed mental illness, while others have not. To unfairly stereotype people with conditions...
What can we do?
“Do Something! Do Something!”
The chants rang out loud and clear in Dayton, Ohio. There hasn’t been much of a response.
The signs at vigils in Texas read, “No more guns.” In Texas, well, not much of a response.
The calls to action in these cities followed...
Garlic Festival Shooting EDITORIAL: Reclaim our public spaces
We have read about the horrific incidents around the country for years now. Locations like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas Strip and Parkland have been etched into our collective memory and will be henceforth associated with senseless loss of life. Never...
Photographer’s Notebook from the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting: On the front lines
By Robert Eliason
After initial reports of a mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, I was assigned by the Gilroy Dispatch to go to St Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy.
When I got there, there were small groups of people everywhere, huddling together. There were...