ARVIN, Calif. (KERO) — Community leader and organizer Salvador Partida was laid to rest in Arvin on Thursday. For more than 20 years, he overcame life and health challenges to fight for everyone in his community to have a better life.
Partida worked tirelessly to build a better Arvin, ensuring the community had better water and air quality. Though he is now gone, his family and friends say his legacy and work will live on.
"It's been very difficult," said Partida's daughter Lorraine Casillias. "He was a very big part of our lives, and so we're gonna honor him with a celebration today and give our children an opportunity to officially say goodbye to their grandfather."
That farewell is to a community champion.
"He cared a lot about his community and wanted to make sure the people he lived with had the best air quality, the best water quality, and not just for himself, but making sure the entire town was addressed in all of their needs," explained Casillias. "That was who our dad was."
Partida died on January 25, 2023 after a long battle with muscular dystrophy, but his friend Gustavo Aguierre and his children say he never let his health stop him.
"Sal had a health condition, and with his health condition, he kept going until the last day of his life, kept pushing for clean air, for clean water, for better community infrastructure," Aguierre said.
Partida's daughter agrees.
"His physical weakness over time, unfortunately, we saw, but it didn't deter him from becoming a businessman, from helping others, from being that role model for us," said Casillias.
Partida also started his own tax company, as well as becoming an aerospace systems engineer for NASA.
Partida's son Martin Partida remembers the impact his father's experiences had on him growing up.
"Growing up we were able to see and experience a lot of his experiences through working, through the NASA program," said Partida. "I remember visiting the Space Shuttle in Palmdale. It was displaced and we were actually able to see it and get inside, and he was very proud of the contributions that he made to that program."
But it was Partida's work for the Committee to Build a Better Arvin that his friend Aguierre says is a loss for everyone.
"Losing him, Arvin lost a great advocate for his community, because he was always thinking how to do good for his community," said Aguierre.
One example Martin noted was his father's battle with the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Case and fight with the EPA in order to remove or stop a local water waste treatment plant that was basically contributing or feeding into the water supply, and so he was able to take that fight on and eventually able to get that waste plant stopped and that removed," said Partida.
It's that type of action that Aguierre says will persist through others.
"What he started is not going to die with his body, but will continue," Aguierre promised.
Casillias agrees, adding that her father never stopped voicing his opinion.
"His legacy is we all have a voice, and that we should voice it for those who don't feel lke they can. That was his major impact to me is. He was that voice for others that didn't feel like they had one," said Casillias.
Aguierre says the current president for the Committee to Build a Better Arvin will continue Partida's legacy, as will Aguierre through his own organization.
