2007 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize - Winner 

Alvaro Huerta has spent the past twenty years working to improve the lives of low-income Chicano/Latino communities throughout the greater Los Angeles area. As a student activist at UCLA in the mid 1980s, he was involved in recruiting low-income Latinos into higher education. After learning of the university's plan to cut financial aid to undocumented immigrants, he and other students waged a weeklong hunger strike that resulted in a reversal of the university's policy. Since graduating from UCLA, Alvaro has been engaged in community organizing among disenfranchised Latino communities around issues involving immigrant rights and environmental justice. In 1996 he co-founded the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles (ALAGLA), the first organization of Latino gardeners in the U.S. As lead organizer for Communities for a Better Environment from 1999-2001, he successfully waged an environmental justice campaign to defeat plans to build a 550-megawatt power plant in South East Los Angeles. Currently, Alvaro works pro bono as the Executive Director of the Statue of Liberty Center, a statewide nonprofit organization aimed at improving wages and working conditions for Latino gardeners by providing leadership development to ALAGLA's members. Alvaro is a Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on the organizational efforts made by community organizers and individuals seeking to overcome social injustices in the United States. 

2007 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize winner Alvaro Huerta, Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Reiongal Planning, with his wife, Antonia Montes, son, Joaquin Montes Huerta, and faculty advisor, Judith Innes, Professor of City and Regional Planning.

For more pictures, see the Yamashita Prize gallery

To view a video of the "2007 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize" Award Ceremony and Reception click here

2007 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize - Honorable Mention

Darren Noy has endeavored to advance the struggle to achieve social justice for homeless people by combining research and activism. Before beginning doctoral studies in Sociology at UC Berkeley, Darren was an organizer for "Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency," which is now a member of the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), a coalition of West Coast social justice-based homelessness organizations, with whom he currently works. Prior to joining WRAP, Darren also worked with the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness (COH). It was during this time that he began to integrate his scholarly work and his activism by providing analysis and project reports that advance the organizations' work, especially in the policy arena, and by helping COH and WRAP develop and expand their own political analyses and voice. At the same time, he brought the lived experiences and theoretical perspectives of these organizations into his own academic writings. Currently, Darren is in Thailand conducting dissertation research. His dissertation examines visions of economic development held by community-based organizations and social movements in the Global South.