Salvador “Pocho” Sanchez - Strawbridge

Get Out And Vote

Jul 8

Salvador “Pocho” Sanchez - Strawbridge

CEO of Pocho Sanchez Photography and Consulting

Salvador “Pocho” Sanchez - Strawbridge was born into a family of innovation, a tremendous work ethic, and self-determination. His parents were union organizers for the United Farm Workers. While his parents in his words were out “saving the world”, he started to feel disgruntled about his circumstances of poverty and personal trauma. These feelings, along with a worsening identity crisis [due to his mixed racial heritage] helped cause him to join a street gang.

Salvador soon developed a deeper love for humanity and realized that gang culture was a harsh contradiction to the progression and the uplifting of his community he began to desire. He was smothered by self-hatred acts and societal racism. Sexual exploitation, drug abuse, violence, and division plagued his environment for many years of his youth; however, he couldn’t escape positive change. With help from his family, he began to transform himself into a viable upstanding man of his community.

He is presently finishing up his master thesis at the University of Southern California. He also has come back to his hometown of Santa Rosa where at one time he used to terrorize his community, now he serves his city. As he says “I went from Juvenile Hall to City Hall.” He was a community outreach specialist for the City of Santa Rosa Office of Community Engagement Violence Prevention Partnership at City Hall. He presently has been recruited to be a Creative Executive at a (Black-owned) Tech company in the music industry called gaugr.com. He also runs a Successful professional photography/ multi-media company and has major contracts with community, nonprofits, government and school systems. Lastly, and most important he is the Father of a Daughter Vida Vigil Sanchez-Strawbridge and lives with his family in Sonoma County.