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About Us
The National Latino Research Center (NLRC) is an applied social science research center with longstanding community and organizational partnerships in the U.S.-Mexico border region. The NLRC works in partnership with Latina/o communities, organizations, and public institutions bridging educational and health resources and opportunities.
Mission
The mission of the NLRC is to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of growing U.S. Latina/o populations through meaningful applied action research.
Organizational Capacity
NLRC's research team is bilingual and multicultural with unique expertise in community-based research and popular education. NLRC has developed nationally recognized research initiatives and projects tailored for Latina/o, immigrant, migrant, farmworker, and bilingual populations living in the U.S.-Mexico border region.
Activities
Research
To promote the awareness, expansion, and enhancement of culturally sensitive, culturally relevant, and scientifically focused research on Latina/o populations.
Training
To offer training and specialized workshops, and to facilitate and organize conferences on substantive topics of critical importance to Latina/o families to community members, researchers, students, community organizations, and government agencies.
Technical Assistance
The NLRC provides technical assistance to a range of organizations and actively supports multi-agency collaborations that seek to leverage resources and expertise.
Topical expertise
NLRC engages in five interconnected topical areas of applied research, training, and technical assistance:
- Health (e.g., mental health, migrant health, reducing and addressing disparities in health, farmworker health, housing and health, disaster/emergency preparedness, cultural humility).
- Education (e.g., parent engagement, college and career preparation, youth empowerment, multilingual and multicultural education).
- Civic learning and action (civic mission of schools, voting, volunteering, public policy).
- Environment (e.g., healthy communities, healthy housing, pesticide illness prevention, environmental justice).
- Policy (e.g. healthy housing, border health, environmental justice, community health workers).
Collaborative Vision
NLRC believes that research is a collaborative effort, placing great value in collaborations with faculty, students, and community partners to create bridges between the university and the communities around us. Collaborations create a medium for conversations that can lead to research initiatives that address the needs of local and regional communities.
- NLRC collaborates with university and community partners to develop action research initiatives, share expertise in quantitative and qualitative research design and methods, provide technical assistance, conduct program evaluations, and needs assessments, aimed at increasing the understanding of Latina/o communities.
- NLRC collaborates with local and regional colleges and universities, local government entities, school districts, community clinics, community organizations, and the community at large.
- Ongoing collaborations include:
- CSUSM faculty and students (anthropology, education, ethnic studies, history, human development, liberal studies, modern languages, physics, psychology, public health, social science, sociology)
- CSUSM's Center for Research and Engagement in STEM Education (CRESE)
- CSUSM's Undocumented People Rising in Solidarity and Empowerment (UPRISE)
- CSUSM College Assistance Migrant Program
- Farm Worker Care Coalition (FWCC)
- Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) Network
- IPUMS at University of Minnesota
- San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)
- San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC)
- True Care
- Vista Community Clinic (VCC)
- Vista Unified School District
Contact Information
- Phone: (760) 750-3500
- Fax: (760) 750-3510
- Email: nlrc@csusm.edu