Yesterday, California Watch unleashed a blockbuster of a story on the hellhole that is the slums of the Coachella Valley, the home to the people that pick all those dates us OCers love to slurp up in shakes and many other crop. Buried in reporter Patricia Leigh Brown's piece is a local connection: the man who runs a health clinic in Duroville, the most notorious of the Coachella Valley's shantytowns, is OC through and through.
Dr. Alberto Manetta is a professor emeritus at UCI's School of Medicine and runs the Duroville Health Clinic. He's also the board president over at Latino Health Access, that wonderful SanTana-based non-profit that always gets grief from gabachos because, you know, they try to make sure Mexis stay healthy and shit lest they become government burderns.
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Brown noted the findings of two surveys Manetta commissioned regarding his patients. “Ninety-five percent of residents do not have Internet access,” she wrote. “Only 8
percent finished high school. One-third lack air conditioning. More than
half have no source of hot water for bathing, with children using
leftover cooking water to wash. Chronic conditions like diabetes and
tobacco and alcohol addiction abound.”
Our sombrero is tipped to Doc Manetta, for serving in Hell and for showing again what LHA is about: selfless humanitarianism instead of the Reconquista bullshit our supervisors slam them for again and again.
