Inter-University Program for Latino Research :: Working Groups Completed Projects

	IUPLR Working Groups : Completed Projects
1. Latinos in a Changing US Economy This working group, founded in 1982, examined the connections between the socioeconomic status of Latinos and labor market trends in the US economy. Its research program had regional, national, and international components. Regional studies were conducted in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, and Houston. The international component of the group included binational teams that developed alternative scenarios for future US relations with Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Central America. These scenarios were based on formal models of the changing political and economic aspects of relationships and their effect on the respective national societies. Early findings were presented at a conference in May 1990 at the University of California, Berkeley, eliciting favorable comments and useful recommendations from a broad audience of scholars and policy specialists. Other presentations drawing from the work were made at both national and international forums, including several in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, and West Germany. Working Group Members: Frank Bonilla, Brad Barham (team leader), John Betancurt, Gilberto Cárdenas, Martin Carnoy, Jorge Chapa, Teresa Córdova, Hugh Daley, Miren Uriarte Gastón, Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda (team leader), Edwin Meléndez (team leader), Rebecca Morales, Paul Ong, Marifeli Pérez-Stable, Erol R. Ricketts, Clara Rodríguez, Saskia Sassen, Andrés Torres, María de los Angeles Torres (team leader), Donald Harris 2. Latino Life Chances The Latino Life Chances group, founded in 1982, examined longitudinal census data in order to estimate the degree of social mobility—or lack thereof—experienced by Latinos between 1940 and 1980. Other major research objectives for this working group included identifying patterns of inequality between male and female Latino workers in the United States and comparing these patterns across Latino subgroups (Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and other Latinos), other minority groups (blacks, Asians, and Native Americans), and the Anglo population. Working Group Members: Manuel Avalos (group coordinator), Avelardo Valdez (group coordinator), Dudley Poston, Erol R. Ricketts, Andrés Torres 3. Latino Political Attitudes and Behaviors Before the initiation of the Latino Political Attitudes and Behaviors Working Group in 1984, no study had ever calculated Latino voter turnout or how Latinos' voting patterns differed from the rest of the population. The group, which completed its research in 1992, addressed this data gap through the Latino National Surveys Project (LNSP), which explored three questions of primary importance: * Is there a distinct Latino political community (as opposed to the Mexican American, Puerto Rican, or Cuban American communities) already in existence in the United States? * If not, is there a basis for the emergence of such a community? * What are significant differences and similarities politically within Latino subgroups and between Latinos and non-Latinos? Fieldwork for the LNSP analyzed data from 3,415 respondents of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin, as well as a comparison sample of non-Hispanic whites. The group also raised federal funds to incorporate its Latino sample into the Panel Survey on Income Dynamics (PSID), a rich database with longitudinal information on labor force participation, unemployment, family composition, poverty, welfare use, intergenerational economic mobility, and other research and policy-related data. Through this sample, Latinos have become a part of the ongoing PSID surveys. In a related project, the group conducted ethnographic fieldwork on political behavior during the 1990 elections in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York, presenting results in publications and at several conferences. Working Group Members: Rodolfo O. de la Garza (group coordinator), Angelo Falcón, F. Chris Garcia, and John Garcia; assisted by Louis DeSipio 4. Economic Development and Opportunity In 1997 IUPLR collaborated with the Mexican American Studies & Research Center (MASRC) at the University of Arizona to form this working group on Economic Development and Opportunity. MASRC hosted the working group as it cooperated with key community agencies and the business community to promote leadership and economic empowerment of Latinos throughout the nation. An emerging focus of research was economic development strategies and small business entrepreneurship of the Latino community. Topics of interest to the working group included access to financial capital for small businesses, levels of technical assistance for Hispanic small businesses, and alternative models of job creation for low-income Latinos. This last issue became more urgent with the increased pressure from the federal government on states to take ownership over welfare strategies for the poor. Ultimately, amid greater emphasis on private and public partnerships to address these issues, the working group hoped to position its research so as to provide timely assessment of the most effective policy practices for the nation's Latino constituents. Through IUPLR and the working group, MASRC accelerated the dissemination of policy analyses so that a broader audience of policy experts and legislators had access to policy-relevant research. 5. Inequality and Welfare Reform This working group, initiated in 1997, on Inequality and Welfare Reform designated as its first priority determining the direction in which various legislatures and governors were headed. Bills for welfare reform were going through or had gone through the legislative process, and, while the process was continuing apace nationwide, the group expected to find a great deal of local variation on the central themes. A primary part of the support involved commissioning scholars to research the debates and the outcomes of welfare reform laws to be passed in a few selected states. A longer-range goal of group members was to follow the policy process in these states once laws were enacted. Studying the impact of welfare reform on Latinos principally involved three demographic groups. One group was the mainly rural longtime Latino residents in areas such as Northern New Mexico and the Texas Valley, areas characterized by high levels of the working poor. Another group was the demographic sector residing in large cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and Miami, which involved questions of urban poverty. These were areas in which informal or "illicit" economic activity has been significant for Latinos. The third sector studied was migrant labor and Mexican immigrants, in which population shifts were considerably important, especially in areas such as the Midwest, Florida, and California's Imperial Valley. 6. International Migration and Human Rights The International Migration and Human Rights Working Group was launched in 1994 as an initiative of the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) at the University of Texas at Austin. The project's purpose was to encourage comparative research on migration polices to assess their impact on the human rights of documented and undocumented migrants. Concerns included the policy process and the social forces, institutions, and groups that support a positive human rights environment for migrants, as well as those that create a hostile one. It was the research group's position that comparative cross-national studies facilitate the assessment of policies and advance theoretical formulation. Overall the IMHR project was divided into three components: research, publication, and international working meetings. After 1994 the project organized two international workshops, which were funded by IUPLR. One workshop was held at the University of Texas at Austin, and the other, in collaboration with European institutions and with additional funding from the European Union, was held in Granada, Spain. Over thirty-five scholars representing more than ten disciplines attended. They hailed from Northern Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya), the European Union (Spain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy), Mexico and the United States. They met for three days at the Andalusian School of Public Health in Granada. Twelve papers presented at the conference were released by CMAS and distributed by the University of Texas Press in October 1997. This working group collaborated closely with the Center for Immigration Research of the University of Houston. The center organized a third workshop on migration and human rights. In another collaboration with the center, the working group prepared and received a grant from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health to study the impact of family separation on the mental health of migrants. Fieldwork for a two-year study began in the spring of 1997. The working group's goals included continuing to promote workshops that explored the definition of human rights with regard to international migration. It was their belief that family unity was one of these basic rights, and they wanted to continue researching the human cost imposed by governments that forcefully separate migrants from their families. In addition to social scientists and legal experts from the academic realm, representatives from advocacy and migrant services organizations were asked to participate in these workshops. The group's other objectives included continuing the search for research grants on the study of families of migrants, of the treatment that migrants receive from immigration, law enforcement, and justice systems, and of the formation of negative stereotypes about migrants. Utilizing a comparative approach, group members gave priority to exchanging research experiences with scholars from other industrial nations and from countries with large outflows of migrants. Working Group Members: Jorge Bustamante, Gilberto Cárdenas (group co-coordinator), Antonio Ugalde (group co-coordinator); assisted by Raquel Marquez 7. Media and Communications This working group, active from 1989 to 1993, conducted a preliminary study of the use of information technology at Latino research centers across the country. The goal of the study was to understand the extent to which these centers had access to new technologies and to determine factors that influence such success. Several specific questions guided the study: * Do Latino university scholars, who constitute a scarce and valuable intellectual resource for the Latino community, receive the institutional support necessary to pursue research of relevance to Latinos? * Are they provided access to technological tools that compare favorably to those of their colleagues engaged in other intellectual pursuits? * Do Latino research centers occupy a subordinate position at elite universities with regard to other specialized research centers? The study's findings were to be used as the basis of a larger-scale research project. Working Group Members: Susan Zeig (group coordinator), Richard Chabrán, Armando Valdez 8. Latino Health Policy The Latino Health Policy group focused on national health policy, school readiness, and women's health. Established in 1991, the group held, at Stanford University, a major planning conference, "The Health and Well-Being of Latino Children and Mothers." A second meeting was held in 1993 at Lake Arrowhead, California, to plan the formation of a Latino health research society that would include biomedical, social, and behavioral scientists. The group formed a national network of health researchers and published "Society for Latino Health Research: Directory of Members," which identified the country's leading scholars studying various aspects of Latino health and health care. Group members were also instrumental in planning a 1994 IUPLR forum in Washington, DC, on health care reform proposals and their potential impact on Latino communities, an event that resulted in improved networking among advocates and researchers. Several IUPLR member centers and associated faculty were actively involved in important research initiatives, including the then National Director of Research for IUPLR, Robert Valdez, formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Valdez was at the time a faculty associate of the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, which houses the Public Health Project, with its focus on diabetes and diet-related issues, pregnant Latinas, and substance abuse issues. In October 1997 the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) of the Department of Health and Human Services awarded a grant of $33,000 to the group for a review of the department's health services and social services research programs, service demonstration grant programs, and evaluation projects, with the aim of understanding the extent to which the health and social service needs of Latinos were incorporated in the department's activities. Working Group Members: Fernando Mendoza, David Hayes-Bautista, Hortensia Amaro, Ron Angel, Martha Bernal, Rick Castillo, Felipe Castro, Rafael Díaz, Antonio Furino, Cynthia Garcia Coll, Kenji Hakuta, Reynaldo Martorell, Yvonne Maldonado, Robert Malina, Amado Padilla, E.J. Pérez-Stable, Annette Ramírez de Arellano, Richard Santos, Ciro V. Sumayo, Marta Tienda, Fernando Treviño, Robert Valdez, Stephanie Ventura, Silvia Villareal, David Warner, Ruth E. Zambrana 9. Latino Higher Education Research The working group on Latino Higher Education Research was formed in 1990. Dr. Jorge Chapa, one of the initial members of the working group, believed that the main areas of concern for Latinos in higher education were the educational pipeline and affirmative action policies and their impact on this pipeline. The members of this working group have used the group as a sounding board for the educational research and policy activities of the individual members. The group often coordinated its meetings and activities with those of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). Perhaps the group's most tangible and significant activity was the facilitation of the Latino Faculty Survey, conducted under the supervision of Dr. Sylvia Hurtado of the University of Michigan. A reconstituted Latino Higher Education Research Working Group's activities led to the creation of a year-long policy research project (PRP) entitled "Increasing the Minority College Graduation Rate." It was offered at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin during the 1997–1998 academic year. Contributors to the PRP served as the research staff of the working group, with its special focus on California and Texas, which are home to more than half of the Latinos in the United States. Both of these states were at the time subject to laws and policies that barred explicit preferences for Latinos in higher education. The working group and the PRP examined factors that impeded full participation by Latinos in higher education and considered remedies that could be effective in all states. It was structured to maximize the involvement of IUPLR member institutions, as well as the potential impact of its recommendations on these and other institutions. The PRP was co-directed by Dr. Chapa and Dr. Jaime Chahin, Associate Vice President for Human Resources and University Affairs at Southwest Texas State University. Dr. Blandina Cárdenas, Chair of the Education Testing Service's board of directors, indicated interest in this activity, as did Dr. Margarita "Cha" Guzman, Chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. IUPLR assisted Dr. Chapa in developing the PRP and its broad research agenda, as well as assisting in securing additional funds to continue research on these issues. Working Group Members: Charlene Aguilar, Cecilia Burciaga, Albert Camarillo (group coordinator), María Josefa Canino, María Chacón, F. Chris Garcia, Sylvia Hurtado, Arturo Madrid, Michael Olivas, Carlos Vélez-Ibañez (group coordinator), Richard Verdugo 10. Latino Rural Communities The IUPLR Latino Rural Communities Working Group, founded in 1993, was an interdisciplinary network of social scientists conducting research on rural Latino communities. While Latinos are the fastest growing demographic segment in rural America, systematic research on this population is scarce. The working group sought to promote and coordinate research on this growing segment of the Latino population with an aim towards documenting critical changes in the process of the "Latinization" of rural America; providing sound empirical research to inform public policy and policymakers; facilitating cooperation and exchange among a growing network of scholars; and promoting the publication and dissemination of scholarly research on the rural Latino population. Scholars involved in this working group produced a series of practical documents to inform those who work with rural Latinos, such as extension agents, rural commissioners, and educators, about Latino issues and needs. The group developed a national network of scholars working on rural Latino issues. A book resulting from the project, Rural Latino Communities in the United States: Comparative Regional Perspectives addressed agricultural, economic, immigration, health, and educational issues. Among other matters, members of the IUPLR Rural Latino Communities Working Group expressed interest in focusing on issues related to environmental racism and environmental equity, including issues affecting farm workers and farm worker communities, such as exposure to pesticides and other workplace-related environmental health problems; issues impacting low-income rural Latino communities, such as the environmental consequences of extractive industries (logging and mining development), gentrification, and other processes that displace or degrade rural Latino communities; issues relating to sustainable agriculture, especially the study of Latino agro-ecosystems involving acequias and other traditional irrigation institutions; and issues relating to the protection of native land, rare crops and rare crop germplasms controlled by traditional Latino farmers, including threats posed by the patenting of these rare plant varieties by external corporate interests. Working Groups Members: Refugio Rochín, José Rivera, Rogelio Saenz, Lourdes Gouveia, Victor Garcia, Elaine Allensworth 11. Latinos and Public Policy A departure from the general model, the working group on Latinos and Public Policy consisted of IUPLR-associated researchers and policy experts from national Latino and multicultural organizations. It served as IUPLR's central vehicle for linking research with public policy and advocacy. Coordinated by the then National Director of Research, Dr. Robert Valdez, the working group was conceived as a tool that gave researchers and representatives of national Latino organizations an opportunity to jointly develop quick-response and longer-term research and analysis initiatives and to arrange for their implementation through the capacity of IUPLR member centers. At the time many national surveys and databases did not separately count or analyze data on Latinos and existing academic research often received limited dissemination and was not available to policymakers. National Latino organizations that participated in the policy debate often had little or no in-house research resources and capacity, making them largely dependent on existing research and databases. Moreover, their policy analyses were often not given full weight by policymakers; their research was suspect because they were advocates. As a result of these interrelated factors, policy and program decisions were often made without an understanding of the implications for Latinos. Thus the primary purpose of the working group was the design and implementation of policy-relevant, time-sensitive research and analyses, which contributed accurate, substantive information to policy debates on issues affecting Latinos. This working group hoped to not only conduct specific research or analysis projects, but also to link specific research centers with policy organizations. To these ends, the working group goals were to identify a small number of time-limited, policy-relevant research needs and work with IUPLR member centers and individual researchers to meet these needs. Researchers addressed relevant policy topics from a Latino perspective, gauging and projecting the impact of changes in federal policy and programs, such as the then-proposed block granting of Medicaid, on the Latino poor. Other goals were to frame research agendas, proactively identify gaps in the Latino knowledge base, to work with IUPLR to initiate research to fill these gaps by encouraging long-term research on needed topics; to provide a Washington, DC, link for member-center research with a strong policy focus, such as research focusing on equal opportunity or on rights and social justice; and to identify and facilitate opportunities for establishing a "residency program" through which senior researchers from IUPLR member centers served as resident scholars with national Latino organizations. 12. Latinos in a Changing Global Economy Latinos in a Changing Global Economy emerged from an earlier working group on Latinos in a Changing US Economy, moving beyond US borders to study the effects of the changing international economy on Latinos in the United States. This working group was productively engaged in wide-ranging research since the very beginnings of IUPLR. The group varied in composition as research tasks unfolded from a national stock-taking (Carnoy, Daley, Hinojosa-Ojeda, Latinos in a Changing US Economy: Comparative Perspectives on the US Labor Market since 1939) to a charting of deteriorating urban conditions (Harriet Romo, ed., Latinos & Blacks in the Cities: Policies for the 1990s) and on to a comparison of Latinos of different national origins (Morales and Bonilla, eds., Latinos in a Changing US Economy: Comparative Perspectives on Growing Inequality). In December 1994 the group held an international conference, "The Global Society and the Latino Community," at the Rockefeller Foundation's study center in Bellagio, Italy. A primary objective was the formulation of a long-term research, policy and organization-building agenda that interlinked the intellectual and political resources generated in recent years by Latinos in the United States with their counterparts in their countries of origin. Their publication, Borderless Borders: US Latinos, Latin Americans, and the Paradox of Interdependence, introduced global and transnational concepts on current change. With the responsibility for economic and social policy for job creation and the setting of wage scales and social supports increasingly left to state and municipal bodies, this working group returned to a focus on the conditions and prospective role of Latinos and their organizations in restoring job growth with adequate compensation, as well as protective social legislation covering all those of working age. Building on earlier experience with regional teams, it proposed to enlarge and diversify the composition of local task forces to combine academic, policy, and community-based resources in direct action. These task forces addressed related issues as they unfolded at the neighborhood, city, and state levels, while keeping in the foreground the national and home country transformations that affected immigrants and their descendants. In October 1996 the New York team launched its initiatives with a public forum at the City University, "Economic Globalization and its Impact on Latino Communities in New York." A parallel event was mounted in Washington, DC, at the Organization of American States. Teams in Boston, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles mapped research, policy guidelines, community-based programs, and broad political strategies to address in a unified manner Latino issues and perspectives with respect to work, wages, and social equity across the country and back to places of origin. Working Group Members: Frank Bonilla, Gilberto Cárdenas, Martin Carnoy, Jorge Chapa, Teresa Córdova, Miren Uriarte Gastón, Edwin Meléndez (team leader), Rebecca Morales, Paul Ong, Marifeli Pérez-Stable, Erol R. Ricketts, Clara Rodríguez, Harriet Romo, Saskia Sassen, Andrés Torres, María de los Angeles Torres (team leader) 13. The Politics of Difference In 1994 an interdisciplinary group of Latina scholars initiated a working group on the Politics of Difference to study the political empowerment of minority women. The research agenda for the working group was a national study of Latina, African American, Asian American, and Native American female elected officials. This national study was meant to provide baseline data on these populations, including a demographic profile, background on trajectories to political office, political attitudes, and family histories. The study afforded the group the opportunity to investigate broader issues, such as the role of gender and interracial differences in representational politics, and these elected officials' connections to historically underrepresented and under-served minority communities. The working group's main goal was to investigate the proposition that women of color conceptualize and practice a politic substantively different than that of the general body politic and than the politics of white men, white women, and men of color. Furthermore, the research team was interested in discovering whether or not there are any differences and/or similarities in the conceptualization and practice of politics among the four different women of color groups. Thus, one of the important theoretical questions was how women of color in general (and specifically Latina, African American, Asian American, and Native American female elected officials) theorize, participate in, and/or visualize their political activity. Research linked with this working group included a study conducted by Dr. Carol Hardy-Fanta at the University of Massachusetts Boston. It analyzed the 1996 election poll data to determine the voting patterns of Latinos and to measure their positions on various policy issues and areas. In addition, the study compared and contrasted the voting patterns of male and female Latinos, and of non-Latinos as well. Working Group Members Paule Cruz Takash, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Christine Sierra, Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell 14. Latino Archives and Libraries Initiated in 1993, the Latino Archives and Libraries Working Group prepared an inventory of collections at several Latino archives, a survey of acquisition policies and needs, and a study of issues related to automation and access. Nine IUPLR center libraries were represented, as were libraries at the University of California's Berkeley and Santa Barbara campuses, which also had extensive collections on Latinos. In May 1994 this group held an Internet training workshop at UCLA. In addition, the Chicano Library at Stanford and the Centro Library at Hunter College received National Endowment for the Humanities funding for a collaborative effort to process the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund (PRLDEF) archives. The research and activities of this working group were completed in 1995. Working Group Members: Nélida Pérez, Robert Trujillo 15. Latina Comparative Feminist Research The Latina Comparative Feminist Research Working Group was initiated in 1993 and was based at Hunter College and Colorado College. This group was a small, national network of Latina academics, creative writers and community activists including Chicanas, Puertorriqueñas, Cubanas, Dominicanas, and other Latinas whose research and writing focused on Latinas in the United States. One of the group's activities was a joint project on diversity and commonality among Latina academics and creative writers. The interdisciplinary group also held a Summer Institute/Retreat at Colorado College in June 1995 on life history and testimonial exploration of the relationship between life trajectory, community, politics, work in the academy, creative production, and contribution to new bodies of knowledge. The group's research was completed in 2000, culminating with the publication of the book Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios. Working Group Members: Luz del Alba Acevedo, Norma Alarcón, Celia Alvarez, Ruth Behar, Rina Benmayor, Norma E. Cantú, Daisy Cocco de Filippis, Gloria Holguín Cuádraz, Liza Fiol-Matta, Yvette Giselle Flores-Ortiz, Inés Hernández-Avila, Aurora Levins Morales, Clara Lomas, Maria Luisa Lomas, Iris Ofelia López, Mirtha N. Quintanales, Caridad Souza, Patricia Zavella 16. Art and Politics This working group, established in 1998, brought together scholars and visual artists for the purpose of discussing the significance of Latino popular art and its relationship to public policy, mass mobilization, and social change. One of the group's central concerns was the political aspect of the relationship between art and society. More specifically it examined the visual expression and affirmation of culture and its relationship to public policy. An important underlying issue was the definition and "legitimization" of Latino art by mainstream institutions with greater economic and political resources. The group held a symposium that convened researchers, artists, and local and national experts. Working Group Members: Gilberto Cárdenas (group coordinator), Ricardo Romo (group coordinator), Karen Bocallero, Richard Carlisle, Amelia Malagamba, Malaquías Montoya, Fernando Salicrup, Helen Valdés 17. Latino Cultural Studies The Latino Cultural Studies Working Group, established in 1987, conducted five case studies illustrating a continuum of practices within which cultural citizenship is inscribed. The work illustrated how Chicanos and Puerto Ricans establish community, claim rights, and act upon their sense of belonging, participation, and entitlement. Cultural citizenship in these contexts revealed how claims for cultural rights are part of a process by which Latinos challenge traditional notions of assimilation, pluralism, and histories of legal citizenship, imposed or denied. Ethnographic field studies in New York, San José, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Watsonville, California, formed the basis for the group's book, Latino Cultural Citizenship: Claiming Identity, Space and Rights. The group's research was completed in 1996. Working Group Members: Rina Benmayor (group coordinator), Renato Rosaldo (group coordinator), Richard Chabrán, Evelina Dagnino, Richard Flores, William Flores, Ana Juarbe, Pedro Pedraza, Ray Rocco, Luis Rubalcava, Blanca Silvestrini, Rosa Torruellas 18. Latinos in Museums, Public History, and Art The Latinos in Museums Working Group, established in 1992, examined, assessed, and made recommendations concerning museums' policies as they impacted Latinos. It looked at issues of development of Latino museums, development of a corps of Latino museum professionals, and networking. Working Group Members: Antonio Ríos-Bustamante (group coordinator), Marta Gutierrez Steinkamp, Reina Alejandra Prado, Karen Mary Davalos 19. Latino Families The Latino Families Working Group was initiated in 1989. A book prepared by this working group, Understanding Latino Families: Scholarship, Policy and Practice, published in 1995, marked the completion of the group's research. The book included five papers commissioned by the group on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics; the status of Latino children and youth; Latino family policy; and the choices made by Latino youth about education, drugs, and social interaction. An annotated bibliography on Latino family issues appeared earlier through the Chicano Studies Library at UCLA. Working Group Members: Ruth E. Zambrana (group coordinator), Maxine Baca Zinn, David Hayes-Bautista, Aida Hurtado, Merkrid Izquierdo, Vilma Ortiz, Julie Solís 20. Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinos (PARAL) Established in 1990, the Program for the Analysis of Religion among Latinos (PARAL) held a national symposium, "Harvesting between Wheat and Tares," at Princeton in April of 1993 and published a four-volume series on Latino religion, based on conference papers. The volumes dealt with three areas of Latino religious experience: syncretism, the assimilation of pre-Christian and non-Western religious traditions; popular religiosity, the maintenance of Christian beliefs and practices beyond the direct control of the clergy; and cultural identity, which is closely associated with both. The final volume focused on theory, methodology, and bibliographic resources. In April 1994, PARAL co-sponsored a conference to launch a new CUNY program on the Impact of Religion upon Latino Communities, and also initiated the Olga Scarpetta Award for the best student paper on Latino religion. PARAL completed its research in 1996. Working Group Members: Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo (group coordinator), David Avalos, Gilbert Cadena, Ana María Díaz-Arroyo, Otto Maduro, Caleb Rosado, Olga Scarpetta

IUPLR Working Groups : Completed Projects

1. Latinos in a Changing US Economy

This working group, founded in 1982, examined the connections between the socioeconomic status of Latinos and labor market trends in the US economy. Its research program had regional, national, and international components. Regional studies were conducted in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, and Houston. The international component of the group included binational teams that developed alternative scenarios for future US relations with Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Central America. These scenarios were based on formal models of the changing political and economic aspects of relationships and their effect on the respective national societies. Early findings were presented at a conference in May 1990 at the University of California, Berkeley, eliciting favorable comments and useful recommendations from a broad audience of scholars and policy specialists. Other presentations drawing from the work were made at both national and international forums, including several in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, and West Germany.

Working Group Members:

Frank Bonilla, Brad Barham (team leader), John Betancurt, Gilberto Cárdenas, Martin Carnoy, Jorge Chapa, Teresa Córdova, Hugh Daley, Miren Uriarte Gastón, Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda (team leader), Edwin Meléndez (team leader), Rebecca Morales, Paul Ong, Marifeli Pérez-Stable, Erol R. Ricketts, Clara Rodríguez, Saskia Sassen, Andrés Torres, María de los Angeles Torres (team leader), Donald Harris

2. Latino Life Chances

The Latino Life Chances group, founded in 1982, examined longitudinal census data in order to estimate the degree of social mobility—or lack thereof—experienced by Latinos between 1940 and 1980. Other major research objectives for this working group included identifying patterns of inequality between male and female Latino workers in the United States and comparing these patterns across Latino subgroups (Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and other Latinos), other minority groups (blacks, Asians, and Native Americans), and the Anglo population.

Working Group Members:

Manuel Avalos (group coordinator), Avelardo Valdez (group coordinator), Dudley Poston, Erol R. Ricketts, Andrés Torres

3. Latino Political Attitudes and Behaviors

Before the initiation of the Latino Political Attitudes and Behaviors Working Group in 1984, no study had ever calculated Latino voter turnout or how Latinos' voting patterns differed from the rest of the population. The group, which completed its research in 1992, addressed this data gap through the Latino National Surveys Project (LNSP), which explored three questions of primary importance:

* Is there a distinct Latino political community (as opposed to the Mexican American, Puerto Rican, or Cuban American communities) already in existence in the United States?

* If not, is there a basis for the emergence of such a community?

* What are significant differences and similarities politically within Latino subgroups and between Latinos and non-Latinos?

Fieldwork for the LNSP analyzed data from 3,415 respondents of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin, as well as a comparison sample of non-Hispanic whites. The group also raised federal funds to incorporate its Latino sample into the Panel Survey on Income Dynamics (PSID), a rich database with longitudinal information on labor force participation, unemployment, family composition, poverty, welfare use, intergenerational economic mobility, and other research and policy-related data. Through this sample, Latinos have become a part of the ongoing PSID surveys.

In a related project, the group conducted ethnographic fieldwork on political behavior during the 1990 elections in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York, presenting results in publications and at several conferences.

Working Group Members:

Rodolfo O. de la Garza (group coordinator), Angelo Falcón, F. Chris Garcia, and John Garcia; assisted by Louis DeSipio

4. Economic Development and Opportunity

In 1997 IUPLR collaborated with the Mexican American Studies & Research Center (MASRC) at the University of Arizona to form this working group on Economic Development and Opportunity. MASRC hosted the working group as it cooperated with key community agencies and the business community to promote leadership and economic empowerment of Latinos throughout the nation. An emerging focus of research was economic development strategies and small business entrepreneurship of the Latino community. Topics of interest to the working group included access to financial capital for small businesses, levels of technical assistance for Hispanic small businesses, and alternative models of job creation for low-income Latinos. This last issue became more urgent with the increased pressure from the federal government on states to take ownership over welfare strategies for the poor. Ultimately, amid greater emphasis on private and public partnerships to address these issues, the working group hoped to position its research so as to provide timely assessment of the most effective policy practices for the nation's Latino constituents. Through IUPLR and the working group, MASRC accelerated the dissemination of policy analyses so that a broader audience of policy experts and legislators had access to policy-relevant research.

5. Inequality and Welfare Reform

This working group, initiated in 1997, on Inequality and Welfare Reform designated as its first priority determining the direction in which various legislatures and governors were headed. Bills for welfare reform were going through or had gone through the legislative process, and, while the process was continuing apace nationwide, the group expected to find a great deal of local variation on the central themes. A primary part of the support involved commissioning scholars to research the debates and the outcomes of welfare reform laws to be passed in a few selected states. A longer-range goal of group members was to follow the policy process in these states once laws were enacted.

Studying the impact of welfare reform on Latinos principally involved three demographic groups. One group was the mainly rural longtime Latino residents in areas such as Northern New Mexico and the Texas Valley, areas characterized by high levels of the working poor. Another group was the demographic sector residing in large cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and Miami, which involved questions of urban poverty. These were areas in which informal or "illicit" economic activity has been significant for Latinos. The third sector studied was migrant labor and Mexican immigrants, in which population shifts were considerably important, especially in areas such as the Midwest, Florida, and California's Imperial Valley.

6. International Migration and Human Rights

The International Migration and Human Rights Working Group was launched in 1994 as an initiative of the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) at the University of Texas at Austin. The project's purpose was to encourage comparative research on migration polices to assess their impact on the human rights of documented and undocumented migrants. Concerns included the policy process and the social forces, institutions, and groups that support a positive human rights environment for migrants, as well as those that create a hostile one. It was the research group's position that comparative cross-national studies facilitate the assessment of policies and advance theoretical formulation. Overall the IMHR project was divided into three components: research, publication, and international working meetings.

After 1994 the project organized two international workshops, which were funded by IUPLR. One workshop was held at the University of Texas at Austin, and the other, in collaboration with European institutions and with additional funding from the European Union, was held in Granada, Spain. Over thirty-five scholars representing more than ten disciplines attended. They hailed from Northern Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya), the European Union (Spain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy), Mexico and the United States. They met for three days at the Andalusian School of Public Health in Granada. Twelve papers presented at the conference were released by CMAS and distributed by the University of Texas Press in October 1997.

This working group collaborated closely with the Center for Immigration Research of the University of Houston. The center organized a third workshop on migration and human rights. In another collaboration with the center, the working group prepared and received a grant from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health to study the impact of family separation on the mental health of migrants. Fieldwork for a two-year study began in the spring of 1997.

The working group's goals included continuing to promote workshops that explored the definition of human rights with regard to international migration. It was their belief that family unity was one of these basic rights, and they wanted to continue researching the human cost imposed by governments that forcefully separate migrants from their families. In addition to social scientists and legal experts from the academic realm, representatives from advocacy and migrant services organizations were asked to participate in these workshops.

The group's other objectives included continuing the search for research grants on the study of families of migrants, of the treatment that migrants receive from immigration, law enforcement, and justice systems, and of the formation of negative stereotypes about migrants. Utilizing a comparative approach, group members gave priority to exchanging research experiences with scholars from other industrial nations and from countries with large outflows of migrants.

Working Group Members:

Jorge Bustamante, Gilberto Cárdenas (group co-coordinator), Antonio Ugalde (group co-coordinator); assisted by Raquel Marquez

7. Media and Communications

This working group, active from 1989 to 1993, conducted a preliminary study of the use of information technology at Latino research centers across the country. The goal of the study was to understand the extent to which these centers had access to new technologies and to determine factors that influence such success. Several specific questions guided the study:

* Do Latino university scholars, who constitute a scarce and valuable intellectual resource for the Latino community, receive the institutional support necessary to pursue research of relevance to Latinos?

* Are they provided access to technological tools that compare favorably to those of their colleagues engaged in other intellectual pursuits?

* Do Latino research centers occupy a subordinate position at elite universities with regard to other specialized research centers?

The study's findings were to be used as the basis of a larger-scale research project.

Working Group Members:

Susan Zeig (group coordinator), Richard Chabrán, Armando Valdez

8. Latino Health Policy

The Latino Health Policy group focused on national health policy, school readiness, and women's health. Established in 1991, the group held, at Stanford University, a major planning conference, "The Health and Well-Being of Latino Children and Mothers." A second meeting was held in 1993 at Lake Arrowhead, California, to plan the formation of a Latino health research society that would include biomedical, social, and behavioral scientists. The group formed a national network of health researchers and published "Society for Latino Health Research: Directory of Members," which identified the country's leading scholars studying various aspects of Latino health and health care. Group members were also instrumental in planning a 1994 IUPLR forum in Washington, DC, on health care reform proposals and their potential impact on Latino communities, an event that resulted in improved networking among advocates and researchers.

Several IUPLR member centers and associated faculty were actively involved in important research initiatives, including the then National Director of Research for IUPLR, Robert Valdez, formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Valdez was at the time a faculty associate of the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, which houses the Public Health Project, with its focus on diabetes and diet-related issues, pregnant Latinas, and substance abuse issues.

In October 1997 the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) of the Department of Health and Human Services awarded a grant of $33,000 to the group for a review of the department's health services and social services research programs, service demonstration grant programs, and evaluation projects, with the aim of understanding the extent to which the health and social service needs of Latinos were incorporated in the department's activities.

Working Group Members:

Fernando Mendoza, David Hayes-Bautista, Hortensia Amaro, Ron Angel, Martha Bernal, Rick Castillo, Felipe Castro, Rafael Díaz, Antonio Furino, Cynthia Garcia Coll, Kenji Hakuta, Reynaldo Martorell, Yvonne Maldonado, Robert Malina, Amado Padilla, E.J. Pérez-Stable, Annette Ramírez de Arellano, Richard Santos, Ciro V. Sumayo, Marta Tienda, Fernando Treviño, Robert Valdez, Stephanie Ventura, Silvia Villareal, David Warner, Ruth E. Zambrana

9. Latino Higher Education Research

The working group on Latino Higher Education Research was formed in 1990. Dr. Jorge Chapa, one of the initial members of the working group, believed that the main areas of concern for Latinos in higher education were the educational pipeline and affirmative action policies and their impact on this pipeline. The members of this working group have used the group as a sounding board for the educational research and policy activities of the individual members. The group often coordinated its meetings and activities with those of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). Perhaps the group's most tangible and significant activity was the facilitation of the Latino Faculty Survey, conducted under the supervision of Dr. Sylvia Hurtado of the University of Michigan.

A reconstituted Latino Higher Education Research Working Group's activities led to the creation of a year-long policy research project (PRP) entitled "Increasing the Minority College Graduation Rate." It was offered at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin during the 1997–1998 academic year.

Contributors to the PRP served as the research staff of the working group, with its special focus on California and Texas, which are home to more than half of the Latinos in the United States. Both of these states were at the time subject to laws and policies that barred explicit preferences for Latinos in higher education.

The working group and the PRP examined factors that impeded full participation by Latinos in higher education and considered remedies that could be effective in all states. It was structured to maximize the involvement of IUPLR member institutions, as well as the potential impact of its recommendations on these and other institutions.

The PRP was co-directed by Dr. Chapa and Dr. Jaime Chahin, Associate Vice President for Human Resources and University Affairs at Southwest Texas State University. Dr. Blandina Cárdenas, Chair of the Education Testing Service's board of directors, indicated interest in this activity, as did Dr. Margarita "Cha" Guzman, Chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

IUPLR assisted Dr. Chapa in developing the PRP and its broad research agenda, as well as assisting in securing additional funds to continue research on these issues.

Working Group Members:

Charlene Aguilar, Cecilia Burciaga, Albert Camarillo (group coordinator), María Josefa Canino, María Chacón, F. Chris Garcia, Sylvia Hurtado, Arturo Madrid, Michael Olivas, Carlos Vélez-Ibañez (group coordinator), Richard Verdugo

10. Latino Rural Communities

The IUPLR Latino Rural Communities Working Group, founded in 1993, was an interdisciplinary network of social scientists conducting research on rural Latino communities. While Latinos are the fastest growing demographic segment in rural America, systematic research on this population is scarce. The working group sought to promote and coordinate research on this growing segment of the Latino population with an aim towards documenting critical changes in the process of the "Latinization" of rural America; providing sound empirical research to inform public policy and policymakers; facilitating cooperation and exchange among a growing network of scholars; and promoting the publication and dissemination of scholarly research on the rural Latino population.

Scholars involved in this working group produced a series of practical documents to inform those who work with rural Latinos, such as extension agents, rural commissioners, and educators, about Latino issues and needs. The group developed a national network of scholars working on rural Latino issues. A book resulting from the project, Rural Latino Communities in the United States: Comparative Regional Perspectives addressed agricultural, economic, immigration, health, and educational issues.

Among other matters, members of the IUPLR Rural Latino Communities Working Group expressed interest in focusing on issues related to environmental racism and environmental equity, including issues affecting farm workers and farm worker communities, such as exposure to pesticides and other workplace-related environmental health problems; issues impacting low-income rural Latino communities, such as the environmental consequences of extractive industries (logging and mining development), gentrification, and other processes that displace or degrade rural Latino communities; issues relating to sustainable agriculture, especially the study of Latino agro-ecosystems involving acequias and other traditional irrigation institutions; and issues relating to the protection of native land, rare crops and rare crop germplasms controlled by traditional Latino farmers, including threats posed by the patenting of these rare plant varieties by external corporate interests.

Working Groups Members:

Refugio Rochín, José Rivera, Rogelio Saenz, Lourdes Gouveia, Victor Garcia, Elaine Allensworth

11. Latinos and Public Policy

A departure from the general model, the working group on Latinos and Public Policy consisted of IUPLR-associated researchers and policy experts from national Latino and multicultural organizations. It served as IUPLR's central vehicle for linking research with public policy and advocacy. Coordinated by the then National Director of Research, Dr. Robert Valdez, the working group was conceived as a tool that gave researchers and representatives of national Latino organizations an opportunity to jointly develop quick-response and longer-term research and analysis initiatives and to arrange for their implementation through the capacity of IUPLR member centers. At the time many national surveys and databases did not separately count or analyze data on Latinos and existing academic research often received limited dissemination and was not available to policymakers. National Latino organizations that participated in the policy debate often had little or no in-house research resources and capacity, making them largely dependent on existing research and databases. Moreover, their policy analyses were often not given full weight by policymakers; their research was suspect because they were advocates. As a result of these interrelated factors, policy and program decisions were often made without an understanding of the implications for Latinos.

Thus the primary purpose of the working group was the design and implementation of policy-relevant, time-sensitive research and analyses, which contributed accurate, substantive information to policy debates on issues affecting Latinos. This working group hoped to not only conduct specific research or analysis projects, but also to link specific research centers with policy organizations.

To these ends, the working group goals were to identify a small number of time-limited, policy-relevant research needs and work with IUPLR member centers and individual researchers to meet these needs. Researchers addressed relevant policy topics from a Latino perspective, gauging and projecting the impact of changes in federal policy and programs, such as the then-proposed block granting of Medicaid, on the Latino poor. Other goals were to frame research agendas, proactively identify gaps in the Latino knowledge base, to work with IUPLR to initiate research to fill these gaps by encouraging long-term research on needed topics; to provide a Washington, DC, link for member-center research with a strong policy focus, such as research focusing on equal opportunity or on rights and social justice; and to identify and facilitate opportunities for establishing a "residency program" through which senior researchers from IUPLR member centers served as resident scholars with national Latino organizations.

12. Latinos in a Changing Global Economy

Latinos in a Changing Global Economy emerged from an earlier working group on Latinos in a Changing US Economy, moving beyond US borders to study the effects of the changing international economy on Latinos in the United States.

This working group was productively engaged in wide-ranging research since the very beginnings of IUPLR. The group varied in composition as research tasks unfolded from a national stock-taking (Carnoy, Daley, Hinojosa-Ojeda, Latinos in a Changing US Economy: Comparative Perspectives on the US Labor Market since 1939) to a charting of deteriorating urban conditions (Harriet Romo, ed., Latinos & Blacks in the Cities: Policies for the 1990s) and on to a comparison of Latinos of different national origins (Morales and Bonilla, eds., Latinos in a Changing US Economy: Comparative Perspectives on Growing Inequality). In December 1994 the group held an international conference, "The Global Society and the Latino Community," at the Rockefeller Foundation's study center in Bellagio, Italy. A primary objective was the formulation of a long-term research, policy and organization-building agenda that interlinked the intellectual and political resources generated in recent years by Latinos in the United States with their counterparts in their countries of origin. Their publication, Borderless Borders: US Latinos, Latin Americans, and the Paradox of Interdependence, introduced global and transnational concepts on current change.

With the responsibility for economic and social policy for job creation and the setting of wage scales and social supports increasingly left to state and municipal bodies, this working group returned to a focus on the conditions and prospective role of Latinos and their organizations in restoring job growth with adequate compensation, as well as protective social legislation covering all those of working age. Building on earlier experience with regional teams, it proposed to enlarge and diversify the composition of local task forces to combine academic, policy, and community-based resources in direct action. These task forces addressed related issues as they unfolded at the neighborhood, city, and state levels, while keeping in the foreground the national and home country transformations that affected immigrants and their descendants.

In October 1996 the New York team launched its initiatives with a public forum at the City University, "Economic Globalization and its Impact on Latino Communities in New York." A parallel event was mounted in Washington, DC, at the Organization of American States. Teams in Boston, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles mapped research, policy guidelines, community-based programs, and broad political strategies to address in a unified manner Latino issues and perspectives with respect to work, wages, and social equity across the country and back to places of origin.

Working Group Members:

Frank Bonilla, Gilberto Cárdenas, Martin Carnoy, Jorge Chapa, Teresa Córdova, Miren Uriarte Gastón, Edwin Meléndez (team leader), Rebecca Morales, Paul Ong, Marifeli Pérez-Stable, Erol R. Ricketts, Clara Rodríguez, Harriet Romo, Saskia Sassen, Andrés Torres, María de los Angeles Torres (team leader)

13. The Politics of Difference

In 1994 an interdisciplinary group of Latina scholars initiated a working group on the Politics of Difference to study the political empowerment of minority women. The research agenda for the working group was a national study of Latina, African American, Asian American, and Native American female elected officials. This national study was meant to provide baseline data on these populations, including a demographic profile, background on trajectories to political office, political attitudes, and family histories. The study afforded the group the opportunity to investigate broader issues, such as the role of gender and interracial differences in representational politics, and these elected officials' connections to historically underrepresented and under-served minority communities.

The working group's main goal was to investigate the proposition that women of color conceptualize and practice a politic substantively different than that of the general body politic and than the politics of white men, white women, and men of color. Furthermore, the research team was interested in discovering whether or not there are any differences and/or similarities in the conceptualization and practice of politics among the four different women of color groups. Thus, one of the important theoretical questions was how women of color in general (and specifically Latina, African American, Asian American, and Native American female elected officials) theorize, participate in, and/or visualize their political activity.

Research linked with this working group included a study conducted by Dr. Carol Hardy-Fanta at the University of Massachusetts Boston. It analyzed the 1996 election poll data to determine the voting patterns of Latinos and to measure their positions on various policy issues and areas. In addition, the study compared and contrasted the voting patterns of male and female Latinos, and of non-Latinos as well.

Working Group Members

Paule Cruz Takash, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Christine Sierra, Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell

14. Latino Archives and Libraries

Initiated in 1993, the Latino Archives and Libraries Working Group prepared an inventory of collections at several Latino archives, a survey of acquisition policies and needs, and a study of issues related to automation and access. Nine IUPLR center libraries were represented, as were libraries at the University of California's Berkeley and Santa Barbara campuses, which also had extensive collections on Latinos. In May 1994 this group held an Internet training workshop at UCLA. In addition, the Chicano Library at Stanford and the Centro Library at Hunter College received National Endowment for the Humanities funding for a collaborative effort to process the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund (PRLDEF) archives. The research and activities of this working group were completed in 1995.

Working Group Members:

Nélida Pérez, Robert Trujillo

15. Latina Comparative Feminist Research

The Latina Comparative Feminist Research Working Group was initiated in 1993 and was based at Hunter College and Colorado College. This group was a small, national network of Latina academics, creative writers and community activists including Chicanas, Puertorriqueñas, Cubanas, Dominicanas, and other Latinas whose research and writing focused on Latinas in the United States. One of the group's activities was a joint project on diversity and commonality among Latina academics and creative writers. The interdisciplinary group also held a Summer Institute/Retreat at Colorado College in June 1995 on life history and testimonial exploration of the relationship between life trajectory, community, politics, work in the academy, creative production, and contribution to new bodies of knowledge. The group's research was completed in 2000, culminating with the publication of the book Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios.

Working Group Members:

Luz del Alba Acevedo, Norma Alarcón, Celia Alvarez, Ruth Behar, Rina Benmayor, Norma E. Cantú, Daisy Cocco de Filippis, Gloria Holguín Cuádraz, Liza Fiol-Matta, Yvette Giselle Flores-Ortiz, Inés Hernández-Avila, Aurora Levins Morales, Clara Lomas, Maria Luisa Lomas, Iris Ofelia López, Mirtha N. Quintanales, Caridad Souza, Patricia Zavella

16. Art and Politics

This working group, established in 1998, brought together scholars and visual artists for the purpose of discussing the significance of Latino popular art and its relationship to public policy, mass mobilization, and social change. One of the group's central concerns was the political aspect of the relationship between art and society. More specifically it examined the visual expression and affirmation of culture and its relationship to public policy. An important underlying issue was the definition and "legitimization" of Latino art by mainstream institutions with greater economic and political resources. The group held a symposium that convened researchers, artists, and local and national experts.

Working Group Members:

Gilberto Cárdenas (group coordinator), Ricardo Romo (group coordinator), Karen Bocallero, Richard Carlisle, Amelia Malagamba, Malaquías Montoya, Fernando Salicrup, Helen Valdés

17. Latino Cultural Studies

The Latino Cultural Studies Working Group, established in 1987, conducted five case studies illustrating a continuum of practices within which cultural citizenship is inscribed. The work illustrated how Chicanos and Puerto Ricans establish community, claim rights, and act upon their sense of belonging, participation, and entitlement. Cultural citizenship in these contexts revealed how claims for cultural rights are part of a process by which Latinos challenge traditional notions of assimilation, pluralism, and histories of legal citizenship, imposed or denied. Ethnographic field studies in New York, San José, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Watsonville, California, formed the basis for the group's book, Latino Cultural Citizenship: Claiming Identity, Space and Rights. The group's research was completed in 1996.

Working Group Members:

Rina Benmayor (group coordinator), Renato Rosaldo (group coordinator), Richard Chabrán, Evelina Dagnino, Richard Flores, William Flores, Ana Juarbe, Pedro Pedraza, Ray Rocco, Luis Rubalcava, Blanca Silvestrini, Rosa Torruellas

18. Latinos in Museums, Public History, and Art

The Latinos in Museums Working Group, established in 1992, examined, assessed, and made recommendations concerning museums' policies as they impacted Latinos. It looked at issues of development of Latino museums, development of a corps of Latino museum professionals, and networking.

Working Group Members:

Antonio Ríos-Bustamante (group coordinator), Marta Gutierrez Steinkamp, Reina Alejandra Prado, Karen Mary Davalos

19. Latino Families

The Latino Families Working Group was initiated in 1989. A book prepared by this working group, Understanding Latino Families: Scholarship, Policy and Practice, published in 1995, marked the completion of the group's research. The book included five papers commissioned by the group on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics; the status of Latino children and youth; Latino family policy; and the choices made by Latino youth about education, drugs, and social interaction. An annotated bibliography on Latino family issues appeared earlier through the Chicano Studies Library at UCLA.

Working Group Members:

Ruth E. Zambrana (group coordinator), Maxine Baca Zinn, David Hayes-Bautista, Aida Hurtado, Merkrid Izquierdo, Vilma Ortiz, Julie Solís

20. Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinos (PARAL)

Established in 1990, the Program for the Analysis of Religion among Latinos (PARAL) held a national symposium, "Harvesting between Wheat and Tares," at Princeton in April of 1993 and published a four-volume series on Latino religion, based on conference papers. The volumes dealt with three areas of Latino religious experience: syncretism, the assimilation of pre-Christian and non-Western religious traditions; popular religiosity, the maintenance of Christian beliefs and practices beyond the direct control of the clergy; and cultural identity, which is closely associated with both. The final volume focused on theory, methodology, and bibliographic resources. In April 1994, PARAL co-sponsored a conference to launch a new CUNY program on the Impact of Religion upon Latino Communities, and also initiated the Olga Scarpetta Award for the best student paper on Latino religion. PARAL completed its research in 1996.

Working Group Members:

Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo (group coordinator), David Avalos, Gilbert Cadena, Ana María Díaz-Arroyo, Otto Maduro, Caleb Rosado, Olga Scarpetta