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Lopez said the clinic should help a community sometimes hesitant to speak up. “Immigrants and folks of color often by lack of English fluency or legal status often are weary of speaking outlet alone affirm their place in line,” Lopez said. Plans to host clinics are ongoing.

East Palo Alto City Council member Antonio Lopez said in a statement that the vaccine clinic is a "life-changer" for the community. "Not only will we be ensuring the safety of our residents through this site; we will empower them to return to work, to school, and in a word, to some semblance of normal," Lopez said.

"Without overstatement, this permanent vaccine site will be a
life-changer for our residents, many undocumented and without access to health care," Lopez said. "Not only will we be ensuring the safety of our residents through this site; we will empower them to return to work, to school, and in a word, to some semblance of normal."

Lopez, who just joined the EPA council in November, said it well. “There are still two sides to the Bay Area, one more well off with instant access to resources and another living paycheck to paycheck, struggling how to figure out how to keep their families safe,” he said. “This is not just a moral plea that setting aside more vaccines for the most marginalized is the right thing to do. It is also economic. We are your grocery workers, auto shop workers, cleaners, caterers and construction workers.”

“An aggressive vaccination rollout is what the fight for racial equity and social justice is and looks like in 2021,” said López. “There are still two sides to the Bay Area: one with instant and immediate access to basic resources, and the other living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to figure out how to keep their family safe.”

"This is troublesome because it sends a clear message to the rest of the community that they are not welcomed. The district's decision to not diversify their leadership teams is both legally and morally wrong, as qualified candidates of color are being clearly excluded."

“To have effective change and needs met, [the district] needs leadership that understands what it is like to live in East Palo Alto,” said Lopez, 26, who was elected to the council in November.

Antonio Lopez, a 26-year-old doctoral student who was elected to the council in November, sent a letter to district governing board president Alan Sarver on Tuesday, Jan. 5, saying he has "grave concerns regarding the current relationship" between the district and East Palo Alto.

López said he was ready to get to work. “I didn’t run to remind people of where we are,” he told The Daily. “I ran because I want to show where we could be. The goal of this campaign was not to get elected; it was to remind our youth: you can and will make a difference in this community.”

It was a call to action, and Antonio López, winner of the 2019 Four Way Books Levis Prize in poetry for his debut collection, Gentefication, decided to do something most poets don’t do: run for office (apologies to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Václav Havel). A seat on the city council offered the chance to rescue his community in macro but also in micro so that East Palo Alto teenagers would be able to do what he had done — starting with the message that someone cared about teenagers in East Palo Alto.

But as happened with several other young progressives and self-described socialists who ran against incumbents and heavily-financed opponents across the Bay Area, Lopez won with late votes reported after Election day. “Don’t let anyone tell you a vote doesn’t matter,” Lopez said. “That’s a frickin’ lie.”