Kendy Alvarez was not happy about the question.

“Oh, you’re trying to get me in trouble,” she said with a laugh. “That’s hard for me to answer.”

The question — “Where shall I go in Lewisburg?” — seemed benign enough, but for a mayor it’s a minefield.

Still, Alvarez, worried about leaving someone out, agrees to give it a try.

She mentions the center’s iconic three-globe street lamps and its Hallmark movie aesthetic. The second-hand shops, the shops and artist co-op. The relative lack of a corporate footprint there: “I think the only chain that’s downtown is Sweet Frog.”

She continues and seems to be gaining momentum.

“You can watch a movie in our iconic Campus Theatre which has been completely restored to its Art Deco glory, or stop for something to eat and drink in the many restaurants and watering holes throughout the center. If you’re ever bored, it’s because you’re not paying attention.”

The Lewisburg area has changed since Alvarez first arrived from Trinidad and Tobago at age five. She remembers more farmland and less traffic. Several Bucknell University campus buildings weren’t there yet, and the greater Susquehanna Valley was slower and less diverse.

“We have Middle Eastern restaurants Now. We have one pretzel place (run by members of the Plain community), says Alvarez. “When we talk about diversity, we’re talking about, like, the whole spectrum. Younger people are starting businesses in downtown Lewisburg. One is our bike shop, CycleUp.”

Alvarez has also changed, at least on paper: Seven years ago, she became a U.S. citizen after decades as a green card holder, writing in a Facebook post that the change inspired her to run for local office in 2021.

Alvarez, a Democrat, won his race with both major party nominations in a campaign limited by the Covid-19 pandemic. But voters already knew her. Small towns are like that, especially for the one-time director of events and marketing with the region’s chamber of commerce.

In one 2019 Ted Talk at Bucknell University (Lewisburg’s “Little ivy”), Alvarez recalled his earliest memories of Trinidad and Tobago and his family’s “idyllic island existence” there. They ate mangoes from the trees in a small village in the island nation’s north, she said, recalling: “My brother climbed to death-defying heights to give them to my father who would give them to my mother who would separate them between sweet, ripe and green .”

Meanwhile, Alvarez sat at her mother’s feet, biting into each fruit until she found the perfect one. “I hold onto the memory of sitting barefoot on the front step, sweet sticky mango juice dripping down my arms as the sun dried it,” she said.

Pennsylvania’s mango supply paled in comparison, but the family made it home. Alvarez was active in Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs and church, and her father was a one-man “Welcome Committee for Coloreds in the Susquehanna Valley.” Years later, he would join a DEI-focused community group called CARE, or Community Alliance for Respect and Equality.

“My mom wouldn’t send him to the grocery store by herself,” Alvarez said of her father. “A simple trip to pick up something she needed to finish dinner would turn into a 45-minute trip to a store less than a mile down the street. Why? Because he talked to everybody.”

Alvarez wasn’t the only member of her family to become a citizen, but she waited the longest.

“Very early on when I was eligible to apply for citizenship, I didn’t, mostly because it didn’t seem like it made much of a difference,” she explained. “I could travel freely wherever I needed to go. I had a passport. I had a green card. I could work and live, but I couldn’t vote. When the atmosphere around immigration changed, I said, ‘Let’s go ahead and do this. “

Alvarez continued, “I know I’ve made a difference in my community as a result, and I hope that there are other people who have the opportunity for citizenship and act on it much sooner. But it doesn’t just end with becoming a citizen, but be active and engaged both as voters and in seeking the opportunity to serve in some capacity.”

It’s a tricky time to be in local government like the pandemic era stimulus funding is drying upmunicipal budgets are tightened and national politics trickles down.

Alvarez is bullish on Lewisburg’s prospects, noting its diversified “feds, meds and eds” economy — a reference to the area’s 4,000-person federal prison, hospital and university.

She hopes the neighborhood retains its “rustic charm” and island feel while developing and looking outward, something that is difficult for aging small towns to do.

“I want us to think about telecommuting or work flexibility and how we can embrace that in a way that allows us to have an influx of … people who could choose to be anywhere but maybe choose to be here, ” she added.

Follows up “Where to go in Lewisburg?” question, I offer one with a broader reach and perhaps fewer PR shenanigans: “What makes Lewisburg great?”

Alvarez begins the highlight reel, citing the neighborhood’s Victorian architecture and cozy Main Street. But then she begins to discuss the culture and slowly describes her connection to it. “What makes Lewisburg great for me,” she concludes, “is the people.”

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