CSRC Research Report Archive

The Latino Workforce at Mid-Decade

Lisa Catanzarite and Lindsey Trimble

No. 10, November 2007

The Latino workforce is increasingly critical to the vitality of the U.S. economy. Despite the importance of Latinos in the labor market, their economic contributions are limited by significant disadvantages. This research report provides an overview of Latino workers in the United States at mid-decade.

Latina/o Transfer Students: Understanding the Critical Role of the Transfer Process in California’s

Postsecondary Institutions

Martha A. Rivas, Jeanette Peréz, Crystal R. Alvarez, and Daniel G. Solorzano

No. 9, May 2007

Latino students continue to be underrepresented in postsecondary education. For every 100 Latina/o elementary students, 11 will graduate from college, 4 will receive a graduate degree, and only 1 will receive a PhD. This research report explores the obstacles that Latina/o students face as they move through the education pipeline and examines the importance of the transfer process from community college to a four-year college or university.

The Accidental Arts Supporter: An Assessment of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA)

Mirasol Riojas

No. 8, May 2006

The comprehensive employment and Training Act (CETA) is often credited as a significant source of funding for emerging minority and community-based arts organizations in the 1970s. unfortunately, much of this history is anecdotal. This study examines available data to assess the impact of CETA on the arts as a whole, rather than on particular arts organizations and/or programs.

Falling through the Cracks: Critical Transitions in the Latina/o Educational Pipeline: 2006 Education
Summit Report

Lindsay Pérez Huber, Ofelia Huidor, María C. Malagón, Gloria Sánchez, Daniel G. Solórzano

No. 7, March 2006

The U.S. educational pipeline functions well for some groups of students, allowing them to flow smoothly through the various levels of education and yielding a fairly proportionate number of high school and postsecondary graduates. The pipeline for Latina/o students, however, does not work in this way. This report examines the research literature on critical transitions within each segment of the educational pipeline—K-12, community college, undergraduate, and graduate—and offers recommendations for policies that, if implemented, will increase the number of Latina/os who graduate with advanced degrees. Prepared for the conference on the topic. See also the policy brief on the topic.

Identifying and Preserving the History of the Latino Visual Arts: Survey of Archival Initiatives and Recommendations

Tracy Grimm, Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame

No. 6, April 2005

This report includes a nationwide survey of recent Latino arts archival initiatives designed to prevent the loss
of important primary sources. It suggests resources for the development of archival practices and how these
initiatives could be better coordinated at a national level to preserve a comprehensive historical record of the
Latino visual arts. The report is written in response to the 2003 Latino Policy and Issues Brief, also produced by
the CSRC, recommending further research on Latino cultural legacy preservation efforts.

Minority Filmmakers, Media Institutions, and Press Discourse: A Comparative Analysis 

Hye Seung Chung and Jun Okada, with assistance by Maja Manojlovic

No. 5, January 2005

Film scholarship has a bias toward studying mainstream movies, especially Hollywood film, and ignoring minority participation. By analyzing five film magazines, this study collates press coverage of the last quarter century of African American, Asian American, Latino/Chicano, and Native American participation in other mediums, including avant-garde film, video art, documentary, short narrative, and public affairs television. Findings were that despite clear efforts to represent minority cinema, there was a significant lack of reporting on Latino/Chicano and Native American cinema. A comprehensive bibliography is provided.

Looking For Latino Regulars on Prime-Time Television: The Fall 2004 Season

Alison R. Hoffman and Chon A. Noriega

No. 4, December 2004

The appearance of Latino regular characters on network prime-time television has steadily decreased over the last three years. Latino regular characters appear in just one of the eight series set in Los Angeles County, a region with a 45% Latino population. Latino regular characters account for just 8% of the regular characters on the 16 series set in New York City, a city with 27% Latino population. 50% of Latino regular characters can be found on ABC programs.

• Read coverage on the prime-time reports at ABC, NBC, Plain Dealer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and others.

Looking For Latino Regulars on Prime-Time Television: The Fall 2003 Season

Alison R. Hoffman and Chon A. Noriega

No. 3, April 2004

Latinos now comprise the largest minority group in the country, yet register as the most underrepresented group in prime-time. 75% of prime-time's regular characters are white and white characters can be found on 95% of all prime-time series. Yet only 15% of shows include Latino regular characters. Although more minorities appear on prime-time this year, the number of Latino characters has remained constant. Latinos remain highly segregated on the programming schedule, appearing on just 5 out of 12 genres.

An Undocumented History: A Survey of Index Citations for Latino and Latina Artists

Rita González

No. 2, August 2003

Emerging out of the civil rights struggles of the 1950s to the 1970s, Latina/o artists created both institutions and artwork in the service of their communities. The institutions included nearly a dozen art museums and several hundred grupos, centros, and galerias nationwide. The artwork provided the visual vocabulary for social protest, cultural identity, and historical awareness. In addition to representing community-based political activism, Latina/o art challenged and engaged the art world, promoting changes in historiography, influencing contemporary debates, and validating new practices. Despite these accomplishments, Latino artists and institutions have yet to be adequately integrated into art historical scholarship. Our findings reveal a significant lack of literature on active and successful Latino artists. Attempts to highlight the contributions of Latina/o artists have been made in digital databases, exhibition catalogs, survey histories, and reference encyclopedias. Recent book-length studies have explored the politics of exhibition as related to Latino art and arts spaces (see fig. 3). However, few monograph publications and scholarly articles detail the work of individual artists.

Looking for Latino Regulars on Prime-Time Television: The Fall 2002 Season

Alison Hoffman

No. 1, March 2003

On any given night of the week between 8:00 and 11:00 P.M., prime-time television programming can be seen lagging behind U.S. social realities. Its failure to include minorities in regular roles that reflect the plurality of the American public grows visibly more dramatic every year. In the 2002 season fall line-up, the vast majority of network, prime-time, regular characters were white and only 4 percent were Latino. Yet, nationally, Latinos make up 13 percent of the national population, three times their representation on television, making them among the most underrepresented minority groups on television. The viewing landscape of prime-time television is in urgent need of a more consistent inclusion of Latino and other minority regular characters.