By Special to The Post

The premier August event in Oakland will unite business leaders, policymakers, and innovators to drive the next generation of California’s economic growth.

The California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce (CHCC) has officially announced “Powering the Future” as the theme for its 47th Annual Statewide Convention. The landmark event will be held August 19-21 at the Oakland Marriott City Center in Oakland, California. 

For nearly 50 years, the CHCC has been the frontline champion of California’s small-business ecosystem. As the economic landscape evolves, “Powering the Future” signals bold momentum—emphasizing the innovation, resilience, and leadership needed to fuel the next generation of entrepreneurs and community leaders. The theme bridges the CHCC’s foundational advocacy over the past 47 years with a strategic vision for rapid economic transformation. 

Driving Innovation and Economic Influence

As California leads global trends in technology, clean energy, and entrepreneurship, Hispanic-owned businesses are at the helm. From harnessing artificial intelligence and accelerating digital transformation to pioneering sustainable practices, Latino entrepreneurs are actively shaping tomorrow’s industries.

“Hosting this convention in Oakland is deeply meaningful,” said Noel Gallo, who represents Council District 5. “Approximately 28% of Oakland’s population is Latino, and their contributions shape every aspect of our civic, cultural, and economic life.”

Latino‑owned businesses are central to our city’s growth; they drive job creation, revitalize commercial corridors, strengthen neighborhood identity, and contribute to innovation across sectors including construction, hospitality, education, retail, arts, professional services, and more, Gallo asserts.

“These enterprises do more than generate revenue; they anchor family legacies, nurture community pride, and create spaces where culture and commerce meet,” Gallo said.

“Following a period of significant economic transformation, ‘Powering the Future’ is more than a theme—it is a collective call to action,” said Julian Cañete, president and CEO of the CHCC. “Our businesses and future leaders aren’t merely adapting to change; they are driving it. This convention will showcase the innovation and leadership needed to build a stronger, more prosperous California for generations to come.”

Cañete is also excited to have Oakland as the organization’s host city. Noting Oakland’s historical significance and deep-rooted diversity “From its legacy as center of social movements to its modern identity as a hub for innovation, sustainability, and small business growth, Oakland embodies the resilience and creativity that define our state,” Cañete added. “We are proud to contribute to this dynamic community’s ongoing momentum and economic vitality.” 

Three Days of Impact, Connection, and Advocacy

The CHCC Annual Convention empowers Hispanic and diverse businesses and communities while fostering connections and advancing economic opportunities. The convention features impactful presentations on business development, current business trends, economic and community development, and policy-oriented discussions.

Attendees can connect with business leaders, thought leaders, elected officials, and other Hispanic and diverse small business and community leaders. Participants establish strategic, long-lasting partnerships through direct personal engagement, best-practice sharing, interactive dialogue, networking workshops, and more.

The agenda includes an annual business matchmaking program, dynamic panels and speakers, an exhibition hall, awards ceremonies, and meal events highlighting the remarkable achievements of Hispanic and diverse businesses and communities.

The CHCC Annual Awards celebrate Hispanic and diverse companies and communities for their hard work, ingenuity, dedication, and contributions to California’s economy. The CHCC Annual Convention also aims to advance a diverse supply chain and create expanded business opportunities for diverse entrepreneurs and communities.  

The Oakland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is the source for this report.

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The Oakland Black-Eyed Pea Festival (BEPF), a celebration of African American traditional music, food and art, will return to its roots through a partnership with Farms to Grow, Inc., the hosts of the Freedom Farmers’ Market on Sept. 12.

Now in its 11th year, the downsized festival sponsored by Omnira Institute will open with presentations by Wakan Wiya Two-Spirit Drum, a drum invocation for the ancestors by Awon Ohun Omnira, a performance by Andre Thierry of Accordion Soul, and most importantly, fresh black-eyed peas for sale.

Freedom Farmers’ Market (FFM) vendors sell produce and promote wellness and nutrition through organic herbs, massage, and other gift items from July through October on the second and fourth Saturdays at a dozen canopies in the last block of Shattuck Avenue, where it merges with Telegraph Avenue.

Over the years, FFM vendors have appeared at the Black-Eyed Pea Festival and vice versa, so this collaboration is like a family reunion.

Farms to Grow, Inc. Executive Director Elaine Smith said the collaboration with Omnira Institute was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse. “People talk about community and unity for Black people – I always want to be an example of what has to be done,” Smith said. “Anyway that we can partner with our people, we want to do that.”

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Charlotte Jackson, a longtime vendor with FFM and the festival, had been known for her jellies, jams and chow-chow through Pots n’ Jars. For the last several years, she hasn’t been able to find a commercial kitchen she can afford, so she began selling vegan soap and skin care products that her son and his partner produce under the name Lather and More.

“It’s been a blessing,” said Jackson, who will tell her customers that although they can order the wares from the website, there’s no such thing as ‘smell-avision.” From her table, she encourages passers-by to take a sniff of the soaps, then directs them to the nearby booths.

Jackson functions as a sort of ‘town crier’ of ‘buying Black,’ never failing to encourage Black people to take their mule or Pontiac or Chevrolet and steer it toward Black businesses like Mandela Market.

Likewise, the Black-Eyed Pea Festival was established to encourage Black entrepreneurship by providing a space for Black creatives to sell their handmade or original designs and products without competing with commercially produced goods.

It also served as a way to both commemorate and invigorate memory of the once-thriving Black community of West/North Oakland before it was divided by highways, BART, and then ravaged by the crack cocaine epidemic.

“For one day, I wanted to invoke the success of that community through the sound of music, the taste of soul food and black-eyed peas and the beauty of our art,” Ravernell said.

Once deciding to follow through on the idea of holding a festival celebrating African American traditions, Ravernell settled on using the black-eyed pea as its symbol because of its pride of place in Black people’s consciousness on New Year’s Day and because the peas were originally cultivated in Africa.

Learning that Fresno farmer Wil Scott, former president of the California African American Farmers Association, grew black-eyed peas as well as other legacy crops that are the foundation of a soul food menu, Ravernell was intent on ensuring Scott’s presence at the first festival in 2014. Whenever he could, and whenever the weather yielded a bountiful crop, Scott would bring his black-eyed peas to the festival, shelled or on the pods.

Originally cultivated in Africa, the black-eyed pea is believed to have been brought to the U.S. hidden in the hair of African captives brought to the Western Hemisphere during the holocaust of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Known to grow plentifully even in poor soil, the pea was associated with abundance in Africa and later, in the U.S., with good luck.

She also learned that black-eyed peas nourish poor soil, that they are a very good source of nutrition, and that they probably contributed to the longevity of the enslaved.

“I thought the black-eyed pea, its story and its significance for Black people made it a great symbol to represent Black culture,” she said. In spite of everything they endured, Black people emerged from slavery and Jim Crow as masters of making a lot from a little, creating a culture that would be emulated and imitated at home and abroad.

Feeling that many people know only the most recent iterations of Black music – Hip Hop and R&B – she created the festival to promote the music of earlier eras, which reflect the thoughts and feelings of Black people over time.

That’s why the festival highlights straight-ahead jazz, gospel, zydeco and the Second Line of the New Orleans jazz funeral.

“It’s not enough to remember,” Ravernell said. “We need to actively nourish the roots of our culture.”

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A recent show on radio station KPFA 94.1 featured a discussion about the racialized threats to less affluent urban public school districts as state authorities pressure school leaders to take out bailout loans to resolve budget shortfalls. These loans come with draconian terms that eliminate the authority of voter-selected school boards and impose extreme austerity measures, including the closure of many schools in poorer neighborhoods.

A dozen mostly minority school districts have been forced under state control in the past 20 years, including the Oakland Unified School District. At present, Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD), an ethnically and racially diverse district of about 42,000 students, is the target, but the district’s school board and the community are fighting back.

Speaking on the July 15 show, “Education Today,” hosted by education professor Kitty Kelly Epstein, Taylor Kayatta, a certificated public accountant (CPA) who serves as the first vice president of SCUSD, spoke about the ongoing struggle of their board and community to keep SCUSD from being taken over.

“There’s been pressure on my school district for over a decade now; there’s a feeling (from the state) that we’re intrinsically broken, that we cannot manage our finances,” said Kayatta, who has two elementary students in SCUSD.

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“It reached a fever pitch a couple of years ago before COVID; I really felt it as a parent in the community that they were coming for us,” he said.

“Within the past year, they’re back at it again,” he said. “The pressure right now to accept a state loan is something I am not sure I could even describe.”

He said that the outside authorities would not even allow the board to hire its own financial adviser to help find solutions; the state takeover is the only option they want.

“We have a county superintendent in Sacramento County (who) has been on the job for decades. It’s been his mission, in my opinion, that something is wrong with Sac City Unified, that we are the problem child; we need outside control, (and) we shouldn’t be running ourselves,” said Kayatta.

In a district where enrollment is slightly declining, and many students have complex educational needs, SCUSD does face financial difficulties, he continued.

“There’s going to be challenges with the budget in the long term, but I think we need to address that in a way that is community-driven, with the community understanding what it means rather than accepting some blanket (imposed) ‘best practice’ that often involves making dramatic, harsh cuts, things like closing schools without plans.

“If you need to make cuts, make them in a way that makes sense rather than just trying to save a dollar this school year,” he said.

For example, closing a school may save a little money in the short run but almost always means loss of student enrollment as families move out of the district, which ends up costing a district more than it saves and can lead to a cycle of decline and demoralization.

Closely allied with the County Superintendent is the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), “which has been at the heels of this district as long as I’ve lived in the district,” he said.

FCMAT is a state-funded nonprofit based in Bakersfield that has been granted sweeping authority under state law to pressure school districts to adopt fiscal austerity.

In theory, something like FCMAT would be a good thing, an agency that would help districts that face some financial difficulties, he said. “But my experience and the experience of people in Sacramento is that they’re an outside agency that has its own motivations.”

“They are not about helping you save your budget and helping you get through temporary (issues). They’re more about taking control over a district that they think shouldn’t be running itself.”

A school board is democratically elected and exists as “the people’s voice,” Kayatta said. Local schools need leadership that understands the problems and issues the community faces, “not an outside appointed group of people from Bakerfield who don’t really understand what Sacramento needs,” he said.

Show host Kitty Kelly Epstein, who actively opposed the state takeover of Oakland schools two decades ago, discussed its impact, which formally lasted until OUSD’s bailout loan was repaid in June 2025.

“When a district is taken over by the state, that means the school board loses all their power, which means that the electors, that’s the residents, lose all their power because they don’t get to elect anybody. There’s somebody put in charge, and they make all the decisions.”

“In the case of Oakland, Oakland’s debt could have been solved internally. That was not allowed by the state senator at the time, Don Perata,” she said.

“The actual amount that the district needed was about $37 million, and they were not allowed to use their own money to cover the debt. The loan that was imposed without the will of the people of Oakland was a $100 million. They fired the superintendent, brought in a state receiver, and spent the $100 million on whatever they wanted because there was no participation by people in Oakland,” she said.

“I know it sounds shocking. It was shocking, and Oakland was not the only district. There were others: Inglewood, Vallejo, Compton, said Kelly Epstein.

“The people who often have the least amount of input anyway, because of inequalities and racism in our system, get the little bit of participation that they have in schools, which is to elect a school board, taken away from them.”

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