Cambio Center News - November 2012

Did you know?

Not-so-trivial info about the SEC and the New Hispanic South: Alabama and South Carolina have now two of the most powerful college football teams in the Southeastern Conference and the nation.  And they also were the two U.S. states with the fastest relative growth of the Hispanic population between 2000 and 2010. South Carolina’s Hispanic numbers grew 147.9 percent (to a total of 235,682 individuals), and Alabama’s 144.8% (total of 185,602). Elsewhere in the Old South, Latino workers and families drove increases over 100 percent in Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee as well.  Those states are part of what is being called “The New Hispanic South.”  Georgia and North Carolina will soon be the first old-South states to reach one million Hispanics. (Census data.)

Cambio de Colores 2013

Save the date: June 12-14, 2013
The 12th annual Cambio de Colores conference will be held in St. Louis (University of Missouri-St. Louis) June 12-14, 2013. The Call for Abstracts and Presentations will be issued in mid-December. See www.cambiodecolores.org for more information.

Please contact the Cambio Center if you would like to help with content, outreach and/or fundraising as a member of the Planning Committee.

News from our Research Projects

• Immigrant Integration and Sustainable Rural Development
  The Immigrant Integration and Sustainable Rural Development project began in February 2011 and is funded by a $499,000 grant by an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The three-year project is currently doing field work in three communities in Missouri, with the participation of Cambio Center fellows Corinne Valdivia (Agricultural Economics, CAFNR), Lisa Flores (Educational, School and Counseling Psychology, College of Education), Steve Jeanetta (Rural Sociology, CAFNR, and Extension), Alejandro Morales (Educational, School and Counseling Psychology, College of Education) , Domingo Martinez (Cambio Center), and graduate students Marvyn Arévalo Ávalos and Sarah May from Educational, School and Counseling Psychology, and Lindsey Saunders from Rural Sociology. This project examines the economic and social integration of three rural communities in Missouri from individual and colective perspectives of immigrant newcomers and long-term residents. This project focuses on promoting the sustainability of agricultural and rural communities by using an interdisciplinary, strengths-based model, and developing tools and participatory processes to facilitate the integration between long time members of the rural community and newcomers.
• Capacity-Building among Beginning Latino Farmers and Ranchers
  The University of Missouri received a grant from the Beginning Farmers and Ranchers program at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the US Department of Agriculture to develop and pilot a financial literacy program for Latino Farmers and Ranchers. Fellows Steve Jeanetta (PI) and Eleazar Gonzalez (Research Associate) are leading this project, whose intent is to enhance the farm viability of 72 beginning Latino farmers in Missouri and Nebraska. Objectives include increasing access to social and institutional support networks and improving financial and production skills. The program will develop the farm management and financial literacy skills of Latino farmers and ranchers and use a leadership development model to build the capacity of Latino farmers and ranchers to better navigate the networks and resources available to them in their community. In addition, production courses focusing on improving farming practices will be offered and a core group of Latino farmers and ranchers will be trained to serve as Promotores, or community resources, to other Latinos regarding how to access USDA and other community resources. It is anticipated that at least six Promotores will be operating in two states by the end of the three-year program.

Welcome to our New Fellows

The Cambio Center welcomes three new fellows. Please contact them for your  potential interdisciplinary projects.

• Gustavo Carlo, Millsap Professor of Diversity and Multicultural Studies in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, MU. His main research interests are in the roles of culture, personality, and parenting on positive youth development. He has several ongoing projects focusing on Latinos in various regions of the U.S., Spain, and Argentina. Dr. Carlo was a faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and co-founded the Latino Research Initiative and Latino Youth Mentoring Program in Nebraska. He has served on the boards of various community organizations. http://hdfs.missouri.edu/faculty_carlo.html

• Miguel A. Carranza, Professor of Sociology and Latina-Latino Studies; Director, Latina/Latino Studies Program, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Miguel is the founding Director of UMKC's Latina/o-Chicana/o Studies. His research agenda is comprised of investigating the multiple components of immigration to and migration within the United States, particularly as it involves Mexican and Central American immigrants and refugees.
  http://cas.umkc.edu//latino-studies/people.cfm

• Erika C. Noguera, Director, Program Alianzas, University of Missouri-Kansas City
  Alianzas website.

Recent Publications

Books

Stephen Jeanetta and Corinne Valdivia (eds.): Cambio de Colores: Latinos in the Heartland. Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference: Migration and Shifting Human Landscapes. Kansas City, Missouri | June 8-10, 2011. Published by the Cambio Center, University of Missouri, June, 2012 (118 pp.)
This Book of Proceedings (the seventh volume) is available online (free download or online reading) at the Cambio Center Publications page. Printed copies of the 2011 book and past proceedings are also available to fellows and their colleagues. Please contact cambio@missouri.edu to request free copies.

Refereed Journal Articles

Corinne Valdivia, Stephen Jeanetta, Lisa Y. Flores, Alejandro Morales, and Domingo Martínez: "Latino/a Wealth and Livelihood Strategies in Rural Midwestern Communities." Choices. The magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues. 2012 (Full text).
Young Latino immigrant families—a potential and substantial driver for the future of agriculture and development in rural America—are settling in communities, bringing renewal and growth. They are buying houses, starting businesses and expanding the talent pool. However, little is known, and often much is misunderstood, about how Latino/a newcomers create wealth. We have been studying the process of Latino/as settling in rural areas, based on information directly provided by newcomers and members of the receiving communities in the Midwest.
  
Corinne Valdivia and Lisa Y. Flores: “Factors Affecting the Job Satisfaction of Latino/a Immigrants in the Midwest." Journal of Career Development. February 2012 39: 31-49. (Abstract / Full Text (PDF).
This study examined the job satisfaction of 253 Latino/a newcomers in three rural communities in the Midwest. Specifically, the authors explored the effects of ethnic identity, Anglo acculturation, Latino/a acculturation, perceptions of the community (social relations, discrimination/racism, and language pressures), job tenure, work hours, and salary on participants’ job satisfaction. Results of a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that ethnic identity and Anglo acculturation had a positive effect, while perceptions of the community related to discrimination/racism had a negative effect on job satisfaction. Latino/a acculturation, perceived social relations in the community, perceived language pressures in the community, job tenure, hours worked, and wages were not significantly related to job satisfaction. The regression model accounted for 16% of the variance in job satisfaction. The implications of the findings for career counseling practice are discussed, and suggestions for future research on Latino/a immigrants’ career development are provided.

Updates from Cambio Center Fellows

• Denice Adkins – MU School of Information Science & Learning Technologies
  Denice was elected president of REFORMA (The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos & the Spanish-speaking). In this capacity, she attended the Joint Conference for Librarians of Color in Kansas City, MO, where she moderated a session called "Library Services to Latinos: Best Practices and Advice" and was one of several readers in the "Librotraficante 50 for Freedom of Speech" program, where all participants read aloud from books that were eliminated when the Tucson (AZ) Unified School District eliminated their Mexican American Studies program. (http://www.reforma.org/50foe_en)
  Research-wise, Dr. Adkins is working on using GIS maps to look at public library services to Latinos in Arizona, and doing a citation analysis study looking at who is the "voice" for Latino services in the library and information science literature. 

• Deborah Cohen –Department of History, University of Missouri-St. Louis

  Dr. Cohen’s book Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico was published in 2011 by the University of North Carolina Press. 

  The book was awarded the 2012 Theodore Saloutos Book Prize from the Agricultural History Society; and was a finalist for the 2012 CLR James Book Award (Working-Class Studies Association) and the 2011 Weber-Clements Book Prize from the Western History Association.

  Deborah has several new projects:

a) "Loyalty and Betrayal: The Outlines of National Belonging in the United States and Mexico" looks at two moments of mass migration from Mexico, 1940-1960 and 1990-2010, to examine the changing emotional configuration of belonging.  
b) "The Racialized Erotics of Banditry: Zorro, Transnational Political Imaginaries, and the Grounding Myths of California" analyzes Zorro films made in the US and Mexico to reveal how cultural stories are embedded in particular political contexts. 
c) "More than Mojo: Gender and a Global 1968," examines the student movements in the US, Mexico, and France to understand the changing political, social, and cultural configurations and the formation of a new political cohort: youth. 
4) Dr. Cohen was elected Director of Graduate Studies for UMSL's History Department.

• Lisa Dorner –Department of Educational Psychology, Research and Evaluation, University of Missouri-St. Louis
  Lisa is in the process of developing a public and teacher-centered website that showcases the 'Languages, Arts, Cultures, and Ethnicities of St. Louis' (LACES). See www.lacesproject.org. There are narrative video-taped interviews of young adult immigrants posted on this site. This work is in partnership with the Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates and Springboard, an arts education organization. 

• Mònica Marcos Llinàs – MU Department of Romance Languages & Literature
  Dr. Marcos Llinàs finished translation of a collection of five tales by the Majorcan author, Antoni Maria Alcover, from Catalan into English. It will be published this Fall 2012.
  She also presented a paper "Beliefs, motivation, and language anxiety in third language acquisition" at the EUROSLA annual convention in Poznan, Poland (September, 2012) and was invited to attend the 26 Jornades de Professorat de Catala a l'Exterior a Vic (Catalonia, Spain) during July 2012.

Alianzas Newsletters and updates

The Alianzas Program continues looking for innovative ways to collaborate with Missouri communities and MU Extension personnel. Alianzas continues reaching the University of Missouri Extension network through bi-monthly newsletters that engage, inform, and connect Extension personnel with diversity programming across the state of Missouri.  To access those newsletters, and other news and resources for diversity focused programming visit: www.alianzas.us.

This summer and fall, Alianzas staff has been involved in the coordination of a Hispanic Needs Assessment for the Kansas City Metro Region.  Together with staff from the UMKC Institute for Human Development, an engaged community advisory committee and volunteers, over 1,000 surveys have been completed and will provide direction for a number of focus groups to be held during the winter months.  The Hispanic Needs Assessment project’s primary objective is to assess the socioeconomic, educational, health, and civic needs and assets of the Hispanic population of the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area.  Publication of the resultant report is expected in spring 2013.  For more information on the project visit: http://www.alianzas.us/news/2012-hispanic-needs-assessment-newsletter.

Spring 2013 Courses

UMSL Ed Psy 7210 - Theories of Development and the Life Course - with a focus on Immigrant Families & Youth. Bulletin Description: This advanced course examines the historical, ecological, cultural, and individual factors that shape developmental and educational experiences. Students will critique research from multiple disciplines, analyze policy issues, and design a study to deepen their understanding of traditional and current theories on the life course. Diverse families, such as immigrants, and their trajectories will be highlighted to demonstrate the intersecting spheres that shape human development.