From a humble office in the border town of San Juan, Texas, staff and volunteers at the small nonprofit La Union del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, help low-income migrant workers work within the system. Founded in 1989 by legendary labor and civil rights activists Dolores Huerta and César Chávez, the organization provides workers with translators, helps them fill out paperwork, and organizes political actions. In mid-2018, LUPE organized a rally and rolling fast to protest the U.S. government’s separation of immigrant children from their families. The event also marked the fiftieth anniversary of César Chávez’s famous 1968 fast, part of a migrant grape workers strike in California.
1 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
A half-dozen volunteers and staffers sweat it out in LUPE’s “union hall,” making phone calls and churning out promotion for the rally and fast on half-working laptops as the ninety-degree heat forced its way inside.
2 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
LUPE Executive Director Juanita Valdez-Cox takes in the history of the moment. Fifty years earlier, Chávez broke his twenty-five-day water-only fast, which left him in dangerous health. He was accompanied by Robert F. Kennedy, who would be assassinated a few weeks later.
3 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
The phrase “¡Si Se Puede!” (“Yes We Can!”) was famously adopted by Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. But it was coined by Huerta during Chávez’s 1972 “Fast for Justice” fighting for farmworkers’ right to strike in Arizona.
4 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
A LUPE volunteer and child prepare for the rally at Archer Park in McAllen, Texas, organizing mailing list signup forms for attendees and coloring books for children. McAllen is home to one of the many facilities used to hold immigrant children separated from their parents by the Trump Administration’s “zero tA LUPE volunteer and child prepare for the rally at Archer Park in McAllen, Texas, organizing mailing list signup forms for attendees and coloring books for children. McAllen is home to one of the many facilities used to hold immigrant children separated from their parents by the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.
5 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
Huerta takes questions from the media alongside Kerry Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s daughter, moments before the fast officially begins. The rolling fast would last for twenty-four days, with each person fasting twenty-four hours, to protest the separation of 2,400-plus children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
6 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
Huerta, Kennedy, and Valdez-Cox, with heads lowered, listen to Sister Norma Pimentel (foreground) of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates a nearby respite center for migrants. Kennedy reads a list of more than forty members of her family joining the fast, including her ninety-year-old mother, Ethel, who fed Chávez when he broke his third and longest fast in 1988.
7 of 7
Zach D. Roberts
A young child stands with her family and other supporters as they listen to Dolores Huerta speak during the LUPE rally.