Lead Contacts     |     Issue Focus     |     Pilot Project Plan     |     Timeline     |     Progress Reports

 

 

Lead Contacts

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• Paul Apostolidis, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of State of the State of Washington Latinos | profile |  phone  509-522-4426

 

Issue Focus

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• Enhancing and protecting Latino voting rights (Latino Voter Mobilization)
• Promoting Latino civic engagement (Latino Civic Engagement)
• Neighborhood Based Organizations and Latinos
• Taxation Inequality and Latinos
• Addressing the Achievement Gap by Enhancing Civility in the Schools

• Latino Immigrants & Agriculture

• Informing Policymaking for Latino Health

• Latinos and Green-Collar Jobs
• Minority Voting Rights

 

 

Progress Reports

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• Course Implementation Profile
• Semi-Annual Progress Reports
  • April 1, 2009 Progress Report
  • August 15, 2009 Progress Report
  • December 15, 2009 Progress Report
  • June 1, 2010 Progress Report

 

 

Pilot Project Plan

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Project Summary

 

The primary innovative element of this project is systematic integration of Community-Based Research (CBR) with a program of public communications and outreach aimed at informing public policy development and democratic deliberation at the state and local levels. For state and local policy makers as well as community organization leaders, this project yields unprecedented, reliable, and keenly needed knowledge about the burgeoning Latino population in Washington. For the public at large along with diverse actors in multiple local communities, the project energizes much-needed debate about the policies and practices most likely to promote greater social equality and civic engagement. For students, the chance to share their CBR findings with community members, state policymakers, the PolicyOptions.org network, and the greater public links academic inquiry to concrete issues of justice and to leadership for social change. This grant would provide us with a vital opportunity to produce new resources for linking CBR with public communications geared toward policy innovation, sharing what we know with other practitioners and stimulating nationwide conversations about this endeavor.

 

 

Background

 

In 2005, we first carried out a Community-Based Research (CBR) Project that involved college students and community professionals in a collaborative effort to identify major challenges facing Latinos and all Washingtonians and to produce the knowledge needed to respond effectively and justly to these circumstances. The students’ reports were assembled into a document titled The State of the State for Washington Latinos (2005), which was the first-ever widely inclusive account of social and political conditions for Latinos in Washington State. Its twelve chapters covered issue areas ranging from education to housing, labor, health care, domestic violence, at-risk youth, and voting rights. In the semester’s final weeks and afterward, our focus shifted to sharing our results in effective ways and through multiple forums. The report clearly struck a resounding chord, confirming suggestions that a great need had long existed for such a document and initiating new discussion statewide about pervasive racial inequalities.

 

The overwhelming response in 2005 – from gubernatorial staff to state legislators, and from Latino organizational heads to the citizens of local communities – propelled a second iteration of the project that we conducted in the fall of 2006. A different group of students working with an expanded corps of Partners furnished an entirely new and even larger body of research that, in particular, extended our inquiries on education while also taking our study of the other issue areas in novel directions. Public response was even more dramatic than in 2005 in the interest it generated among Hispanic leaders and the media. The report sparked a federal Department of Justice inquiry into possible Voting Rights Act violations in central Washington, which led to local electoral reforms.

 

In the spring of 2008, we produced another new round of research concentrating on voting rights and political mobilization in targeted Washington State jurisdictions. Currently, another crop of students is probing questions regarding Latino health care disparities, educational experiences, and housing and employment needs in new ways. They are also extending our inquiry in new directions related to environmental, tax equity, and immigration issues. Meanwhile, we have steadily expanded our public outreach efforts and are now in a most promising position to make effective use of the funds available through this PolicyOptions.org grant. State and local policy makers have come to rely on the research we provide, as have the leaders of numerous Latino organizations and other civic groups. Those who are active in promoting an interface between CBR and public policy outside our state, in addition, have become more familiar with our work. We also have been intensifying our efforts to heighten awareness about the project in local communities outside Walla Walla, particularly among Latinos (e.g., recent immigrants) who are relatively unincorporated into civic and political processes. The PolicyOptions.org grant offers an exceptional opportunity to deepen and extend all these initiatives.

 

 

Student Engagement

 

Our strategies for making sure that students become aware of the opportunities this CBR project offers, become motivated to participate, and become equipped with the skills they need to perform their work include the following:

 

Recruiting students to take the courses associated with the CBR project through targeted announcements to Politics majors, Sociology majors, Latin American Studies majors, and the student Club Latino organization, as well as students who take part in campus political groups and events focusing on immigrants in the region.

Recruiting one or two students to participate in “State of the State” Summer Internships. For these internships, their goal will be to revise and strengthen their original reports into a form suitable for publication through an academic peer-reviewed process. They will do this, partly, in critical dialogue with other contributions to the PolicyOptions.org website on related policy problems.

 

Contracting with a policy communications specialist, David Messerschmidt of the Evans School of Public Policy at the University of Washington, to train students in doing effective public outreach about their research. Mr. Messerschmidt does this through visits to Whitman, the use of web-based technologies like “Go To Meeting,” individual consultations with students, special reading and video-viewing assignments, and exercises meant to spark students’ critical reflection on the words, frames, images, and stories they employ to connect with ordinary people outside the academy about their research findings and policy recommendations.

 

Recruiting student “veterans” of the program to serve in the position of “State of the State Scholar,” a role we instituted for the first time this fall semester which involves coaching students on their research design and execution as well as facilitating strong and productive communication between students and community-professional partners.

 

Providing ample opportunities for students to develop, edit, and rehearse all aspects of their public presentations and discussions of their research, including their PowerPoint presentations, oral remarks for public meetings, physical self-presentations, talking points for media work, and website content in various formats.

 

Offering special new training in the budget analysis skills needed to complete the PolicyOptions.org Issue Briefs.

 

 

Faculty Engagement

 

Paul Apostolidis has led most of the teaching involved in The State of the State for Washington Latinos since its inception, last spring Professor Gilbert Mireles, Assistant Professor of Sociology, collaboratively taught the course with him. Professor Mireles will teach the spring course in 2010 that will focus on public communications related to the new research to be done in the fall of 2009. With his own special research, teaching, and public service interests in Latino politics, Prof. Mireles is an ideal colleague for this venture and is excited about continuing his role with the project. The division into two semesters of what had been a one-semester course involving both research and public communications, with the second semester now expanding the range of public educational endeavors while allowing for more intellectual reflection on theories and practices of deliberative democracy, has been a major innovation in our program this year. It will serve once again as the structure for the project in 2009-2010.

 

In addition, I have initiated consultations with two fellow faculty members from the Politics and Economics departments who have expertise in public policy analysis and public finance, respectively, to evaluate the best way to provide this training. It is possible that one of them may serve as a “guest educator” on this particular matter, if that turns out to be the best route to follow. Also, another faculty colleague in Sociology and I are engaged in a conversation about possible ways to formalize the students’ training in methods of empirical research, and about whether this would be desirable.

 

 

Deliberative Democracy

 

The Local PolicyOptions.org Initiative will augment our capacities to conduct the following activities, all of which seek to enhance participation in democratic deliberation over the policy matters and social problems we research:

 

• Planning and Conducting Bilingual Public Meetings in Multiple Locations. Every year we have held a Public Meeting to discuss our CBR findings with the local community here in Walla Walla that has been extremely well attended, ranging from 100-150 people each time. Last spring, we took our first trip to another community – the town of Toppenish in the Yakima Valley – and held the event in a public middle school so as to attract people who might not be as likely to attend a meeting on a private college campus. These meetings promote democratic deliberation: we structure the Public Meeting to stimulate spontaneous discussion among the attendees about the findings and strategies for responding to them. Thus, we devote roughly one-third of the meeting to open discussion and host informal conversations on specific issues after the main event’s conclusion. With the aid of the Initiative, we will expand our scope and content of public meetings (upon finishing each new round of research) to include the following:

  • Off-campus meetings in Walla Walla at locations familiar to working-class, non-English-speaking Latinos such as the downtown Catholic church or Garrison Middle School.

  • Additional local meetings in the Yakima Valley, the main locus of Latino political and civic mobilization in the state.
  • A first ever meeting in Seattle, where the Initiative will help us overcome costs and logistical challenges involved in traveling from the opposite corner of the state.
  • Technology services at these events that draw attention to the PolicyOptions.org website and our own www.walatinos.org website.
  • New efforts to ensure that the PowerPoint presentations, oral remarks, discussions, and literature distributed, including PolicyOptions.org Issue Briefs, are fully bilingual through the use of professional translation services employing the forms of Spanish most suited to our mainly Mexican audiences.
  • New efforts to ensure that local Latino organizations and leaders energetically publicize these meetings and recruit participants.

 

 

• Conducting a Systematic Program of Media Outreach. Our media outreach program will feature the following elements:
  • Writing Op-Ed pieces and Letters to the Editor for targeted local and campus newspapers.
  • Holding television, radio, and press conferences in conjunction with all Public Meetings, with outreach both to local media outlets and wire services.
  • Communicating with the public via Spanish-language radio stations and newspapers.
  • Planning special outreach through TVW, Washington State’s public television station, and public radio outlets.
  • Training students to communicate effectively through the self-consciously critical choice of words, frames, images, and stories, with the help of our policy communications consultant David Messerschmidt.
  • Integrating Issue Briefs devised for the PolicyOptions.org website into these media communications.
  • Integrating audio, text, and visual material from these media events into our walatinos.org website.

 

• Educating State and Local Policy Makers, Latino Leaders, and Youth. Our efforts to educate public leaders about the students’ research findings and policy recommendations, and to equip them better to engage in policy deliberations with one another and with the public, will include the following elements:
  • Traveling to Olympia, the state Capital, to meet with state legislators, legislative committee staffers, and policy advisors to the governor.
  • Combining this trip, if possible, with public talks at the annual Hispanic-Latino Legislative Day (HLLD) to educate Latino organization leaders and their constituents about these issues. Our students attended this event and contributed to it in 2006 (when a community partner also joined us) and 2007.
  • Combining the Olympia trip, if possible, with the annual meeting of the Latino Educational Achievement Program (LEAP), which encourages academic achievement, higher education enrollment, and civic engagement among Latino youth. Our students and two partners hosted workshops on their research in 2008 that were very well received, and we plan to do this again in 2009.
  • Holding meetings in Walla Walla with local officials (e.g., city council, school administrators) and state legislators from this district.
  • Hosting special meetings with our Community-Professional Partners and their organizations to discuss the research.
  • Informing all these present and future leaders about the resources for policy development available through the PolicyOptions.org website, including the Issues Briefs prepared by our students on their own research.

 

• Continuing Development of our CBR Project Website www.walatinos.org. We have planned the following agenda for further development of our website:
  • Periodically updating/revising the “current news” box on the main page.
  • Expanding our links to partner organizations.
  • Redesigning the main organization of the content so that it is organized by issue area rather than by the year of the report.
  • Continuing to make available all content other than the full-length reports (e.g., all executive summaries and announcements) in Spanish as well as English.
  • Adding more video material from public events.
  • Periodically introducing new artistic images created by Pedro de Valdivia, who has generated the artwork that we have been using on our website and in our printed materials, to great effect.

 

• Producting Printed Materials to distribute at Public Events, Meetings, and Media Events
  • Postcards (6x8) to advertise the project website, designed as possible mailers and using de Valdivia’s artwork.
  • Posters (8.5x11) to advertise the project website, using de Valdivia’s artwork.
  • A glossy, high quality “Overview” document (for each new round of research) summarizing the research findings, listing policy recommendations, identifying partner organizations, and directing readers to the website.

 

• Providing Incentives for Partners to be Able to Accompany Students to Events.
  • One challenge we have faced in the past is getting Partners involved when we do events aimed at cultivating democratic deliberation such as traveling to meet with organizational leaders or state legislators, or doing media outreach. The Local PolicyOptions.org Initiative grant will give us additional resources to offer more assistance to Partners so they can join the students for these undertakings, such as covering travel-related expenses.

 

 

Editorial/Advisory Board

 

For the original community-based research projects conducted during the school year and through our curriculum, the board will be composed of the individuals who serve as community-professional partners for our project in any given semester. The Walla Walla Latino-American Forum has always been a fitting main partner group because it is an association of professionals in a much wider array of organizations. In the past, our individual Partners (that is, the Partners who work with particular students on their specific projects) have ranged from the Bilingual Coordinator of the Walla Walla Public Schools to the director of CONSEJO, which provides domestic violence outreach to Latinas; from the director of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart, an HIV/AIDS prevention agency, to the Washington State Executive Director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Currently, our partner organizations include new groups such as the Washington Tax Fairness Coalition, the Washington Farm Worker Housing Trust, and the Washington Health Foundation, as well as a couple returning partners. Thus, these individuals all have the capacity by virtue of their professional experiences to assess the quality and accuracy of the student research projects.

 

For the “State of the State” Summer Internships, we will expand the Board to include a university scholar in the field of Chicano/a, Latino/a Studies, and/or public policy studies. We will call on this individual to help the student(s) re-work the report(s) to attain a publishable level of quality through peer-reviewed processes, by providing critical feedback on new drafts and on the design of any supplementary elements of primary empirical research.

 

Since our project on The State of the State for Washington Latinos has been undertaken on the initiative of Whitman faculty in the Politics and, more recently, Sociology departments, these departments will continue to “house” our PolicyOptions.org initiative. 

  

 

Timeline

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Fall 2008

• Completed a new round of research on The State of the State for Washington Latinos, with seven students taking the research seminar for which this CBR is the central activity.
• Engaged in preliminary public communications activities about the research-in-progress during Election Week, to increase the level of democratic deliberation during the research process. These activities included public discussions of the research-in-progress with a major local Latino civic group and partner organization, the Walla Walla Latino American Forum, and an on-air discussion of the research agenda and preliminary findings on KWCW, the Whitman College radio station. The local newspaper, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, initiated an online chat-room and web-cast that ran along with this radio broadcast.
• Convened meetings of students with community-professional partners to assess project results and identify future objectives for both further research and winter/spring public communications activities.
• Recruited State of the State Scholar for Spring 2009.

 

Spring 2009

• Conducted new course on “Public Communication and Community-based Research: Latinos in Washington State,” for students who completed research projects in Spring and Fall 2008. Nine students took the course, five from Spring 2008 and four from Fall 2008.
• Carrieed out agenda for creating deliberative democracy forums:
  • Wrote PolicyOptions.org Issue Briefs and Overview pages.
  • Took a major trip to Seattle and Olympia in March to meet with the following agencies, organizations, and individuals and to conduct the following activities:
    • Addressed the attendees at the annual 
  • Held local policy education meetings with public officials on the Port of Walla Walla.
  • Conducted public meetings in Walla Walla and Yakima, Washington.
  • Conducted media outreach via local newspapers in Walla Walla and Yakima as well as the spanish-language public radio station KDNA in the Yakima Valley. Pitched ideas to KCTS public television. Published several letters to the editor in local newspapers in Pasco and Walla Walla.
  • Performed Website development
  • Produce new print materials
• Recruit student intern(s) and Board member for State of the State Summer 2009 Internships.

 

Summer 2009

• Summer intern(s), with guidance of Whitman faculty and Editorial/Advisory Board members, revises and raises level of sophistication of the original report(s).
• Recruit new partners (Editorial/Advisory Board members) for 2009-2010
• Recruit new State of the State Scholar(s) for 2009-2010

 

Fall 2009

• Complete a new round of research on The State of the State for Washington Latinos, with students taking the research seminar for which this CBR is the central activity.
• Engage in preliminary public communications activities about the research-in-progress.
• Convene meeting of students with community-professional partners to assess project results and identify future objectives for both further research and winter/spring public communications activities.

 

Spring 2010

• Conduct course on “Public Communication and Community-based Research: Latinos in Washington State,” for students who completed research projects in any prior semester.
• Carry out agenda for creating deliberative democracy forums:
  • Write PolicyOptions.org Issue Briefs
  • Take Olympia trip (possibly with LEAP and/or HLLD events)
  • Hold local policy education meetings with public officials
  • Conduct public meetings in Walla Walla and other locations
  • Conduct media outreach
  • Perform Website development
  • Produce new print materials