​Our Story

​Founded in 2013, we are a not-for-profit organization based in Silicon Valley, CA with the goal of unifying our community to achieve real, long-lasting changes in the areas of immigration, housing, and environmental justice.

On  March 7 of 2013, fueled by the energy to change the inequality in our barrios and meet our community’s basic needs, community organizers and activists (who prior experience in labor unions including the United Farmworkers) worked to design and implement a survey campaign that would be conducted in person with the intention of having discussions with community members.  Organizers saw the need to build connections and trust with the community.
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In 2014 the survey results were presented in a formal document. These presented a series of issues the community thought were important, such as healthcare, education, jobs and housing. Neighbors in the Tropicana-Lanai community got together in house meetings to talk about these issues and how they were being impacted by them. 

From these meetings, the community begin to plan ways to address the concerns. The first step was to create a structure of leadership, help bond community and have a universal understanding that nothing moves forward with one person alone, for this reason the title of the survey reports were : “We Cannot Accomplish Anything Alone”.

​Since the survey evaluation campaign, LUNA has expanded significantly to address the needs of other communities in the Bay Area. As an organization we aim to dismantle the tangible inequalities the Latino community faces in not only the East Side of San Jose but also East Palo Alto. Our decisions are guided by community members most affected by these issues and our leadership is always looking for feedback on how the organization can work better to address the needs in the community. 
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