Research

Race, Globalization and the New Ethnic Studies

Ethnic Studies is inexorably moving towards more comparative and global approaches and perspectives, introducing themes such as diaspora, transnationalism, globalization, hybridity, racial and social formations, critical race studies. Towards this end, CSREA hosted an international conference in Spring 2003, on the theme of “Race, Globalization and the New Ethnic Studies.” We invited as participants only scholars with Brown degrees located at many educational and cultural institutions across the nation, and a few international scholars, totaling over seventy. The two-day conference showcased the new ES that Brown identifies with, and resulted in two book projects: one, edited by Professors James Campbell, Robert Lee and Matthew Guterl (CSREA postdoctoral fellow, now director of American Studies at Indiana U.), entitled “Race, Nation, and Empire in American History,” is now available from the U. North Caroline Press (Chapel Hill); the second book project, “Ethnic Studies Encounters the Americas,” is in progress. Funding for the conference and subsequent book workshops was provided by CSREA, the President’s office, the Dean of the College, and other campus sources.

The Rhode Island Disparities Project

March 2004 we embarked on a six month project to develop Rhode Island 's first inventory of reports, scholarly article annotations, and other relevant information in the last five years on disparities in health, education, economic development and safety. A final report of the data available on this website contains recommendations that synthesize the gaps in community programs and public initiatives as well as assess the quality of the present data. We hope that this database will be of particularly interest to community leaders, policy makers, advocates, and others working toward improving the lives of minority populations in the state.

More on the Rhode Island Disparities Page.

Bracero History and Archives Project

Collaborative Documentation in the Internet Age. At CSREA, this project is spearheaded by Prof. Matt Garcia, in collaboration with the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian, the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas-El Paso, and the Center for History and the New Media at George Mason University. The Bracero program is America’s preeminent “guest worker program” involving millions of Mexican workers from 1942 to 1964. In Spring 2005, we held an initial organizing meeting and one-day conference at CSREA, with support from Prof. Steve Lubar, director of the John Nicholas Brown program in public history (and former Smithsonian curator), with invited historians from Yale, University of Southern California and University of New Mexico. A second conference was held a year later at the University of Texas-El Paso, which houses and is transcribing the tapes of interviews with elderly braceros living in the US (Texas, California, Illinois) and in Mexico. In Spring 2007, the project received a $360K grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to collect primary material, digitize documents and photographs, and establish an Online Archive that researchers anywhere can access. In addition, the project has created paid research fellowships at the Smithsonian for three bi-lingual Chicano graduate students in American Civilization and Public Humanities, all students of Prof. Garcia. In addition, Prof. Garcia has incorporated undergraduate research assistants into his work on this project.

In conjunction with his own research on bracero history, Prof. Garcia has organized summer GRP’s (group research project) with undergraduate UTRA students and taken them to the labor history archives in Detroit as well as the field in the Coachella Valley of California to conduct oral interviews with old bracero workers.

Although not directly related to the bracero project, Prof. Garcia and his students’ field research in the Coachella Valley of rural southern California has resulted in another student research project and exhibition at the John Nicholas Brown Center: “Educating Change: Latina Activism and the Struggle for Educational Equity,” a history of student walkouts from Coachella’s public schools in the 1970s demanding a better education; the walkout was led by young women, one of whom became the principal of Providence’s only dual-language immersion bilingual school (the Alfred Lima School, since dismantled by the Providence school district). The students created a website (www.brown.edu/coachella/) for scholars interested in Chicano history and educators interested in bilingual education.

Latino National Survey

In Fall 2007, CSREA received a $150,000 grant from the Rhode Island Foundation to conduct the most in-depth and comprehensive survey of Latinos in New England, specifically Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Prof. Hu-DeHart is the PI for this grant, with Profs. Garcia, Marion Orr (Political Science and Urban Studies), and Cynthia Garcia-Coll (Education) as advisors, and Prof. Jorge Elorza of Roger Williams Law School and Coordinator, Providence Latino Policy Institute Initiative, as community advisor. This project is the New England extension of a national survey of Latino households conducted by a team of eminent Latino political scientists, led by Prof. Rodney Hero of Notre Dame University and Prof. Michael Jones-Correa of Cornel University. In AY 2008-09, after the survey data has been collected, coded and disseminated, Profs. Hero, Jones-Correa and their national collaborators, along with CSREA and Brown collaborators will organize and host a national conference to showcase research using this data. Graduate students at Brown and other institutions will be especially targeted for training in using this data, in hopes that the training will produce some innovative and useful dissertations.

Labor History Conference

“Beyond the Borders: the Legacy of the IWW, Organized Labor and the Multiracial Community Today.” CSREA collaborated with Prof. Paul Buhle of American Civilization, the Rhode Island Labor History Society and the Institute for Labor Studies and Research to sponsor this international conference in March 2005 to examine the history of the legendary Wobblies (IWW) on both sides of the US-Mexican border, and on bi-lingual, transnational IWW activists who organized across the border. Funding provided by the campus and labor co-sponsors.

Rhode Island Racial and Ethnic Minority Disparities Project

2004-05. This research project was funded by a $20,000 grant from the Rhode Island Foundation to create an online, annotated bibliography of extant research on racial and ethnic disparities in RI, in 5 categories: education, housing, health, criminal justice, and income. Visiting Research Associate Dr. Veronica Ouma led a group of undergraduate researchers from Ethnic Studies, Community Health, Environmental Studies, American Civilization, and with advise from a broad range of community organizations, including Haitian Resource Center, RI Kids Count, RI Planned Parenthood, RI Select Committee on Race and Police Community Relations, RI Dept. of Health, Olneyville Housing Corp., Lifespan, and Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE). The results of the research is posted on the CSERA website, readily accessible to scholars and community organizations.

Transcultural Community Health Initiative (TCHI)

2004-06. This project was conducted by Research Associate Dannie Ritchie, MD, MPH, with initial support from a small start-up grant ($5,000) from the Rhode Island Foundation. Dr. Ritchie envisioned this project as a model Community-Campus partnership to eliminate health disparities in RI, the New England region, and eventually the nation. The heart of the project was to create and train a multicultural health care workforce, adapting models from inner-city Detroit as well as health promotores of the US-Mexican border. A continuous stream of state government, community and educational organizations collaborated as advisors and in grant writing, including Brown’s Department of Community Health, Brown Medical School, the Swearer Center, HUD, Miriam Hospital, Lifespan, University of Rhode Island, Camp Street Community Ministries, RI Dept. of Health, and many more. A number of major grant proposals were submitted, notably for $400,000 for a HUD Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC). After 2 years, the largest support came from a $50,000 grant from the Miriam Hospital/Lifespan, not sufficient to sustain the project beyond August 2006.

Collaborative Academic Lecture Series:
Symposia and Exhibitions Initiated by CSREA

Environmental Justice Lecture Series, AY 03-04, co-sponsored by Environmental Studies and funded by the Office of the Provost.

Bilingual Education Series, Spring 04, “Two-Way Bilingualism and Education Equity in New England, “ co-sponsored by the Department of Education, and funded by the Office of the President.

Wayland Collegium Brown v. Board of Education Lecture Series, AY 03-04, co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Diversity, with funding from Wayland.

Latino Studies Lecture Series, Spring 05, co-sponsored by American Civilization.

Native American Studies Series, AY 05-06, co-sponsored by departments of History, American Civilization, English, and Political Science.

All-Day Symposia in honor of John Ladd, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and founding director of CSREA, co-sponsored by Africana Studies and Department of Philosophy.

Community Museum Lecture Series, “Displaying Race and Ethnicity,” Fall 06, co-sponsored by the John Nicholas Brown Center, showcasing curators of four major community museums representing Mexican Americans (Carlos Tortolero, Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago), Native Americans (Linda Coombs, Wanmpanog Indigenous Program, Plimoth Plantation), Asian Americans (Ron Chew, Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle) and African Americans (Lonnie Bunch, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian).

“Sex, Love and Rockets: The Comix World of Los Bros Hernández,” Spring 06, lecture by Jaime Hernández and exhibition on the Latino “graphic novel,” curated by graduate students in American Civilization and Public Humanities at the John Nicholas Brown gallery, under the direction of ES core faculty Prof. Ralph Rodriguez, co-sponsored by the John Nicholas Brown Center, with additional funding from the Creative Arts Council. Jamie Hernández also conducted a limited-seating seminar on the craft of comic books, which was open to the Providence community. Prof. Rodriguez and these graduate students also contributed to a related Public Humanities exhibition at the JNBC, “Pulp Uncovered: How Pulp Fiction Magazines Changed America.”

Activist-in-Residence Lecture Series and Activism Practicum Course, Fall 07, co-sponsored by the Swearer Center and Urban Studies, with funding from the Office of the President. This lecture series, which brought in many speakers from across the country, culminated in a Summit of Brown graduates (including some ES concentrators) who are leading community-based organizations for social change and social justice. A course approved by the College Curriculum Committee was offered in conjunction with the series, on “Strategy, Tactics and Tools for Social Change,” co-taught by Prof. Hu-DeHart and Rabbi Alan Flam of Swearer; 25 students from freshmen to seniors completed the course and organized the summit.

In addition, each AY, CSREA supports lectures and events initiated by other departments and academic programs, as well as a myriad of student groups; such co-sponsorship almost always involves a monetary contribution of $100 to $500.

CSREA was a partner in two separate and successful applications for Cogut postdoctoral fellow: Dr. Meida McNeil, with Theater and Dance, who will also have an office at the Center; and Dr. Adrián López Denis, with History and Latin American Studies. Ethnic Studies will crosslist their courses.

Community Projects

A few projects at CSREA are mostly directed at the community and not strictly academic; all have at least one core faculty involved, and all with student participation, some of which does involve research.

Non-Traditional Leadership Institute

Providence. Prof. Hu-DeHart raised $20,000 from the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance to conduct and fund this two-year grassroots leadership training program for five community groups in Providence: PrYSM (Cambodian Youth), DARE (low-income communities of color), Camp Street Ministries (Mt Hope community on the East Side behind Hope HS), English for Action (new immigrant community) and Black Repertory Theatre.

Service Learning Call for Action

a collaborative conference and workshop co-sponsored by Campus Compact, CSREA, Wellesley College, and Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance which provided the funding, to encourage more students of color to engage in Service Learning, the mission of Campus Compact, a national organization founded by President Gregorian and based in Providence. As former Kellogg Foundation leadership fellows, Wellesley president Diane Chapman Walsh and CSREA Director Hu-DeHart were co-conveners.

English for Action/Español para acción

Founded by Brown graduates and incubated at CSREA, this organization recruits many Brown students to teach English to new immigrants in Providence, and Spanish to social service workers who work with these Spanish-speaking new immigrants. The organization continues to use CSREA to train Brown student volunteers. ES core faculty José Itzigsohn sits on its board.

International Charter School ICS), bilingual charter school, Pawtucket

Prof. Garcia continues to work closely with ICS, now the only remaining dual-language immersion bilingual school (Spanish and Portuguese) left in RI. After helping ES students organize a GISP on the ICS model of bilingual education, with substantive input from Prof. Ted Hamann of Brown’s Education Alliance and Principal Julie Nora, the students have continued to build a close relationship with ICS by organizing an ongoing tutoring-mentoring program for the children. One of the student leaders, Liliana Ornelas, a Mellon fellow, graduated in May 07 with an ES honors thesis based on research on graduates of ICS who have gone on to regular middle schools. It won a Best Thesis award, and helped her win the Zucconi fellowship from Swearer (awarded to only one graduating student), which she is using to study bi-lingual Spanish-Quechua education in Cuzco, Peru, before heading to graduate school in Brown’s new MA in Urban Public Policy program directed by Prof. Kenneth Wong of Education.