Candidate for
Member of the State Assembly; District 65

Jon Taleb for Assembly, 65th District - About the Candidate.

(This capsule biography was prepared by a campaign worker, and is also found on my website at http://www.talebforassembly.org )

California-born in 1947, and raised on a ranch in Butte County, Jon Taleb has lived in Inland Southern California for 32 years.

Her early jobs included clerical worker, waitress, and railroad food service, before she returned to school at Crafton Hills College in 1977. After getting her Associate of Arts degree she enrolled at the University of California at Riverside for her Bachelor of Arts degree, earned in 1982, and went on to earn her teaching credential at U.C.R.

Jon Taleb has worked for the Perris Elementary School District as a teacher for 20 years, and has been an active member of her union (CTA/NEA). She has a well-rounded view of California's educational system, having been a student, a teacher, and the mother and grandmother of students. She has a particular interest in "helping bilingual students get through the system," and a special affinity for the immigrant students who make up such a big part of the student body in her district.

Jon has been active in the peace movement for 35 years. She has a special interest in working for peace and justice in the Middle East. In July 2006 she will be on a month-long Fullbright-Hays study trip to Jordan with a group of American educators.

Jon Taleb, a Muslim, is strongly in favor of religious tolerance and religious freedom. She has many close friends who are Christian or Jewish, and has worked with members of these and other religions in movements for peace and justice at home and abroad.

Jon Taleb has first-hand experience of the problems faced in our society by working people, renters, single mothers, and others who find themselves in positions without power. She knows that unity and action can give power to the powerless.

In 2004 Jon bought a house in Joshua Tree, at the other end of the 65th Assembly District from her job in Perris. She commutes through most of the district each workday, and has a good grasp of local transportation problems.

Among Jon's hobbies are gardening, and reading history and fiction. She enjoys exploring her native state from the desert to the coastal cities, and particularly appreciates California's ethnic diversity.

Jon Taleb has been elected to three terms on the Peace and Freedom Party State Central Committee. She is unopposed for the Peace and Freedom Party nomination for State Assembly in the June primary election, and will face the Republican and Democratic nominees in November.