18 Facts About Maria Varela

Maria Varela was born on January 1940 and is a Mexican-American civil rights photographer, community organizer, a writer, and a teacher.

Maria Varela has been actively involved in Civil Rights movements, advocating rights for indigenous communities and protects cultural heritage within African-American, Native-American, and Mexican-American in rural communities.

Maria Varela created and supported several non-profits organizations to help many minority groups, especially Native-American and Mexican-American.

Maria Varela won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1990 for her endeavor to help with the Native-American communities in northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, and northeastern Arizona to develop economic opportunities and preserve their human rights.

Maria Varela was born in Pennsylvania and lived in many different places in her younger days, but spent most of her time in the upper Midwest.

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Maria Varela went to Saint Louis High School in Chicago, and then to Alverno College.

In 1963, Varela went deep in the south to support the Civil Rights Movements where she began working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Alabama and Mississippi.

From a young age, Maria Varela has been actively involved in various civil rights movements and organizations, from the Young Christian Student program to Latinx Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which sets a foundation for her later work in the Civil Rights movement and in helping Native-American and Mexican-American communities She helped organize rural development and find Tierra Wools co-op.

Maria Varela was photographer for Black Star that works to include African-American representations for voters education, capturing critical moments in the Civil Rights Movement.

Maria Varela was a visiting professor at Colorado College, and was adjunct professor at University of New Mexico.

Since college, Maria Varela has been actively involved in the civil rights movementt.

Maria Varela believed in what's called “the great leader” theory: in order to have a powerful social movement, the movement needs a powerful leader.

Maria Varela recognized the urgent issue of how the images provided for voter education materials excluded African American community and lacked diversity in racial representation.

Maria Varela's work plays a critical role in those communities developing a new ethos of place: an imagined and embodied relationship between local and national communities that offers a new identity and sense of participatory agency.

In 1962, Maria Varela was invited to start agricultural cooperatives and community health clinics in New Mexico.

Maria Varela co-founded Ganados del Valle in 1981, a nonprofit, economic development corporation that dedicates to predominantly help Hispanic and Native-American communities in northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, and northeastern Arizona to preserve their pastoral cultures, lands, and water rights.

Maria Varela helped created a wool-growers cooperative that included a weaving and spinning enterprise, training in small business development, and cultural reaffirmation.

Maria Varela spent years trying to create and enable nonprofit organizations and viable enterprises to build upon and add to existing local resources, and was awarded was an MacArthur Award in 1990.