On Saturday, September 22, more than 300 people gathered at The Grand here in Long Beach as the Long Beach Post, in a partnership with Choura Events, presented its inaugural 30 Women to Watch event, a night designed to honor the many female citizens of this city who are altering the landscape with their own definitions of what it means to be a woman.
In addition to featuring the winners in a special pull-out section in the most recent print edition of thePost, we will be running profiles and photos of each woman, one per day, for the next 30 days.
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As a quadriplegic born with arthrogryposis—a congenital disability that deeply impacts one’s movement and inhibits walking entirely—Cynde Soto wasn’t expected to live past age 21. Now at 55, Soto has become a leading disability rights activist and has put her efforts towards creating accessible transportation, peer counseling and hate crime legislation.