Research

UCLA Latino Policy Studies Research Projects 2002-2003

Latino Diversity in California

Principal Investigator: David Lopez, Professor Emeritus, UCLA Department of Sociology

   Lopez's work continues along two lines of research that he has engaged in for the past several years: the role of language among ethnic groups in the United States, and the integration and mobility of Latino immigrants and their children. From July 2002 through June 2003, David Lopez and Andres Jimenez completed the Latinos and Public Policy volume. In addition, Lopez researched, wrote and revised an invited chapter on Mexicans and the Catholic Church. And Lopez began research for an invited chapter on immigration and language, in which Spanish will play a prominent role. In the next year, Lopez will finish the language and immigration chapter and also the chapter on Mexicans in Los Angeles. Graduate student Vanessa Estrada (Sociology) will assist him in both projects. Like most of his other work in the past few years, these papers were solicited and are part of larger projects by the SSRC or other national institutions. However since no research funds are provided for participants, LRP funding is absolutely essential. Connected to his research, Lopez developed and taught a new graduate seminar on "The New Second Generation."

 
Grants:
  • Mellon Fellowship Program in Latin American Sociology, renewal grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support training of sociology graduate students to do research on Latin America.
Publications:
  • Lopez, David. 2002. "Bilinguisme et changement ethnique en Californie." La politique de Babel: Du monolinguisme d'Etat au plurilinguisme des peoples, ed. Denis Lacorne et Tony Judt. Paris: Editions Karthala.
  • Lopez, David and Andres Jimenez (co-editors with introduction). In press (2004). "Latinos and Public Policy in California." Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies.
  • Lopez, David. In press (2004). "Whither the Flock? The Catholic Church and the Success of Mexicans in America." Religion, Immigration and Civic Life in America. Edited by Richard Alba and Albert Roboteau. New York: Russell Sage.

Formation of Latino Communities in Los Angeles

Principal Investigator: Raymond Rocco, Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Political Science
Rocco continued to carry out fieldwork on Central American and Mexican immigrant political associations and networks organized primarily as home associations. This project is an extension of Rocco's earlier project on the formation of Latino communities in Los Angeles. His focus is on the pattern and reasons for their participation in these associations, how participation in these associations has affected political ideology, and their conceptions and practices of citizenship, particularly as these relate to human rights. He also began a collaborative project with Professor Mark Sawyer studying the formation of political identity of Afro-Latinos in the Los Angeles area. Rocco will continue to work on the Latino political identity project . He will conduct a series of interviews with participants during the next few months as well attend a number of professional meetings. He will also conduct interviews as part of the Afro-Latino political identity project.
 
Grants:
  • "Politics of Los Angeles," Dean's Office for Development of Research and Curriculum
Publications:
  • Rocco, Raymond. Forthcoming. "Transforming Citizenship: Membership, Strategies of Containment, and the Public Sphere in Latino Communities." Accepted for publication in Latino Studies Journal.

The Los Angeles Education Project

Principal Investigator: Daniel Solorzano, Professor, UCLA Graduate School of Education, and Director of UC/ACCORD
The purpose of the Los Angeles Education Project is to examine the Advanced Placement Program (AP) policy and practice in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In prior years, Solórzano examined the Advanced Placement (AP) course taking patterns in all 49 comprehensive high schools and the seven regions in LAUSD. This past year, Solorzano continued the case study analysis of the AP course taking patterns for Latinos and African Americans in other school districts in Southern California. He continued to serve as expert in two legal cases that are looking at the underrepresentation of Latina/o and African American students in AP Programs (Daniels v. California State Department of Education and Rios v. the University of California Regents). Solorzano and his team have been involved in gathering research from each of the cases. They expanded this work to examine Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Programs which act as initial gatekeeper and preparation programs for later AP programs at the high schools. Their findings were published as a CSRC policy brief in February 2003. For next year, they will continue this case study analysis of the AP course taking patterns and GATE participation for Latinos in other school districts in Southern California. In addition, they are serving as consultants to the American Civil Liberties Union Latina Rights Project.
Grants:
  • Partially funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. Some of the graduate students also receive support from the UC ACCORD Indicators Project.
Publications:
  • Solorzano, D. & Ornelas, A. 2002. "A Critical Race Analysis of Advance Placement Classes: A Case of Educational Inequalities." Journal of Latinos and Education, 1, 215-229.
  • Solorzano, D., Ledesma, M., Perez, J., Burciaga, R., & Ornelas, A. 2002. "Latina Equity in Education Project." A Report to the American Civil Liberties Union Latina Rights Project.

The Mexican American People: A Generation Later

Principal Investigators: Edward Telles, Professor, UCLA Department of Sociology, and Vilma Ortiz, Professor, UCLA Department of Sociology

This project involves conducting a follow-up survey of the original respondents of the 1965-66 landmark The Mexican American People and their children, resulting in a major 30-year longitudinal and inter-generational study of the Mexican origin people. This study examines questions related to intra- and inter-generational continuity and change in socio-economic mobility, ethnic identity, and gender and family attitudes. In addition to funds from UCCLR, this project has been supported with extra-mural grants from the Ford, Rockefeller, Haynes, and Russell Sage Foundations, internal funding from UC-MEXUS, UCLA IAC and UCLA California Center for Population Research, and a major grant from the National Institute for Child and Human Development.
 
This research project has provided significant training to undergraduate and graduate students in longitudinal tracking methods, questionnaire development, interviewing skills, data management, and data analysis. Several graduate research assistants employed on this project have gone on to faculty positions, while undergraduate research assistants have gone on to graduate school. Students from Student Research Program and Minority Summer Research have participated in this project.
 

Day Laborer Project

Principal Investigator: Abel Valenzuela Jr., Professor and Chair, UCLA Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies
For the past several years, Valenzuela has undertaken original data collection on day laborers in Southern California under the auspices of the Day Labor Project (DLP). The DLP is a multi-method study that seeks to understand how poor people, mostly Latino immigrants, participate in and acquire access to jobs in a public setting at over 100 sites throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The study is composed of a general survey of day laborers, in-depth interviews with day laborers and employers, and several in depth case studies.. During 2002-03,Valenzuela continued his research on day labor, analyzing three key topics: (1) how day laborers strategize to make ends meet, 2) the role of violence in the lives of day laborers, and 3) the relationship of workers to employers of day laborers. One of the graduate student assistants on this project created geographic maps of day laborers. Finally, an analysis of the New York Day Labor Survey was conducted and a final report was produced. This work was carried out with two graduate student assistants and one undergraduate assistant. During 2003-04, Valenzuela will begin research on a national study of day labor. He will co-edit, with Alex Stepick, a book that analyzes welfare reform through the voices (interviews) of women. They will pay particular attention to structural racism and strategies for strengthening families.
 
Grants:
  • Principal Investigator, Assessing Occupational Hazards Among Day Laborers. Council on Research. UCLA Academic Senate. 2003-2004.
  • Principal Investigator (with Edwin Melendez, New School University and Nik Theodore, University of Illinois, Chicago). National Day Labor Study. Rockefeller Foundation. 2003-2004
  • Principal Investigator (with Edwin Melendez, New School University and Nik Theodore, University of Illinois, Chicago). National Day Labor Study. Ford Foundation. 2003-2004.
  • Principal Investigator. Transnational Community Building to Combat Urban Poverty and Inequality. Ford Foundation. 2003-2004.
Web sources:
  • Valenzuela has begun working with the National Day Labor Organizing Network, posting his research on day labor on their web page.
Publications:
  • Valenzuela, Jr. Abel. In press (2003). "Day-Labor Work." Annual Review of Sociology. 29(1).
  • Valenzuela, Jr. Abel, Janette A. Kawachi, and Matthew D. Marr. 2002. "Seeking Work Daily: Supply, Demand, and Spatial Dimensions of Day Labor in Two Global Cities." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 43(2):192-219.
  • Valenzuela, Jr. Abel and Darnell Hunt. Forthcoming (2004). "Spanish-Language Broadcasters: Top Ratings, Second-Class Status." Working USA.
  • [Valenzuela] Crane, Randall and Abel Valenzuela Jr (PIs). 2002. "California Travel Trends and Demographic Study." Prepared for California Department of Transportation, Division of Transportation Planning, Office of State Planning.
  • Valenzuela A. Jr. and Edwin Melendez. 2003. Day Labor in New York: Findings from the NYDL Survey. Working Paper 03-01. Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, UCLA, Los Angeles, and Community Development Research Center, New School University.
  • Valenzuela A., Jr. 2002. "Explicación de la Pobreza en Los Ángeles." Ciudades Humanas: Pobreza Urbana y el Futuro de las Ciudades. Published proceedings, Encuentro Internacional Ciudades Humanas: Pobreza Urbana y el Futuro de las Ciudades. Toluca, Mexico, November 7-9, 2001.