Luis Rafael Garza, Executive Director

Luis is a passionate advocate of immigrants. He is committed to contributing to the well being of the immigrant population in Utah through his efforts in community work. Working for Comunidades Unidas has allowed Luis to make a positive impact in the community. Luis was born and raised in Monclova, Mexico. He moved to Utah about eight years ago. Luis has Bachelors degrees in Economics and International Relations, and a minor in Business. He is currently finalizing a Master's degree in Public Administration at the University of Utah.


 

Rose Maizner, Development Director

Born and raised in Utah, Rose grew up in a home stressing the importance of human rights, equality and social justice and, from an early age, passionately embraced those values. After an enthusiastic but failed attempt to start her own non-profit at 12 years old, Rose became an active member of Amnesty International and Students for a Free Tibet . While attending Wheaton College in Massachusetts as a Balfour Scholar, Rose spent a year in Barcelona Spain, where she received a Davis Fellowship to work at Ibn Batuta, a Catalan center for Muslim immigrants. During the course of her year at the resettlement center, Rose loved her work mediating the differences between the various cultures with which she was engaged and, upon returning to Wheaton, she began focusing her studies on investigating and resolving cultural misunderstandings and conflicts. This research culminated in an Honors Thesis on the immigration and adjustment processes of immigrant Muslim women in the U.S. that she presented at the 2006 Diversity Challenge Conference in Boston. In 2007, Rose was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to continue her research on the Muslim immigrant experience in Argentina.

Since receiving her BA in Hispanic Studies and Multicultural Psychology, Rose has worked a number of years as the Community Marketing Specialist for HappyFamily, an organic food company dedicated to infant and young child health and wellness. More recently, Rose became Director of Marketing and Business Development for News Ahead International, an online world news forecasting service, and serves on the Board of the Utah Fulbright Association.

While doing research in Utah for her Thesis, Rose became aware of the growing needs of the immigrant community in her home state and recognized that many of those needs were not being met. She is thrilled to be working with an organization committed to addressing those issues, and is excited to help Comunidades Unidas  continue to develop and grow.

Virginia Fuentes, Latina Women Health Coordinator

Virginia Fuentes (Vicky) was born in Mexico City, Mexico. She came to the United States at the age of eight where she was raised in San Diego, California, until the age of 17. In 1998 she moved to Chicago, Illinois where she lived for four years, graduated from high school and that is when her dream of becoming a fashion designer began. After those four years in Chicago she relocated to Salt Lake where she is currently living.

In the spring of 2008 Vicky obtained a certificate in fashion design from the fashion Institute of Salt Lake Community College, where she is currently a student working towards an Associates of Science in Business. Since she was a teenager, Vicky has always wanted to help and make a difference in the community. Therefore by coordinating the Multicultural Breast Cancer Program at Comunidades Unidas, it has given her the opportunity to help women in the community. Her goal is to educate ethnically diverse women about breast cancer and the importance of early screening through the effective implementation of the Amiga Mia “My Friend” curriculum.

Andrea Medina, Health Coordinator

Bio coming soon

Mayra Cedano, Community Engagement Coordinator

Mayra G. Cedano was born in Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico, and at age 11 moved to the State of Utah. In 2010, she graduated from University of Utah where she received a B.A. in Sociology, with a Criminology Certificate. But it was in her Chicana/o Studies  where she re-discovered her passion in life. While learning about the legacy of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, she became passionate, about the differences that those Chicanos made in their communities. From
there, she  decided to dedicate her education and work for the betterment of unprivileged communities.

Diana Paredes, Volunteer & Community Partnerships Coordinator

Bio coming soon

Yehemy Zavala-Orozco, Prenatal Health Coordinator

Bio coming soon

Tope Adeyemi, Multicultural Health Coordinator

Bio coming soon

Anthony Marzelli, Enriching Utah Coalition Interim Coordinator

Bio coming soon