Childhood poverty in California's Central Valley

Melissa Montalvo

Melissa Montalvo covers childhood poverty in California's Central Valley for The Fresno Bee. Before this, Montalvo, a bilingual reporter, covered the food and agriculture industries, Indigenous issues, and Mexican American culture as a freelancer, with bylines in Civil Eats, L.A. Taco, and more. Montalvo was born in Southern California, raised in the Arizona desert, and identifies as a daughter of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in international relations, minors in business law and French, and Renaissance scholar and Global scholar distinctions. In 2015, she won a Fulbright Award to serve as an English teaching assistant at Mexico's Universidad Tecnologica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Montalvo is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

The Fresno Bee

The Fresno Bee is the primary news source for the central San Joaquin Valley, covering a six-county area that is one of the fastest-growing regions in California. The Fresno Bee’s website is the most-visited website in the region, and its mission is to inform and advocate for the enhancement of life in the Valley.

Manuela Tobias

Manuela is a former staff writer for PolitiFact, where she covered politics, health care, immigration and international trade. She was also a researcher for Politico, a research assistant at The New Yorker, and an intern at New York Magazine. She was a 2018 International Fact-Checking Network Fellow and contributed research to an ASME award-winning multimedia feature, “This is The Story of One Block in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn”. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tobias lived in New Hampshire, New Jersey and London before moving to Washington, D.C. She has a B.A. in comparative literature from Georgetown University.

The Fresno Bee

The Fresno Bee is the primary news source for the central San Joaquin Valley, covering a six-county area that is one of the fastest-growing regions in California. The Fresno Bee’s website is the most-visited website in the region, and its mission is to inform and advocate for the enhancement of life in the Valley.