How Jordana Barton became the Valley's champion for eliminating the Digital Divide

McALLEN, Texas - Jordana Barton says her upbringing in a colonia in South Texas helped shape her choice of career - as a champion for investment in low-income communities.Barton is perhaps best known in the Valley for authoring the Texas Border Colonias Study for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. That led to her working to address the digital divide in cities such as Pharr and Brownsville. She recently moved over the Methodist Healthcare Ministries. “I grew up in Benavides, Texas, a very small, rural community near Laredo. It was designated a colonia by the Secretary of State’s Office, when they were labeling places. It is incorporated now but it was designated a colonia because we had very substandard housing and a lack of infrastructure, such as safe drinking water and some of the basics, such as paved roads and things like that. For example, it was not until I was in graduate school that my family got connected to city sewage, not a cess pool.”Barton made these comments in an in-depth interview with the Rio Grande Guardian via Zoom.“That is where I got my passion for service and - I did not know it was a field back then - community development. Being able to invest in low income communities where other people may not see the assets that are there. I knew there were assets there,” Barton said. “You can stand outside of my home, where I grew up and you could look at it and say, what could have come out of this, because, you know, there is no insulation, there is no central air and heat. It is dilapidated and not up to code. But a lot can come out of it.”Editor’s Note: To read the full story, go to RioGrandeGuardian.comGo to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.