ABSTRACT
David Arizmendi, from a California migrant farmworkers’ family, became a labor organizer with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers (UFW). He moved to the Rio Grande Valley near the Texas—Mexico border and became a community organizer in low-income Spanish-speaking immigrant colonias of South Texas-semi-rural settlements with no infrastructure or land titles. He founded Iniciativa Frontera and Proyecto Azteca to finance self-built housing, and worked with Blanca Juarez and Colonias Unidas to improve Colonia Las Lomas. He used UFW’s community-based organizing model called LUPE, meaning community unity. A “reflective practitioner,” he exhibited patience, love, and sensitivity as catalyst of social action and community empowerment. He started with the women’s goals and values, and increased organizational capacity and leadership development of the grassroots organization, Colonias Unidas, its board and members. Students from University of Texas Graduate Program in Community and Regional Planning designed a participatory workshop to evaluate the women’s achievements.
