The LDC members have been integrated into relevant project activities across campus. Below are the links with more information about some of these efforts:
Latino Social Science Pipeline Initiative
The Latino Social Science Pipeline Initiative (LSSPI) is a UC Berkeley program that seeks to advance Latino social science research, training, mentorship, and community engagement. The Initiative is spearheaded by professors Cristina Mora, Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, and Nicholas Vargas.
The LSSPI seeks to address the need for more social science research on the history and current conditions of Latino populations. Working with UC Berkeley scholars, students, and staff, the Latino Social Science Pipeline Initiative contributes to training and developing the next generation of social scientists, data analysts, policymakers, and public intellectuals focused on Latino communities. In addition, it uses academic research to shed light on U.S. and transnational Latino communities in efforts to improve socioeconomic conditions and advance racial justice.
Over the next two years, the LSSPI will pursue its agenda through several initiatives, including postdoctoral and predoctoral fellowships, small research grants, and community-university partnerships.
The Center on Immigration and Child Welfare
The Center on Immigration and Child Welfare (CICW) is a national peer membership organization that promotes the welfare of immigrant children and their families. It fosters cross-sector collaboration by linking and supporting professionals in child welfare, immigration, and legal fields. Professor Kristina Lovato directs CICW.
CICW was founded in 2006, an era of increasingly punitive immigration policies and programs that systematically separated families and threatened the foundations of child protection and well-being. For over fifteen years, the work of the CICW has focused on building the capacity of the U.S. child welfare system to respond to the unique needs of immigrant families and children through: (1) original research, (2) resource development and dissemination focused on the needs of frontline practitioners, (3) training and technical assistance (online and in person), and (4) national leadership, including sponsoring cross-sector conferences, workgroups, and advocacy.
Mellon Latinx Humanities Series
This program aims to support the Chicanx Latinx Studies Program (CLSP) in providing much-needed support for studying Latinx Humanities at UC Berkeley. Mellon Latinx Humanities Series is a three-part, 18-month program led by Professor Laura I. Perez and the critical support of Professor Lorena Oropeza and other relevant scholars from the Ethnic Studies department at UC Berkeley.
The first part focuses on a lecture series of top Latinx Humanities scholars during the 2023-24 academic year. Along with sharing their work, each distinguished guest speaker is asked to share their vision of the importance and future of Latinx Humanities in California. Among the guest speakers that have participated in these series during the Spring 2024 semester included Arlen Davila's "Whose City, Whose Art? Exploring Latinx Art in Public Spaces", Carlos Decena's "Thinking and Playing the Dead: Intellectual Activism of the Sacred," Natalia Molina's "A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community," and Robert Tejeda's "Contemporary Latinx Art/Along the Diagonal.
The second part will be a new Fall 2024 semester course, "Latinxs & the Humanities in California," available to undergraduates for credit and open to the public. Modeled on or part of UC Berkeley's "Big Ideas" courses, this primary course would feature a weekly invited speaker and showcase the importance and wealth of US Latinx achievements in literature, visual art, performance art, film, and history.