Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center
Carlos G. Vélez Ibáñez, Director
UCCLR Annual Report and 2003-04 Program Plan
The Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center (EGARC) funded the
research and creative projects of faculty and graduate and undergraduate
students, supported Center research in New Mexico, sponsored academic
speakers and presenters, and supported a conference during reporting
period July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2003.
EGARC's applied research focal points focused on state and national
issues pertinent to the Mexican/Latino populations of the state,
nation, and transnational settings. In addition to the $45,000
permanent funding allocated by the UC Committee on Latino Research,
EGARC earned over $76,000 in research and development funds from
various campus and extra mural sources (California Health Worker
Foundation $50,000 for current year plus carryover of 15,000 from
previous year). UCR also provided matching funds of $76,761, which
covered staff salaries and supplies and other administration related
expenses. The Center continues to implement a comprehensive resource
development plan to ensure its sustainability and in June of 2003
received an award of $190,000 from the California Wellness Foundation.
EGARC's proposal for campus Center status, based on a clear multidisciplinary
applied mission and goals, is still under review by Academic Senate.
During this past academic year EGARC continued developing and
training graduate students, providing opportunities for intensive
technical and developmental programs in relation to research findings,
and enhancing the University of California, Riverside's research,
development, and instructional reputation regionally, nationally,
and internationally. We have undergone an audit review, which
provided us with valuable suggestions concerning budgetary procedures
as well as endorsed our management of research and project resources
and operations. For the fiscal year 2003-2004, we will have a
slight budgetary overage from the previous year that we will pay
off during fiscal 2004-2005. We continue to face the serious task
of conducting our activities under a singularly unsupportive and
oppositional college administration and we have therefore requested
administrative transfer to the Office of the Vice President of
Research.
Mission Statement
EGARC adhered to its mission of developing applied research,
training, and practicing projects and programs that contribute
to the intellectual growth and social wellbeing of the Mexican/Latino
populations. It also initiated the formation and implementation
of local, state, national, and transnational practices and policies
that contribute to the educational, economic, ecological, health,
labor, and technological advancement of Mexican/Latino communities
of the United State and transnational when possible. Lastly, it
provided maximum opportunities for faculty and students to become
engaged in the research, training, teaching and application of
policy and practices on topics central to the Center.
Goals
1. To carry out applied research projects and programs within
cultural and community frameworks that improve the educational
success of Mexican/Latina/o students at all levels of the educational
process, K-16.
2. To formulate research and applied programs that utilize an
evolutionary economic approach concentrating its focus on monitoring
changes in political economy, technological developments, public
policy and migration as they effect ability of Mexican/Latina/o
communities to respond in adaptive ways.
3. To develop applied research and training projects and the programs
that assist in the promotion and development of adaptive health
policies, conditions and practices among Mexican/Latina populations.
4. To design and execute technological and community projects
and programs that mitigate the "digital divide" suffered
by large sectors of the Mexican/Latina/o population.
5. To develop cross-campus research, application, and instructional
curricula and programs that focus on the central mission of EGARC.
6. To provide advanced training to undergraduate and graduate
students in applied social science theory and method by integrating
students within the myriad projects that are ongoing or developed
by the Center.
7. To create opportunities for the organization of applied social
science projects, conferences, seminars, workshops, and training
and technical programs that benefits the university and broader
community of scholars, professionals, practitioners and community
members.
2002-2003 Faculty Research Incentive Grants (continuation of
previous year)
Frank Bonilla--Communities for Virtual Research
"New Latino Digital Website (NLDW):" Hosted and assembled
selected research and information relevant to globalization, neoliberalism,
capitalism and their impacts on especially Latina/os the world
around, as well as other communities suffering inequality, poverty,
and discrimination. The website, which will highlight the works
of scholars, research centers, and community organizations conducting
programs in these key areas, has yet to be completed; however,
EGARC plans to complete it during the upcoming year. The site
will be easily accessible to educational institutions as well
as the global community at large.
Adalberto Aguirre Jr.--Sociology
"Catalytic Subgroups in the Electoral Process: An Examination
of Propositions 187 and 227:" Examined the latter observation
by asking the question: What were the issues surrounding Propositions
187 and 227 that served as a catalyst for the Anglo population's
use of the electoral process to express its will over the Mexican-origin
population in California society?
David Farris--Economics
"Foreign Direct Investment and Mexican Economic Development:
A Study of the Electronics Industry in Guadalajara:" Discerned
the extent of job training in this sector in relation to other
sectors of the Mexican economy, which have also witnessed significant
foreign direct investment. Two data sets available for purchase
from the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informatica
(INEGI) of México would allow for precisely this kind of
comparison. Because both data sets allow for identification of
the detailed industry of respondents, they would allow for calculating
the extent of job training across a variety of industrial sectors
in Mexico, for purposes of confirming and comparing the case-study
information gathered this summer.
Paul Gelles--Anthropology
"Transnationalism and Cultural Transformation:" Researched
the transnational migration and the great changes sweeping the
Andean highlands and brought that cycle of research to a close.
After ten years of research, the investigator returned to Cabanaconde
to witness the major fiesta event (the celebration of the Virgen
of Carmen), and studied the ways in which this fiesta and its
transnational sponsorship have changed the community over the
last decade. The study is a significant contribution to migration
studies, Andean Studies, Latin American Studies, and Anthropology.
Paul Green & Thomas Destino--Graduate School of Ed
"Language Planning, Politics, & Hegemony in American
Institutions of Schooling:"
Studied how power through verbal channels is exerted and how language
in essence is the vehicle for identifying, manipulating and changing
power relations between people.
Paul Green--Graduate School of Education
"The Undocumented: Educating the Children of Migrant Workers
in America:" Studied the education of undocumented or migrant
students of color, which pose unique social and institutional
problems. This research served as the focus for a book examining
the social, political, economic, legal, cultural, psychological
and educational problems facing undocumented children of migrant
workers in the United States.
Michael Kearney--Anthropology
"Transnational Community Governance: A Pilot Study:"
Explored the possibilities of developing a parallel program in
which the high, and often ruinous costs incurred by citizens who
must return from the North of Mexico to perform municipal service
is in part defrayed by government grants. The research proposed
concerns as a related concept devised by the P.I., tentatively
referred to as Pesos por Servicio.
Armando Navarro--Ethnic Studies
"The Chicano Political Experience: Struggles for Social Change
and Empowerment:" Examined the Chicano's historical/political
events, politics, personalities, issues, demographics and organizations
that affected the Mexicano Political Experience from 1848 to 2002.
Ellen Reese--Sociology
"Restoring Immigrants' Rights to Welfare in the U.S.: Comparative
Case Studies:" Will complete a case study of the campaign
to restore legal immigrants' rights to welfare in California by
this August and present our findings at the 2001 annual meeting
of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In addition,
she will also use these findings for a book comparing various
political struggles over welfare reform across U.S. cities and
states.
Barbara Tinsley--Psychology
"Family and Cultural Influences on Mexican Americans Girls'
Health:" Will extend a longitudinal study heretofore funded
by NICHD/NIH, the Healthy Families Project at UCR (Department
of Psychology), based in the laboratory of Barbara Tinsley. The
data will be a first step in establishing norms for the timing
of pubertal development and its consequences among Mexican American
girls.
Maria L. Cruz-Torres--Anthropology
"Health Assessment in Mexican Rural Communities:" Determined
the relationship between environmental degradation and health
decline in two rural communities in southern Sinaloa partially
due to the decline of fishing resources. The information was collected
through interviews with health advocates in the two communities,
personnel at nearby clinics, staff at the DIF (Sistema para el
Desarollo Integral de la Familia), and healers or "curanderos."
Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez--Anthropology
"Comparative Analysis of the Transnational Political Economy
of two regions of refuge: the Hatch Valley of New Mexico and the
Coachella Valley of California." This is a continuing long
term project to develop an understanding of the political ecology
and economy of changes in household and community structure in
two regions of refuge as these are reproduced and influenced over
the last 100 years by changes in methods of production and reproduction
within their respective transnational economies and ecologies.
Graduate Student Research Grants
Paul Almeida--Sociology
"Waves of Protest in El Salvador:" Explained two waves
of popular movement activity in El Salvador between 1962 and 1981.
He submitted his dissertation on Salvadoran popular movements
for book publication as well as wrote several journal articles.
A panel on Political Repression and Protest at the 2001 American
Sociological Association Conference accepted his dissertation.
Manuel Barajas--Sociology
"The Impacts of Transnationalism on a Mexican Community:"
Examined a Mexican "transnational" community focusing
on several topics: labor migration, community, and family. This
particular project focused on the notion of transnationalism and
the consequences of this social phenomenon. This knowledge shed
light on the impacts of migration on labor migrants, migrant and
non-migrant communities, families and gender relations within
a global context
Travis Du Bry--Anthropology
"Socioeconomic Change in a Desert Farm Laborer Community:"
Documented the socioeconomic changes experienced by immigrant
Mexican farm laborers working in rural California. The research
documented contemporary Mexican farm laborer communities. This
expanded the current understanding of farm laborers, and by extension
their socioeconomic position in industrial agriculture, which
up to now was based on an outdated traditional agrarian class
model, one in which farm laborers and farmers are separated by
an un-crossable socioeconomic divide and farm laborers are doomed
to migratory harvest labor jobs.
Joel Carbonell--Political Science
"Mexican Foreign Economic Policy: A Cultural Approach:"
Provided an alternative approach in understanding shifts in a
state's foreign economic policy. In particular, this study presented
a cultural approach to offer insights into Mexican foreign economics
policies. The project acknowledged the utility of the realist
theories, but asserted that a cultural approach may provide some
insights into the changes in foreign economic policy in general
and Mexican foreign economic policy in particular. This study
asserts that dynamic cultural changes in Mexico impacted policy
change. In particular, during the 1980s-1990s, political elites
were reshaping Mexico's national identity via symbols and history
in order to mobilize support for the "new" economic
policies.
Marta Gil Lacruz--Psychology
"The Health Care System, Community Approach:" Studied
how wellbeing, participation and prevention acquire their meanings
when contextualized in a reference community. The interdisciplinary
team elaborated the Casablanca Health Enquire,(Zaragoza, Spain)with
the goal to deepen the influence of psychosocial variables in
the explanation of the relation between neighborhood's health
and their health care system.
Thomas Long--History
"The Other Side of 3rd Street: The Many Generations and Successes
of Fultan, CA:" Studied the racist perceptions of the greater
Sonoma County population, and examined in depth the reasons behind
the tremendous success of the Fulton Township community - and
its rebuke of and by the rest of Sonoma. The finalized manuscript
was submitted for publication to the following scholarly journals:
California History, Pacific Historical Review, and American Indian
Quarterly.
Konane Martinez--Anthropology
"Health Across Borders: Mixtec Utilization of Clinical Health
Care:" Investigated the utilization of clinical health care
services by Mixtec transnational migrants using ethnographic methodologies.
The investigation documented barriers to clinical access, expectations
for clinical care, and patterns of clinic use in Oaxaca and California.
Carolina Bank Muñoz--Sociology
"Organizing Latinos/as in Manufacturing:" Examined the
global restructuring that has seriously affected workers in both
developing and industrialized countries. The exploitation of women
in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the exploitation
of immigrant women in the U.S. has initiated a great deal of research
on women and development. Research determined to what extent,
manufacturing industries are unionizing in Los Angeles and Tijuana.
The hypothesis being that while heavy industries, largely white
and male (i.e. aerospace) are unionized, light industries (garment,
electronics, toys), largely immigrant Latino/a are not being unionized,
especially along the U.S./Mexico border.
Gina Nuñez-Anthropology (Ms. Nuñez was the recipient
of $16,666 UCLCR Graduate Student Research Grant) and Edgar Najera,
Education.
"Colonias in Southern New Mexico: A Transnational Study of
the Political Economy and Ecology of U.S.-Mexico Border Human
Settlements:" Examined human adaptability of migrant communities
along the U.S.-Mexico Border by analyzing the roles of human agents,
non-governmental organizations, and governmental agencies in the
development of "colonias." Research helped better understand
how immigrant populations define their place and space by way
of colonias located within 150 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nunez has carried out intensive field research utilizing EGARC
questionnaires and research questions that will form one aspect
of her expected dissertation.
Elvia Ramirez--Sociology
"Latinas and Education:" Studied Latina college students
in order to gain a more in-depth understanding of the structural
(e.g. racial/gender discrimination) and cultural (e.g. gender
role socialization) forces that impact their educational experiences
and aspirations; in particular, the multifaceted role that traditional
Latino culture has in the educational aspirations of Latina college
students. The research helped answer the questions, Do Latino
cultural norms and values inhibit Latinas from pursuing higher
education, particularly professional/doctorate degrees? Or, does
Latino culture also provide resources that facilitate Latinas'
educational aspirations and success? In addition, research analyzed
structural barriers that hinder Latinas' educational attainment.
Summer Internship Program
Successful Transition of Latino Students From Junior College to
Four Year Institutions 2002-2003
(Due to limited resources we did not conduct the Internship Program
this year; however, plan to resume summer of 2003-2004)
Extramural Funded Research
"Community Health Worker Program for Improving the Quality
of Health Care in California"
Funded by: California Healthcare Foundation: 2001-2004, $300,000.
The Community Health Worker Program for the Improving the Quality
of Health Care in California is designed to inform, educate and
stimulate interest in consumer driven healthcare for Latinos in
urban and rural, immigrant and native born, of all ages throughout
California.
The chw/promotora model is a nationally recognized model of community
response, intervention and action. The original model was based
on the research of Mexican familial networks and the analysis
of cultural practices among Mexicans pioneered by Velez-Ibanez
and others. During its second year of implementation the Program
continued to identify quality care issues, determine policy implications,
provide community input and disseminate information. The Program
supported the capacity building of chw/promotora programs towards
viable entities with organizational, social and community infrastructure
to join the quality care debate. During the reporting period numerous
regional as well as statewide meetings were conducted. In January
a statewide conference was held where more than 350 promotoras
attended a series of panel discussions and workshops and initiatived
the development of a sustainable statewide structure that will
continue to focus on healthcare provisions for Latinos in the
United States. All the activities carried out were for the principal
goal of helping the chw/promotoras reach the highest levels of
program understanding and the implications of quality health care
to their community constituents. Moreover, the Program focused
on the development and implementation of a dissemination and education
plan for community members, providers and policy makers. The members
of the advisory committee and the regional meetings actively worked
towards this end.
Proposals Funded and Submitted in 2003
Funded: California Wellness Foundation: "Ecological Health
for the Future" ($190,000).
The Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center will train a cadre
of environmental home health researchers made up of 35 upper elementary
and middle school students, parents, and teachers who order carry
out basic research and develop learning materials from a constructed
data base. They will be trained to carry out environmental health
research among the colonias of Mecca, Thermal, Oasis, and the
Torres Martinez Indian Reservation; develop multiple media materials,
curriculum learning modules, and public presentation models in
order to enhance colonia environmental home health education;
and will communicate their work to local, county, state, and national
policy makers in order to stimulate public discussion and eventual
positive interventions. The three-year, $190,000 project will
be carried by the Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center (EGARC)
in conjunction with local school authorities, action agencies
and groups, and colonia residents. EGARC has carried out highly
successful digitally-based applied research programs in Riverside,
conducted colonias research in New Mexico and California, and
developed community-based Promotora Health Programs in California.
The project's three objectives are to: (1) Construct a knowledge
base developed by 35 colonia residents and teachers of the most
salient environmental home health issues, practices, and behaviors
among a sample of colonia residences; (2) Familiarize cadre with
available environmental home health literature through the Internet
and in tandem will become familiar with basic digital program
use and development in order to construct and integrate developed
materials and images from their research; and (3) Communicate
developed multiple media resources to local, county, state, and
national authorities and policy makers
Pending: HUD 2003-2006/Community Outreach Partnership Centers
"Capacity Building for the Future" ($400,000 with $500,000
in kind contributions from regional and local community partners
excluding the university match of $46,000).
The Capacity Building for the Future Project (CBF), will serve
the colonias of Mecca, Thermal, and Oasis, and two Colonias on
Native American reservations in the Southeastern desert of California.
This program initiated by the Ernesto Galarza Applied Research
Center of the University of Califonia, Riverside (UCR) is to enhance
employment opportunities of community members by providing job
training in digital technology, develop and deploy an interactive
web based database developed by community members themselves;
second, to develop a community development project through a "Funds
of Knowledge" assets mapping of the Desert Colonias conducted
by trained community members; and third to partner with the California
Wellness Foundation to create and implement a community based
home environmental health program in which local youth, parents,
and teachers design, develop educational materials for integration
in local schools, region, and nation. Each of these activities
is designed to build capacity for community autonomy, enhance
job capacity of community members, and last, to increase the quality
of living in these colonias. The projects activities will include:
first, the development of two Community Technology Centers focused
on employment preparation and job enhancement programs especially
developed to teach and train persons in digital technology. Second,
the UCR, CBF Initiative, in partnership with community action
organizations, faith-based organizations, and tribal authorities,
will assist in developing an extensive human assets community
resource database and, from this, designing and implementing a
viable community development project. Building on the work of
Dr. Carlos Velez-Ibanez in "Funds of Knowledge" and
Randall Pinkett, Capacity Building for Future of the Desert Colonias
will train local residents to use Pinkett's Community Connections
System to leverage and enhance the economic, human, and social
capital in this desert community. This will serve as the platform
database for planning and developing community projects. Third,
The UCR CBF Environmental Home Health activity will develop an
environmental home health program in the Coachella Valley of Southeastern
California. HUD's funding mission is to support the Colonias'
capacity to develop their own environmental home health projects
and integrate the social and material needs of colonias within
the policy horizons of agency, county, state, and national authorities
and within the educational institutions of California. Funded
by the California Wellness Foundation, an earlier part of the
program will train a research cadre of school students, their
teachers and parents from the agricultural Colonias and two other
colonias that are part of adjoining Indian reservation.
Invited Speakers
2002-2003 Distinguished Speaker Series
Dra. Mariángela Rodríguez, a senior researcher with
the Center for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology
at UNAM, spoke Monday May 6-- "Myth, Identity and Ritual:
Mexicans and Chicanos in California."
Dr. Timothy Finan, director of Bureau of Applied Research in
Anthropology at the University of Arizona, spoke Wednesday May
9--"Institutionalizing Applied Anthropology in a University:
The Case for BARA (Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology)."
Conferences/Symposiums
May 14, 2003-Educating the Bilingual Student: Accountability
and Effective Practices (328 participants)
January 2003, Promotora Statewide Conferences (350 participants).
Extramural Development
2002-2003
Title: California Health Worker/Promotora Project
Agency: The California Wellness Foundation
Amount: $100,000 (July 2002-June2003) (Pending notification)
Title: Community Digital Initiative: Administrative Support
Agency: The California Wellness Foundation
Amount: $50,000 (July 2001-June2002)
EGARC Graduate Student Researchers
Guillermina Nuñez, Graduate Student-Anthropolog and Edgar
Najera, Education Graduate Student.
Under the direction of Dr. Carlos Velez-Ibáñez,
Nunez examined human adaptability of migrant communities along
the U.S.-Mexico Border by analyzing the roles of human agents,
non-governmental organizations, and governmental agencies in the
development of "colonias." Research helped better understand
how immigrant populations define their place and space by way
of colonias located within 150 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nunez has carried out intensive field research utilizing EGARC
questionnaires and research questions that will form one aspect
of her expected dissertation. Najera is responsible for inputting
the data from 120 randomally collected households using 10 questionnaires
each in five colonias.
EGARC Undergraduate Researchers
Aide Acosta, Senior, History and Anthropology
Angel Lopez, Senior, Ethnic Studies and History
Alfonso Taboada, Junior, Chicano Studies and Anthropology
Hue Tang, Junior, Computer Science
2003-2004 Faculty Research Grants
Edna Bonacich, Christ Chase-Dunn, Thomas Reifer--Sociology
Labor and Logistics in the Pacific Rim: Changing Structures of
Production and Immigration in the Mexico-Southern California-China
Triangle
Research will analyze the changing structure of production (including
in agriculture), distribution (logistics), financial investment
flows and networks of immigration in the Mexico-China-Southern
California triangle from 1970 to the present, in the context of
global trends as a whole. Furthermore, it will analyze opportunities
for transborder organizing and international cooperation among
workers that are most likely to improve wages and working conditions.
Maria L. Cruz-Torres--Anthropology
Lives of Dust and Water: An Anthropology of Change and Resistance
in Northwestern Mexico
Research will trace the emergence of rural communities in coastal
northwestern Mexico and particularly in the southern region of
the Mexican State of Sinaloa. It focuses on the manner in which
households survive in the midst of global processes, environmental
degradation and economic impoverishment and while such circumstances
are destructive of the human spirit; nevertheless, household and
community members invent and utilize their own social capital
and genius to survive as whole persons.
Anthony Macias--Ethnic Studies
Pachucos, Tarzanes, and the Mambo: A Tale of Two Cultural Capitals
Research will document the culture, consciousness, pride and prejudice
of a distinctly Mexican American generation that, because of both
its achievements and failures, gave rise to the militant Chicano
generation of the 1960s. Mexican American expressive culture is
also a multi-ethnic urban history of Los Angeles that shows how
successive integrated dance scenes surrounding big band swing,
rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and Latin music defied the social
containment of a segregated city.
Armando Navarro--Ethnic Studies
The Mexicano Political Experience in Occupied Aztlan: Struggles
of Resistance and Change
Research will provide an overview of the internal/external colonial
and political cultural theoretical framework that guide its political
historical analysis. A succinct overview of each will be provided
with the intent of providing the reader with a general or basic
intellectual understanding of each.
Robert Perez--Ethnic Studies
Migration Patterns and Oral Histories of Sonoran Indian Tribes
Research will document the migration patterns of the Tohono O'odham,
Yaqui, Mayo, Tarahumara, and Seri nations from the 19th century
until the modern period, and how it is that these migrations have
affected the formation of contemporary Indian settlements. Furthermore,
to research how these migration patterns have been heavily influenced
by aboriginal patterns of development in the pre-Spanish period
as well as by Spanish colonization and phenomenon as diverse as
the Mexican Revolution, the Bracero program, the activities of
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and continuing Mexican cultural
and territorial encroachment on Native lands in Sonora.
Dylan Rodriguez--Ethnic Studies
Thirty Years in Isolation: Conversations with Hugo 'Yogi' Pinell
Researcher, based on an interview granted by Pinell during his
time in Pelican Bay, will develop an ethnographic work that will
have lasting significance to public policy makers, historians,
anthropologists, and other researchers of the burgeoning California
prison industrial complex. Pinell offers a sociological and historical
account that extends beyond his personal biography and encompasses
a stunningly comprehensive history of whit might be called the
"California prison movement" during the 1960's and 1970's.
2003-2004 Graduate Student Research Grants
Jesse Diaz--Sociology
Psychosociology Conditions of Day Laborers
Research will be conducted at the Pomona Economic Opportunity
Center (PEOC) in Pomona, California. The PEOC is a day labor center,
which provides diurnal employment for employees who are predominately
Latino, specifically Mexican and Central American immigrants.
The PEOC has been in operation for over five years, mostly because
of the efforts of the community, Pitzer college students and Pitzer
College professor, Jose Calderon.
Gary Goodman--Political Science
Transnational Consequences of Subnational Institutions: A Study
of Migrant Mixtec in Southern and Central California
Research intends to sharpen the understanding of how local political
institutions that explicitly recognize and incorporate indigenous
customs into the formal political process can foster substantive
political participation among indigenous groups. Specifically,
it will examine the impact of indigenous-based local political
institutions on the political behavior of the Mixtecs of Southern
Mexico and Southern California. The research will challenge the
proposition that such behavior is likely more a result of longstanding
local political and economic institutions that discourage indigenous
peoples' entrance into the formal political and economic system.
Edgar I. Najera--Graduate School of Education
On Self, Ethnicity and Education: Educational Paths of Mexican-American
Students
The study will look at the intersection between students' ethnicity
and both home and educational experiences. The general purpose
is to understand the development of self and ethnic identity of
Mexican-American students and its relationship with experiences
at schools. On idea is to build upon previous research that document
on the minority experience in schooling to identify particularities
of the Mexican-American population.
Guillermina Gina Nunez--Anthropology
The Political Ecology of Households and Communities on the U.S.-Mexico
Border: A Case Study of Colonias in Southern New Mexico
The study will provide an analysis of community formation processes
to examine how colonia residents define their place and space
through civic participation. A representative sample of a cluster
of four colonia communities in Southern New Mexico will 1) document
settlement processes of a Mexican labor force in agricultural,
dairy, and service industries along the U.S.-Mexico border; 2)
and identify the growing population's need for housing and social
services, while 3) creating primary data that will be useful in
applied policy applications that will better serve the people
living in these colonia communities.
Elvia Ramirez--Sociology
Chicanas/Latinas in Higher Education
The study will explore how the graduate schooling process is enmeshed
in race, class, and gender hierarchies and inequalities, and how
this impacts the educational conditions and experiences of Chicana/Latina
graduate (PhD) students. In other words, it will examine Chicanas/Latinas'
experiences with racism, classism, and sexism while pursuing their
graduate degrees and how these major (and intersecting) mechanisms
of subordination function as a barriers to their graduate degree
completion and success. Specifically, this study will examine
the race, class, and gender dyanamics of various aspects of the
graduate schooling experience, including the graduate school curriculum,
classroom dyanamics, social interactions with peers, faculty expectations,
mentorship, financial support, and research opportunities and
experiences.
Conclusion and Program Planning Horizons:
During the upcoming academic year, EGARC will continue to carryout
the project: "Community Health Worker/Promotora Program for
Improving Quality of Health Care for Latinos/as"; initiate
the funded "Ecological Health for the Future"Project;
and await the final determination of the HUD proposal in December
of 2003.
Despite reduced funding, EGARC will continue to allocate funds
for faculty and graduate/undergraduate student awards and conferences,
colloquia, and speakers that focus on the Center's mission and
goals and enhance its opportunities for extra-mural research.
As well, we will initiate a publication series of short essays
devoted to the Center's topical foci. All graduate students working
in EGARC will continue to be subject to an intense methodological
training program that will emphasize a diverse but integrated
curriculum of methods, techniques, and skills necessary to carry
out Center research. We will also endeavor to move EGARC from
the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences to the Office
of the Vice President of Research in the near future.
