Our Streets is a column by writer and reporter Ray Levy Uyeda that highlights activists, artists, and organizers who are doing the work and reclaiming power for the people.
When Lorena Gonzalez was first elected to the California state legislature in 2013, gig work was just getting started. The food delivery service DoorDash launched that same year, and Uber had only been around for a couple years before that. Gonzalez had learned about labor issues growing up — Gonzalez’s father was an immigrant from Mexico who worked picking strawberries in San Diego, and her mother, a nurse, raised her as a single parent. But the ones she was asked to tackle in Sacramento were different.
