Thursday, December 13,2005, 1-2:30 p.m.
Bayview Conference Room, 3rd Floor, Campus Center, University of Massachusetts Boston
"Examining the Latino Condition: Student' Perspectives"
The Latino Leadership Opportunity Program (LLOP) is an academic enhancement and leadership development program for undergraduate students that applies social science research methods to analyze public policy issues that affect the Latino community. The program builds leadership skills through activities that promote expertise in public policy and advocacy. The LLOP Class of 2005 will present summaries of their preliminary findings examining the condition of Latinos in Massachusetts.
Students analyzed the following areas:
- The psychological effect of grief on Latino students
- Leadership of Mexican Women in New England
- The effect of the English Only policies in mental health patients
- The effect of Environmental Hazards on Latinos
- HIV Prevention programs (Entre nosotras)
- The psychological effect of stereotypes among Latino students
- Stereotypes of Latino in the Media
- The unequal distribution of funds in School districts
- A short graduation ceremony will follow to recognize students who participated in the LLOP.
Tuesday, Novermber 29,2005, 1-2:30 p.m.
Chancellor's Conference Room, 3rd Floor, Quinn Building, University of Massachusetts Boston
"Descubriendo" Leadership: Understanding the Relationship Between Leadership and Ethnic Identity Development among Public School Latino Principals
Monica Byrne-Jimenez,
Current demographic trends point to the growing number of Latino children in public schools, particularly in urban centers. Issues of language, culture and school dependence will pose questions and challenges for educational leaders nationwide. This presentation will focus on the development of a new national project attempting to understand Latino leadership. By integrating current leadership theory with accepted frameworks of racial identity development, this session will both explain the need for research on Latino school leadership and provide an opportunity to share ideas about the design and implementation of proposed research.
Dr. Byrne-Jiménez is an Assistant Professor in the Leadership in Urban Schools Doctoral Program and the Educational Administration Masters Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She has published work in the area of leadership development among urban principals. By looking critically at the relationship between leadership and learning, Dr. Byrne-Jiménez believes that schools can be improved and communities strengthened. Her areas of interest lie in leadership development, adult learning, instructional leadership, urban education, and collaborative inquiry
Thursday, October 20,2005, 1-2:30 p.m.
Bayview Conference Room, 3rd Floor, Campus Center, University of Massachusetts Boston
Transnational Twist: Pecuniary Remittances and the Integration of Authorized and Unauthorized Mexican Immigrants.
Recent estimates of annual U.S.-Mexico pecuniary remittances show that these have doubled recently and now amount to at least $10 billion. These increases have raise the profile of this issue among policymakers, financial institutions, and transnational migrant communities. The focus is on how relatively poor expatriate Mexicans sustain such large transfers, and the impact these transfers may have on immigrant integration in the United States. The study employs the 2001 Los Angeles County Mexican Immigrant Residency Status Survey (LAC-MIRSS) to investigate how individual characteristics and social capital traditionally associated with integration, neighborhood context, and various investments in the United States influenced remitting in 2000. Remitting is estimated to be inversely related to conventional integration variables and influenced by community context in both sending and receiving areas. Contrary to straight-line assimilation theories and more consistent with a transnational or non-linear perspective, remittances are also estimated to have been positively related to immigrant homeownership in Los Angeles County, and negatively associated with having had public health insurance such as Medicaid.
Fall 2004
Thursday, December 16, 2004, 1-2:30 p.m.>
Bay View Conference Room #3540, University of Massachusetts Boston, Student Campus Center
Findings from the Latino Leadership Survey 2004
Special Guests: Chancellor Keith Motley, Boston City Council: Felix Arroyo
Coordinators/faculty: Gissell Abreu, Jorge Capetillo PhD., Carlos Maynard
LLOP Students: Diana Bell, Andres Leon, Kristina Lopez, Yudy Muneton, Maria Luisa Placensia, Francisco Toro
The Latino Leadership Opportunity Program (LLOP) Class of 2004 will present summaries of their research finding on the Latino Leadership Survey, which was administered to 300 Latino leaders attending the Gaston Institute Statewide Latino Public Policy Conference at JFK Library and Museum on April 23, 2004. The LLOP students applied research skills gained in the Latino Leadership Seminar to design and develop the Latino Leadership Survey. The survey focused on illustrating the leadership qualities that Latino leaders possess and highlighting areas of expertise and challenges. This project was developed through funding from Star Grant Program of the Office of Students Affairs, University of Massachusetts-Boston. A short ceremony will follow to recognize students who participated in LLOP.
Sudents analyzed the following areas: Generational and Socio-Economic Factors, Latino Leader's political affiliation, Access to leadership position for Latinas, Under-representation of Latinos in leadership positions, small Latino businesses, and Health care access of Colombians in East Boston.
The Gaston Institute's Latino Leadership Opportunity Program (LLOP) provides leadership and public policy training for undergraduate students. Through the LLOP students gain research analysis skills, learn how public policy is created, develop proficiency in public speaking, enhance leadership skills and build strong team work abilities.
Thursday, November 18, 1:00-2:30 p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healy Library
Establishing a Latino Intellectual Presence in the Academy: Opportunities and Challenges, Gilberto Cardenas, Ph.D.
Gilberto Cárdenas is assistant provost and director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a professor of sociology and holds the Julian Samora Chair in Latino Studies. Cárdenas has authored and edited several books and numerous articles on immigration and was the editor of a multivolume series on migration and border studies published by CMAS Books and distributed by the University of Texas Press. He serves on a number of national committees, including the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, the Advisory Council of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation "Gates Millennium Scholars Program," the Smithsonian National Board for Latino Initiatives, and the Board of Directors of the Mexican American Legal and Educational Defense Fund. Hispanic Business Magazine has named him three times as one of the 100 most influential Latinos in the United States.
Tuesday, October 19, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Founders Conference Room # 3534, 3rd Floor, Campus Center
Forum on Latino Political Participation: The effect of the Latino vote in the 2004 Election
Sponsors: The Gastón Institute, William Joiner Center and ¿Oiste?
This forum will explore the increasing level of political participation in the Latino community at the national and state levels. Related policy implications will also be addressed. Specific questions include:
What is the impact of the Latino vote in key battleground states for the November presidential election?
What are the issues of concern for the emerging "new majority" of voters in Boston and what is the role of Latinos in determining this new agenda?
What lessons are learned from the electoral experiences of Latinos in Rhode Island?
Angelo Falcon, Senior Policy Executive and Director of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Mari Carmen Aponte* (invited), Executive Director of Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration will address Latino political participation at the national level. Felix Arroyo, Boston City Councilor, Marcos Devers, Lawrence City Councilor, Tomas Alberto Avila, President of RILPAC, Grace Diaz, nominee for State Representative (D-RI), and Melba de Pena, President of the Rhode Island Latino Civic Fund will discuss political gains at the state level.
Thursday, September 23, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Bay View Conference Room # 3540, 3rd Floor, Campus Center
Operation Pedro Pan: The Cuban Revolution and the Exodus of 14,000 Unaccompanied Children
Maria De Los Angeles Torres, Ph.D.
Dr. Torres will examine Operation Pedro Pan from both a historical and personal perspective. Torres' presentation will focus on the plight of refugee children, broaching a larger discussion of how nations imagine their future though their progeny. She will compare the Elian Gonzalez saga with the plight of Pedro Pans and address the broader issues of the use children as political vehicles. Dr. Torres scoured hundreds of documents from Cuba and the United States, and even sued the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, forcing declassification of key documents.
Maria De Los Angeles Torres is a professor of political science at DePaul Univeristy, she is also a faculty research associate at the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall, Child Policy Center. She is the author of The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Beacon Press and In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exiles Politics in the United States. Dr. Torres is also editor of an anthology, By Heart de Memoria: Cuban Women Journeys in and out of Exile and coeditor of Boderless Borders: Latinos, Latin America and the Pradox of Interdependence.
Spring 2004
Tuesday, February 10, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
New Immigrant Actor: Dominican American Organizing in New York City Ana Aparicio, Ph.D.
Professor Aparicio will examine rising Dominican political activism in the diaspora and the question of homeland politics versus activism in the U.S.-based community. Does concern with isues in the Dominican Republic distract from political efficacy in New York City and other areas?
Ana Aparicio received her graduate training in the Department of Anthropology at the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York. Her research interests include urban anthropology, immigration organizing, grassroots politics and civic participation, "community-building" in urban centers, studies of youth, the anthropology of social movements, anthropology education, Latino studies, racial/ethnic stratification, and issues of poverty, welfare, and state control.
Tuesday, March 9, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Brazilian Immigrant Workers in Massachusetts: An Invisible Minority that Everybody Sees Carlos Eduardo Siqueira, MD
Carlos Eduardo Siqueira will discuss the surge of Brazilian immigration to the U.S. and Massachusetts from the mid-eighties to today. He will summarize the official and unofficial population counts controversy in Massachusetts, review literature, and report on employment, working conditions, and migration patterns.
Carlos Eduardo Siqueira MD, ScD, MPH is a research assistant professor at the Department of Work Environment, where he has done research in the political economy of migration of hazards between developed and developing countries, and evaluated the impact of chemical emergency response training provided by the staff of the American Federation of State, Country, and Municipal Employees (AFSCCME).
Fall 2003
Tuesday, September 23, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Art and Activism in the Years of Bush Junot Díaz
“The only photograph our family had of Mami as a young woman, before she married Papi, was the one that somebody took of her at an election party that I found one day while rummaging for money to go to the one arcade. In the photo, she’s surrounded by laughing cousins I will never meet, who are all shiny from dancing, whose clothes are rumbled and loose. You can tell it’s night and hot and that the mosquitos have been biting. She sits straight and even in a crowd she stands out, smiling quietly like maybe she’s the one everybody’s celebrating. You can’t see her hands but I imagined they’re knotting a straw or a bit of thread. This was the woman my father met a year later on the Malecon, the woman Mami thought she’d always be.” - Junot Díaz, “Fiesta, 1980”
Junot Díaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the U.S. as a child, is the highly acclaimed author of Drown, selected as a Notable Book for 1996 by the Village Voice, New York Times, and American Library Association. His fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, African Voices, Glimmer Train, and Best American Short Stories (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000). He has received a number of awards and fellowships including the Eugene McDermott Award from MIT and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Junot Díaz is an associate professor at MIT and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
Tuesday, October 21, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Promise and Paradox at a Latino Community High School Tony De Jesus
Tony De Jesus, Ed.D., will describe how a Latino community responded to the failure of the public school system in New York City. He will discuss his ethnographic case study of El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He will tell the school's history, describe the ways in which students responded to its innovative, culturally responsive formal and informal curriculum, and describe the challenges El Puente faced.
De Jesus, born and raised in the Bronx, NY, is a research associate at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CUNY). His research interests include Education Policy, the Sociology of Education, Puerto Rican/Latino Education, and Multicultural Education.
Tuesday, December 16, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Building Latino Leadership
LLOP Students:
Marisol Cruz
Ana Milena Diaz
Johnny Giraldo
Maria Moreno
Zamuhua Moreno
Yudy Muneton
Yolanda Ortiz
Sherly Torres
Coordinator:
Gissell Abreu
The Gastón Institute’s Latino Leadership Opportunity Program (LLOP) provides leadership and public policy training for undergraduate students. Through this program, students gain research analysis skills, learn how public policy is created, develop proficiency in public speaking, enhance leadership skills, and build strong teamwork abilities.
This year’s students will present summaries of their research projects. Their research investigates bi-raciality and personal identity, teen pregnancy, community-based organizations and Dominican culture, low college graduate rates, post-partum cultural traditions and practices, bilingual education, health care, and bi-cultural identity as a predictor for academic success and positive mental health. There will be a short ceremony following the program to recognize the students who participated in LLOP.
Tuesday, March 4, 1:00-2:30p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
"The Vote on Bilingual Education and Latino Identity Politics in Massachusetts" Jorge Capetillo, Ph.D.
Jorge Capetillo-Ponce will discuss the findings of an exit poll of Latino voters conducted on Election Day, November 5, 2002, to determine how Latinos voted on Question 2, the referendum question that asked voters to decide between bilingual education and English immersion.
Jorge Capetillo-Ponce is assistant professor of sociology at UMass Boston and a research associate at the Gastón Institute.
Tuesday, May 13, 1:30-3:00pm
Student Lounge, Wheatley Building 4th Floor
"Workforce Development in Boston: Recent Transitions" Edwin Meléndez, Ph.D.
Edwin Meléndez will discuss how changes brought about by the WIA have affected CBOs and other labor-market intermediaries serving disadvantaged workers. Using Boston as a case study, his research identifies successful strategies of those organizations that have benefited from the restructuring of the industry.
Edwin Meléndez was director of the Gastón Institute from 1992 to 1998. He is a professor of Management and Urban Policy and director of the Community Development Research Center at the Robert J. Milano Graduate School, New School University, New York City.
Spring 2002
Wednesday, March 6, 2002, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Student Lounge, 4th Floor, Wheatley Building
Guest Speaker: Pedro A. Noguera, Ph.D.
Topic: Using Education to Challenge Racial Inequality
Education is the only hope of the poor and oppressed who seek a better life for themselves and their children in the United States. Yet, too often, schools stifle hope and opportunity rather than encouraging and nurturing it. This presentation will examine what it will take to create the schools we need to revive communities of color and address the needs of disadvantaged children.
Dr. Pedro Noguera is the Judith K. Dimon Professor of Communities and Schools at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on the ways in which schools respond to the social and economic forces in the urban environment.
Fall 2001
Tuesday December 4, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speaker: Glenn Jacobs and Ramona Hernández
Topic: Latino Student Retention at UMass Boston: Issues and Ideas
Glenn Jacobs and Ramona Hernández will discuss a project that examined the experience of Latino students at UMass Boston to determine the factors that helped or hindered their progress through the educational process. Glenn Jacobs is professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences of UMass Boston. Ramona Hernández is a native of the Dominican Republic and assistant professor of Latino Studies at UMass Boston. She is co-author of The Dominican Americans. There will be a short ceremony following the program to acknowledge the students who participated in last year's Latino Leadership Opportunity Program.
Tuesday November 20, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speaker: Carol Hardy-Fanta
Topic: Latino Politics in Massachusetts: Struggles, Strategies and Prospects
Carol Hardy-Fanta is director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston's McCormack Institute and a faculty research affiliate of the Gastón Institute. Her latest book, Latino Politics in Massachusetts (Routledge Publishing, 2001), explores the major challenges to Latino political representation in seven Massachusetts cities: Boston, Chelsea, Lawrence, Lowell, Holyoke, Springfield, and Worcester. She is also the author of Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture, and Political Participation in Boston (Temple University Press, 1993).
Tuesday October 30, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Library Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speaker: Enrico A. Marcelli
Topic: The Use of Welfare by Unauthorized Mexican Immigrants: Myth and Reality
Enrico A. Marcelli is assistant professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a research associate at the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA. The major focus of his research is unauthorized Mexican immigration and U.S. immigration policy. He contributed to the report, Becoming American (1997), submitted to Congress by the U.S. Commission on Immigration and his first book, California in Denial: A Political Economy of Unauthorized Mexican Immigration (Westview Press), is scheduled for publication in 2001. His lecture will focus on the estimated use of various means-tested entitlement programs by unauthorized Mexican immigrants in California before and after welfare reform (1997), and how individual characteristics, family structure, and labor market experience help explain the use of public assistance.
Tuesday September 18, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Faculty Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speaker: Agustín Laó-Montes
Topic: Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York
Agustín Laó-Montes is co-editor, with Arlene Dávila, of Mambo Montage, a new book that examines the topic of latinidad in all its aspects. Together the articles map out the development of Latino identity in New York. The author will discuss the book and lead a discussion on the various controversies it poses. The author has been an activist/organizer in Latin America/the Caribbean and the United States for close to twenty-five years. He teaches sociology at UMass Amherst, where he is affiliated with the Center for Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and with the program of African American Studies
Series on Education
Spring 2001
Tuesday May 8, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Faculty Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speaker: Lorna Rivera
Topic: Poverty in Policy: The Contradictions of Welfare Reform and Adult Basic Education in Massachusetts
Lorna Rivera will present findings of research conducted with fifty homeless women of color who were enrolled in adult-literacy classes. Her study suggests that "work-first" welfare-reform legislation has restricted access to adult basic education for those who need it most.
Lorna Rivera is an assistant professor of sociology at CPCS and a research associate at the Gastón Institute. Her research focuses on the social, political, and economic benefits of adult-literacy programs for the poor.
Tuesday April 24, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Student Lounge, 4th Floor, Wheatley Hall
Guest Speakers: Eileen de los Reyes and Patricia Gozemba
Topic: Pockets of Hope
Eileen de los Reyes and Patricia A. Gozemba are co-authors of Pockets of Hope: How Students and Teachers Change the World. Responding to the conservative agenda of high-stakes testing, charter schools, and vouchers, Pockets of Hope offers an alternative vision of education reform. Eileen de los Reyes is Assistant Professor of Learning and Teaching at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. Patricia A. Gozemba is Professor of English and member of the Women's Studies department at Salem State College.
Tuesday, April 10, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Faculty Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speaker: Dr. Antonia Darder
Topic: Teaching in the Age of "Globalization" and "Difference"
Antonia Darder's work focuses on comparative studies of racism, class, and society. She is Associate Professor of Education at the Claremont Graduate School, and is the author of Culture and Power in the Classroom: A Critical Foundation for Bicultural Education. The lecture on globalization and difference is based on the first chapter of her forthcoming book, Pedagogy of Love: Reinventing Paolo Freire.
Winter 2001
Tuesday, February 27, 2001, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Student Lounge, 4th Floor, Wheatley Hall
Guest Speakers: Carole Upshur, Professor, Public Policy, Rodolfo R. Vega, Adjunct Faculty Member, Public Policy Doctoral Program, Student Research Team: Natalie Carithers, Charles Jones, Dale Lucy-Allen, Tatjana Meschede, Charles Ndungu
Topic: Access to Educational Opportunities for Latino Students in Four Massachusetts School Districts
The speakers examine whether minority students have access to the appropriate academic courses covering subject areas included on the MCAS, the high-stakes test that is a requirement for graduation from the state's public high schools. Black and Latino students have the highest failure rates of all groups, which raises questions about both the fairness of the testing process and the penalties for failure.
Fall 2000
Tuesday, December 5, 2000, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speakers: LLOP Class of 2000
Topic: Students will present their papers on Latino youth in Massachusetts.
The Latino/a Leadership Opportunity Program (LLOP) educates and trains undergraduate Latino/a students in policy development, research, and leadership skills. Students are required to do individual research papers on a topic selected by the group. This year's topic was Latino Youth in Massachusetts. Presentations will be made on the sub-topics listed below. A brief graduation ceremony will follow the presentations.
Justo García: The Effects of Pregnancy on the Chances of Latino Teenagers Achieving a Higher Level of Education
María A. Landarverde: Bi-lingual Education: Through the Voices of Latino Parents
Joel Mora: Latino Youth and Gangs in Massachusetts
Lisette Olivera: Methods for the Making of Next Generation Leaders
Elizabeth Palma: Access and Impediments to Higher Education
Thursday, November 30, 2000, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
CPCS Lounge, 4th Floor, Wheatley Hall
Guest Speakers: Dr. Jim Caradonio, Superintendent, Worcester Public
Schools, and Gladys Rodríguez-Parker, District Director for Congressman Jim McGovern.
Topic: The education initiatives led by theWorcester Working Coalition
on behalf of Latino students in the city of Worcester.
A panel presentation and discussion by members of the Worcester Working Coalition about education initiatives helping Latino students in Worcester
Gladys Rodríguez-Parker is the district director for Congressman Jim McGovern. Dir. Jim Caradonio is Superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools, the second largest urban school district in Massachusetts and a leader in urban education. Since 1999, they have worked together on education initiatives as part of the Worcester Working Coalition for Latino Students.
Tuesday, November 21, 2000, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Staff Lounge, 11th Floor, Healey Library
Guest Speakers: Dr. Angela Valenzuela, University of Texas, Austin
Topic: Dr. Valenzuela will be speaking on her recent book Subtractive
Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring.
Angela Valenzuela received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Education research Association for her book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring at the American Educational Research Association's Annual Meeting. Dr. Valenzuela is Currently an associate professor in Curriculum and Instruction and Mexican-American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her doctorate in Sociology from Stanford University. Her current interests includ Urban Education, Race and Ethnicity in the Schools, Multicultural Education, and Public Policy.
