Research & Outreach on Latinos and Changing Communities in Missouri

Cambio Center News – April, 2007

New Cambio Center Faculty Fellow Denice Adkins, and Student Fellows Lizette Ojeda and Eleazar González

¡Bienvenidas, Denice y Lizette!  ¡Bienvenido, Eleazar!

• Denice Adkins, Assistant Professor, School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, College of Education, MU
  Her research and outreach have emphasized services provided to Latino library users, the impact of Latino immigration on Missouri libraries, and multicultural children's literature. Current research includes a study of literacy and language choice in the Kansas City Latino population. She has been selected for a Fulbright scholarship to Honduras in 2008.
• Lizette Ojeda, Doctoral Student, Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology, College of Education, MU
  Lizette is a doctoral student working with fellow Lisa Flores. Her research focuses on Latino issues, particularly that of Mexican American college students.  She is now a Research Assistant with the Cambio Center’s USDA-funded research project on “Asset Accumulation  Strategies in Three New Settlement Communities.”
• Eleazar González, Doctoral Student, Department of Rural Sociology, CAFNR, MU
  Also a Research Assistant with the Cambio Center’s “Asset Accumulation…” project, Eleazar has wide experience working as facilitator and data collector on research with Latino immigrants. In the recent past, he has also worked with fellows Margie Sable and Anne Dannerbeck-Janku.

Fellows News

• Anne Dannerbeck-Janku, a founding Cambio Center fellow who has been instrumental in many of the Cambio Center activities and projects, will remain a Cambio Center fellow from her position as Manager of Court Programs & Research at the Office of State Courts Administrator in Jefferson City.  We look forward to her expertise and advice.

·         Graduate Student Fellow Monique Mendoza has stepped forward to explore the feasibility of organizing a multi-state Cambio Center Graduate Student Research Symposium on topics  relevant to the Cambio Center mission.

·         In the News: Margie Sable, associate dean of the MU School of Social Work in the College of Human Environmental Sciences, Cambio Center fellow,  and long-time researcher on family planning among immigrants, has recently published a report on her more recent research: American culture in conflict with values of Hispanic male immigrants

·         In the News: Louise Miller has just received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from the MU Sinclair School of Nursing.  Congratulations!

New Books at the Cambio Center (Fellows are welcome to check them out)

·         Searching for the Soul of America through the Secrets of a Midwest Town. Denison, Iowa by Dale Maharidge (2005) – A narrative about life in a small town with a booming Latino presence.

·         The American South in a Global World, edited by James L. Peacock, et al. (2005) – Many articles deal with the Latino presence.

·         Hispanic/Latino Identity, a Philosophical Perspective, by Jorge J. E. Gracia (2000)

Other Resources

·         The Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies
The University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health leads this consortium, with a mission close to the Cambio Center’s.
The following conference has also tracks very similar to our own Cambio de Colores annual effort.
Save October 11-13, 2007.  The Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies, along with cosponsors from the University of Georgia, Kennesaw State University, UNC, and Emory University, will sponsor a conference on Latino immigration to New Settlement Areas at USC.  Call for Papers
A fresh report of the Consortium: Mexican Immigrants in South Carolina- A Profile, by Elaine Lacy.  Full Report Released January 2007
  

·         The current Social Sciences Quarterly (December 2006 - Vol. 87 Issue s1 Page 925-1363) is a Special Issue on Ethnicity, with many papers about immigrants, social capital, youth, acculturation, health care etc. Truly, a must-read issue. (You may need to be in your campus network to access this resource, as it happens with many online journals.) –Sent by fellow Deborah Cohen, UMSL.
  

·         Don Hernández et al.: “Children in Immigrant Families Firmly Rooted in America; Three Out of Four Speak English Fluently”. New Brief - Highlights State-Level Data, Policy, and Program Implications for Diverse Immigrant Families (Child Trends and the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis of the University at Albany, State University of New York). –Sent by fellow Kay Conklin, MU.
Note:  The Second Generation Initiative at SUNY-Albany has research material on children in families and in schools. Don Hernández was a Plenary Speaker at the 2005 Cambio de Colores conference.)

·         Pew Hispanic Center factsheet (March 7, 2007)
Construction Jobs Expand for Latinos Despite Slump in Housing Market
  

·         The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men,
by Ruben G. Rumbaut, Ph.D. and Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. (The American Immigration Law Foundation –Note that full report is available from  that web page).
  

·         "Latino Immigration Policy: Context, Issues, Alternatives" - Papers presented at the NYLARNet Conference on Latino Immigration Policy, November 3, 2006, University at Albany, State University of New York