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More Than a Match for Wal-Mart
After Helping Lead Inglewood to Victory Over the Retail Giant, Rev. Altagracia Perez Keeps Up the Good Fight
By Kathleen Bishop

Rev. Altagracia Perez’s name has been on the front pages of newspapers across the country, making the Puerto Rican Episcopalian priest with the raspy voice one of the most recognizable leaders in Inglewood ’s high-stakes battler with Wal-Mart.

As a prominent member of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood, one of the groups that teamed with LAANE and others to stop Wal-Mart’s Inglewood ballot measure in 2004, Perez has gained prominence throughout the nation as well as in her own community and congregation.

Perez—who is featured in Robert Greenwald's new film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price—is a veteran of social justice battles, having been on the frontlines of numerous efforts to improve conditions for low-wage workers. So it was no surprise that she took a leadership role in organizing community opposition to Wal-Mart’s ballot measure – a radical power grab that would have allowed the retail giant to build a superstore with no public input or environmental review.

“Wal-Mart is a very bad employer and cloaks itself in the flag and American idealism in order to get away with being irresponsible.”

She believes that her position as a minister helped people rethink the issue of corporate responsibility. Some members of her Holy Faith Episcopal Church previously had not made a connection between moral or spiritual implications and certain economic issues.

“Economic justice is an area where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see a minister, as opposed to something like civil rights. I think it’s because they are themselves conflicted around these issues. They like to think of themselves as good people who care about people and issues of poverty and hunger and health, but having to take an activist role challenges them.”

Perez feels that working on this campaign has helped her mature as a leader and allowed her to think creatively about how to translate her theological knowledge and beliefs into real-world results, as she has with other issues, such as HIV/AIDS, peace – and, along with LAANE , the living wage movement in both Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

Perez, who will be featured in an upcoming film about Wal-Mart by Robert Greenwald, continues to play an active role with the Coalition for a Better Inglewood, which is leading the effort to ensure that future development in that city benefits the community.

Her logic on economic justice is simple: “If they are making money from the community, they should be giving back to the community. And not in the form of scholarships and grants, but in the most basic ways: paying a living wage and giving health insurance, so their employees can have a better life.”