{"id":367002,"date":"2026-06-19T10:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T10:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367002\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T10:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T10:24:09","slug":"an-interview-with-fresno-community-leader-gurdeep-shergill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367002\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Fresno Community Leader Gurdeep Shergill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gurdeep Shergill is an educator, realtor, \u201cShaan Punjab Di\u201d radio host, and Fresno planning commissioner. Before joining the panel for \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zocalopublicsquare.org\/how-does-the-central-valley-harness-its-power\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Does the Central Valley Harness Its Power?<\/a>\u201d\u00a0at Arte Am\u00e9ricas, in Fresno, California, he joined us in the green room to chat about Batman, the Golden State, and \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful World.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s your favorite book?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rich Dad Poor Dad. That book changed my life, because it taught me about finances, it taught me about real estate, it taught me about money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is your favorite locally grown food here in the San Joaquin Valley?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love strawberries. I have a personal connection to them. When I was a child\u2014I was 13 when we came here from India\u2014my family used to work in the farms in Livingston, and we used to pick strawberries, and the guy who owned the farm, he was like, you know what, after you\u2019re done, eat as many strawberries you like, no problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now I usually support my local farmers, mom-and-dad types. Every other day I buy strawberries from the local farmers, and they\u2019re so fresh. They go bad after the second day, so you\u2019ve got to finish them within 24 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is your song of the summer?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My song of the summer would be \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful World.\u201d I play that song in my class whenever I want to uplift my students and myself. I say, it\u2019s a wonderful world, man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do you have a fictional character that you identify with?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My son loves Batman. He\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, daddy, he protects the city, man. He\u2019s so well off, he can just chill, but look, he\u2019s protecting his people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s kind of what I do, at least for my community in Fresno. Whenever there is a problem in somebody\u2019s household, they call me. Sometimes before they call the cops, they call me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s one thing you\u2019d put in a time capsule to explain California today?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">California is the best state in the world because it\u2019s so diverse. I feel at home, I feel loved. This state gives everybody a voice. It doesn\u2019t matter who you are. So I would put the U.S. Constitution in there because that\u2019s what gives you the opportunity\u2014the law of the land.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s one hope you have for California\u2019s future?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I just hope California keeps providing opportunities to the youth. When I went to college, my dad worked minimum wage; he was making like 5 bucks, 6 bucks an hour, so I got financial aid. I feel proud whenever I pay my taxes now. I have probably given the government 1000% what they gave me, but when I needed help, I got help.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just keep on uplifting the youth, because eventually it\u2019s going to come back. We can have successful youth, or we will have dependent youth. Then who\u2019s going to take care of the of the country? Of the state?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gurdeep Shergill is an educator, realtor, \u201cShaan Punjab Di\u201d radio host, and Fresno planning commissioner. Before joining the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-367002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}