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Cambio Center News - December 2013

Did you know?

Cambio Center research in three non-metro Missouri communities shows that 75% of long-term, English-speaking residents think that newcomers should keep their own language and learn to speak English as well.

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From the Cambio Center:

Welcome, Cambio Center Coordinator!

Lindsey Saunders has been hired as a full-time "Staff Specialist" (Coordinator) for the Cambio Center.  In that capacity, Lindsey will be in charge of most administrative and programming support tasks at the Center.  She started work in this full-time position on November 1st, 2013.

Lindsey holds a B.S. from Cornell University in Interdisciplinary Studies, with focuses in development sociology, social movements, and gender and society.  In Argentina and the Southern Cone, she studied Regional Integration, Development, and Social Change. She has just completed a Master's degree in Rural Sociology at Mizzou, with a focus in Analytical Processes for Communities.  She is also working towards a Grantsmanship Graduate Certificate.  Before coming to the Cambio Center in June 2011 as a part-time administrative and, later, graduate research assistant, Lindsey worked for NGOs in Wisconsin (2004-2006) and Bogotá, Colombia (2007-2011). She speaks fluent Spanish and some Portuguese.

Lindsey's presence will be a key element in developing our agenda for the second decade of the Cambio Center.

Cambio de Colores 2014

The 13th annual “Cambio de Colores – Latinos in the Heartland” conference will be in Columbia, Missouri, this June 2014. The Call for Presentations will be issued in the coming weeks.

Please see www.cambiodecolores.org for updated information.

Contact the Cambio Center if you would like to help with content, outreach, and/or fundraising as a member of the Planning Committee. Any level of dedication is appreciated.

News from our Research Projects

The 3-year Immigrant Integration and Sustainable Rural Development project has completed a survey of Latino newcomers and long-time residents in three rural new destination cities in Missouri.  An initial analysis of the data from the surveys and a Photovoice activity were presented to the communities in open forums. These forums included space for community members to share their opinions and offer ideas and next steps to facilitate integration. This coming year, the project will continue the appreciative inquiry process in the communities. This project is carried out by the following Cambio Center fellows: Corinne Valdivia (PI, Agricultural Economics, CAFNR), Lisa Flores (co-PI, Educational, School and Counseling Psychology, College of Education), Steve Jeanetta (co-PI Rural Sociology, CAFNR, and Extension), Alejandro Morales (Educational, School and Counseling Psychology, College of Education, now at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona), 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.

Welcome to our New Fellows!

Stephen Christ
Graduate Student, Department of Sociology, University of Missouri-Columbia
http://sociology.missouri.edu/graduate/grads.shtml
       Research Interests:

Gabrielle Malfatti-Rachell
Director of International and Intercultural Initiatives; Associate Teaching Professor, ELPA
http://elpa.missouri.edu/people/
Research Interests:

Pilar Mendoza
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Missouri
http://web.missouri.edu/~mendozamp/
Research Interests

Cambio Center Publications

The 2012 Cambio de Colores book of proceedings was published this June 2013.

 

To review the table of contents, visit: http://cambio.missouri.edu/Library/Publications/2012ProceedingsIntroContents.pdf
To download the full book, free of charge, visit:
http://cambio.missouri.edu/Library/Publications/2012CambioDeColoresProcedingsBookWEB.pdf

 

Updates from Cambio Center Fellows

Denice Adkins’ research and outreach have emphasized services provided to Latino library users, the impact of Latino immigration on Missouri libraries, and information use among Latino populations. Current research includes a study of literacy and language choice in the Kansas City Latino population. She had a Fulbright scholarship to Honduras in 2008 and served as president of REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos & the Spanish-Speaking, in 2012-13.

Kay Conklin is now the Program Director for TIPS for Kids, Missouri’s LEND interdisciplinary training program for graduate students who plan to work with children with special health care needs. 

Lisa Dorner is now an Assistant Professor in ELPA at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Her research areas include educational policy and politics, language education and immigrant childhoods, and qualitative research and mixed methods. Recently, as an International Studies Program Fellow at UMSL (2012-2013), Lisa traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she met with faculty and students at the Universidad Nacional de San Martin (UNSAM) to discuss language education and educational policy. She presented research on language immersion programming in the Midwest to a group of graduate students in an education master's degree program focused on Languages, Culture, and Media. Lisa is continuing to work with faculty from UNSAM and has applied for a Fulbright Scholar award to return and complete research in Buenos Aires on language education and immigrant childhoods.
Recent publications:

Alejandro Morales recently joined California State Polytechnic University in Pomona as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Sociology. Alejandro received his Ph. D. from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with specialties in counseling psychology, Latina/o psychology, immigration, language brokering, sexual orientation and gender identity, diabetes prevention and intervention, and research methods.  His interests are immigration, psychological adjustment of Latino immigrant families, and Latino mental health.

Alianzas Update: August 2013
The Alianzas Program continues looking for innovative ways to collaborate with Missouri communities and UM Extension personnel. This spring, Alianzas began facilitating a video series produced by Iowa Extension called Éxito en el Norte.  The series and accompanying curriculum focus on providing Spanish-language instruction and information to new immigrants about accessing and navigating various U.S. systems. The topics covered in the initial series were finance, education, health, and legal systems.  For more information on the project, visit: www.alianzas.us/read_more.php?id=652

Alianzas staff, together with a team of researchers from the UMKC Institute for Human Development, is finalizing the results and reports from the Metropolitan Kansas City Hispanic Needs Assessment.  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.  For more information on the project, visit: http://alianzas.us/user_storage/File/Alianzas_Newsletters/alianzas_newletter_June12.pdf
To see Alianzas’ 2013 Spring Newsletter, visit: http://alianzas.us/user_storage/File/Alianzas_Newsletters/alianzas_newletter_Spring13.pdf

 

Spring 2014 Courses

Dr. Rachel J. Pinnow will be teaching LTC 8900-07: Seminar in Bilingual Education, Class Number: 68058, this Spring 2014 semester.  Dates: 01/21/14 - 05/08/14.  It is an E-Learning; 100% Online course. Credit Hours: 3

LTC 8900 Seminar in Bilingual Education will address the theory, policy, and practice of bilingual education in the U.S. and international contexts. This course will examine different models of bilingual education as well as cultural, social, and political perspectives on language minority education. Emphasis is placed on the pedagogical implications of teaching bilingual students with particular attention paid to first language development and second language teaching for linguistically and culturally diverse students. Prerequisites: Graduate Standing Required
Textbook: Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Multilingual Matters: Clevedon.

Sociology 2103: Sociology of American Immigration
January Intersession Jan. 6-17, 2014, Instructor Stephen Christ

The United States of America is widely recognized as a country of immigrants.  While Western European immigrants and their descendants are historically the most recognized populations, in recent years, new immigrant waves from Latin America and Asia have reached previously unmatched levels and have begun to transform the nation.  This course seeks to explore this phenomenon by analyzing immigrant origins and destinations, reasons for immigration, assimilation trajectories, and the social/legal responses of natives to newcomers.  A special emphasis will be placed on the recent spike in immigration to new destinations in the Midwest, including Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Arkansas.

Season’s Greetings

The end of the year festivities are a great opportunity to look back and plan ahead, and we will do that, especially taking into account that 2014 will mark the tenth year of the Cambio Center, and the 175th anniversary of the University of Missouri.

We at the Cambio Center wish you all Felices fiestas y un excelente 2014 / Happy Holidays and a great 2014.