Impressions gathered by Steve Blodner

Tuesday, April 26, 2005


Changes really started happening in the colonias when the politicians began to pay attention. Elizabeth Valdez, the lead organizer for Valley Interfaith, a network of more than forty churches and schools that helps organize residents along the border, showed me a picture of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's visit in 1994. "This is her at a colonia in Mercedes. It was raining that day. She slipped in the drainage ditch but didn't go all the way down. The roads weren't paved, and it was slush, mud, and water."