Ayudando Latinos A Soñar an example of hope

The comfortable atmosphere is as attributable to founder Dr. Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga’s natural warmth and her trauma-informed background as a mental health clinician. 

“That’s part of the healing process,” Hernandez-Arriaga says, gesturing. “You know, the space.” 

The accolades along Hernandez-Arriaga’s wall are proof enough that the Latino cultural arts and programming organization’s mental-health focused, culturally-based approach to providing services and building community on the coastside has been successful. 

ALAS serves roughly 350 families every two weeks, offering free legal consultations, mental health services, a food pantry, after-school tutoring and even a bus, dubbed the equity express, that brings those services out to farmworkers in the fields. The organization also continues the arts programming that has been a foundational element since the organization’s 2011 inception, like Ballet Folklórico and Mariachi Media Luna. 

Beginnings and services

Hernandez-Arriaga recalled the moment when, as a therapist working pro bono in Half Moon Bay, she realized the need for an organization like ALAS. It happened when a young female client came to her practice with severe and undiagnosable stomach pains. Over time, Hernandez-Arriaga realized the clients’ pain was related to a fear of being separated from her family and shame around her parents, who were undocumented and Spanish-speaking. 

“Everyone was telling her that this was bad. And it’s not bad. They’re powerful, they’re beautiful, they’re contributing to our community,” she said. “I realized that I needed them to celebrate their identity, their culture. That’s when I said, ‘I’m going to close my counseling practice and open these doors to start dancing, to start singing, to start drumming.” 

The name of the organization, which translates to ‘Helping Latinos to Dream,’ came to Hernandez-Arriaga after prayer, she said — and “the acronym was perfect.” 

From there, the Ballet Folklórico program was born, offering an inaugural class of more than 75 children the opportunity to connect with their culture through traditional dance. It was a particularly emotional experience for the families of those children, Hernandez-Arriaga said. 

“It’s keeping their culture alive, but also keeping a connection to their ancestors, to their abuelas, to their tíos, to people that many can’t go back home to, either,” she said. “We saw how it built community, how parents were so excited. But we also saw how it opened the doors for us to be able to give them other services.” 

This model of what Hernandez-Arriaga terms “drive-by social work” has become a foundational principle of  ALAS’ work: essentially, meet people where they’re at. 

It’s that premise, alongside Hernandez-Arriaga’s propensity to lead with empathy, that has created both a compassionate and extremely successful service-oriented nonprofit, Emma Moctezuma, a community case manager with ALAS, said. 

“I work with the Hispanic community. I speak the language. They feel like they are at home as soon as they come into our agency and our office — I try to build trust,” she said. “Other agencies, they go by the book, by rules, by requirements. But here where we make a difference is the heart.” 

ALAS also plays a foundational role on the coast in offering services for senior farmworkers. Lourdes and Hilario Orozco attend one such program, Corazones de Oro, every Monday. The program offers them the chance to learn music, do arts and crafts and build community. 

Before joining Corazones de Oro around three years ago — which translates to Hearts of Gold — the couple spent the majority of their time at work, both in a flower shop and at a Christmas tree farm. 

“We were dedicated strictly to working,” Hilario Orozco said through a translator. “From work we would go straight home and we didn’t have anything else to do. We didn’t have any distractions. We used to go to parks on the weekends, but not very often.” 

Participation in the program gives the couple access to exercise, craft activities to bring home and even participation in the Pumpkin Festival parade, representing ALAS. 

“It helps me a lot. I like it a lot,” Lourdes Orozco said through a translator. “I like to share with my friends. My husband and I love it. We always go together.” 

ALAS is the only nonprofit on the coast that offers services from which the couple can benefit, and has facilitated meaningful friendships for both Lourdes and Hilario.

“The most important thing for us is the support. That means so much to us and we hope to count on their support,” Lourdes Orozco said. “We need that help, it’s the only help we have here in HMB.” 

Political landscape 

Though ALAS’ services are available to any family or individual in need, its deep ties to the Latino and immigrant communities on the coast often inextricably ties its work to the frayed, tumultuous politics of immigration across America. 

Hernandez-Arriaga’s field of research extends across the scope of immigration and trauma — aside from being the founder and executive director of ALAS, she’s also a professor at the University of San Francisco, teaching about just that. For her, ALAS is a space for the community to rest and feel safe, and to prepare for the fight against injustice. 

“I’ve seen that ALAS is a cocoon, the cocoon of culture, the cocoon of community,” she said. “When I say culture, it’s community, it’s food, it’s coming together, it’s the arts, it’s the storytelling, the sharing. All of that is what’s healing.” 

She’s proven herself a formidable political figure in her own right, attending the State of the Union in 2023, becoming entered into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2020 and becoming an adept communicator between local, state and federal politicos and the immigrant, farmworker community she serves. 

That’s a skill those around her have taken note of — a sincere determination, an inability to give up and a gift for storytelling. 

“Where do we need to find the resources? If we can get it from [the federal government], from the county, there are no limits for her. And she is the one that brings all those stories with her,” Moctezuma said. “If she has to be in front of the president, that’s what she’s going to do.” 

U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, who represents the coast, recently attended a town hall event hosted by ALAS to talk community members through the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration and undocumented individuals. 

That’s understandably been creating fears of deportation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, Liccardo said, noting how integral getting out accurate information is. But beyond educating residents on their rights, community groups are often the ones on the ground, helping people live through that fear. 

“This is the moment when many in our community feel betrayed by the federal government, and community organizations are crucial to step up into that breach of trust to help support those who struggle,” he said. “ALAS has been doing that, certainly for many years, but this is a particularly painful moment for so many and all of us. The services are needed more than ever.”

There’s been an increased demand for legal services since Trump took office, Hernandez-Arriaga said, which the organization is doing its best to fulfill. 

“What ALAS does well is to help community members take back their power, to recognize what they can do for themselves, at a moment when a political administration is uniquely hostile,” Liccardo said. 

Community challenges 

The Half Moon Bay community has been through traumatic challenges in recent years — including the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire and a shooting that took the lives of seven farmworkers on the coast. 

ALAS was a key provider of recovery efforts, particularly in the wake of the shooting, when the squalid and untenable living conditions many coastal farmworkers and their families were living in were exposed.

County Supervisor Ray Mueller, who represents the coast, recalled a conversation he had with County Executive Mike Callagy the night of the shooting as they prepared a countywide response. 

“I remember asking Mike, ‘Do these support workers know the families?’ And he said, ‘Well, no, these are our county support folks.’ And I said, ‘Mike, you’ve got to bring in ALAS,’” Mueller said. “ALAS already had preexisting relationships and trust with those families affected. That really is the reason why Belinda’s team is so effective, is because they walk the walk every day with these families.” 

During that time, the mental health arm of ALAS was of particular importance, Hernandez-Arriaga said. 

“A lot of what people see on that outside of ALAS is the arts, education, the advocacy. But what they don’t see, in many ways, is how powerful our mental health foundation is,” she said. “We have clinicians, psychologists, we do group counseling, we have art therapy — and everything’s free.” 

ALAS has also been deeply involved in the housing-related response to the farmworker living conditions that were revealed after the shooting. One housing project, 880 Stone Pine, will be completed later this year — and Mueller attributed Hernandez-Arriaga’s conversation with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to securing the needed funding. 

“I think that experience meeting with Belinda and farm workers there helped us really secure the grant funding we needed to build Stone Pine,” he said. 

Another housing project, located at 555 Kelly Ave. and designed for senior farmworkers, has not gone as smoothly. Although it has been approved by the city’s Planning Commission and City Council, fervent community opposition and administrative hurdles for the planned five-story building make continued advocacy a necessity.

That’s a reality that can be hard to swallow at times, Hernandez-Arriaga said. 

“We’re still having to prove why we need it,” she said. “It is very painful because we’re only two years out, and I don’t — that is something I can’t understand.” 

Motivation for a better future

Today, ALAS continues to expand, becoming not only an essential security net for the coastside community but also an economic powerhouse, employing 25 individuals. New therapy offices, as well as an entirely new, ALAS-owned building for community events, have opened near the yellow house. 

For the most part, Hernandez-Arriaga grew up in a small town in Texas, where cultural assimilation into whiteness was standard, she said, recalling how her grandmother would only speak Spanish to her when the pair were alone. 

“We would speak Spanish only together when we were at home, but out in the public, she would never speak Spanish to me in front of others, and neither would my parents. Spanish was only for inside,” she said. “Even though there was diversity, it’s an environment of forced assimilation.” 

Experiences like her time living in Panama as a young girl, experiencing cultural vibrancy and pride, bolstered what would become a successful career — including a master’s degree in social work and a doctorate in education, as well as a tenure working with incarcerated populations — helping others view their community not as a deficit but a powerful strength. 

There is a definite sense of responsibility, however, in effectively communicating the stories of perseverance and resilience that she hears from those the nonprofit serves. 

“I feel the weight of telling their story and what their experience is in each space that I’m at,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “I feel that responsibility, that it’s not me, but it’s on me — to do justice, to really explain and share and narrate their testimonials.” 

It’s a challenge she manages adroitly, however, many community members — including said Pati Ramirez, ALAS Social Services supervisor, who has been with the group since its inception. 

“My community [was] living in the shadows — even myself — and sometimes we feel alone,” she said. “Right now, I know we are a community and we can care for one another. That’s what Dr. Belinda gives us: an example.”