ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

1 

[music] 

JENELLE: Hello, everyone. I am Jenelle Azore from ICF 

International. And before we begin we’d like to cover 

a few housekeeping items. This webinar will be 

recorded and posted online on AmeriCorps Impact 

Webinars page. And if you have any questions or 

experience technical difficulties please let us know 

using the chat box feature. Please be advised that 

all lines have been muted to avoid background noises 

and to allow for greater engagement. 

 You can submit questions at any time during the 

presentation by using the chat feature below. Select 

Everyone when submitting your questions. We will read 

your questions for you during the Q&A session 

following the presentation. Spanish captions are 

available. To activate please select the Live 

Transcription icon on the Zoom menu and select show 

subtitles. 

 That takes care of our housekeeping items. The 

webinar will start now and here to welcome us is Dr. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

2 

Andrea Robles from AmeriCorps’ Office of Research and 

Evaluation. 

ANDREA: Thanks, Jenelle. So hello, everyone and 

welcome. Buenas tardes and bienvenidos. I want to 

thank you all for joining us today. And I really just 

want to mention how thrilled we are at the interest 

in this topic. Our office’s objectives are to support 

AmeriCorps’ mission by building knowledge on civic 

engagement and to use this knowledge to both 

contribute to the scholarship of this field, and 

demonstrate how civic engagement, volunteering, and 

national service can be a solution to national 

challenges and have a positive impact on individual 

lives and communities. 

 Since 2002 we have been sponsoring a supplement to 

the Current Population Survey called the Civic 

Engagement and Volunteering Supplement or CEV for 

short. It is fielded every two years and it is the 

nation’s most robust longitudinal data on American 

civic engagement and volunteering behavior. In fact, 

the census fielded the 2021 CEV this past fall and we 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

3 

hope to have the data publically available later this 

spring or early summer. As an office we trust and 

rely [audio cuts out] However, we know it doesn’t 

tell the whole story. So next slide, please. 

 So, for example, as you will see in a minute, here is 

an analysis of the 2019 data regarding the 

volunteering rate by Hispanic origin and education. 

And although this information is very useful and 

provides us with some broad national level trends, it 

does not show us how volunteering may vary at the 

community level, or whether it captures all types of 

formal and informal volunteering behaviors such as 

helping one’s neighbor. So next slide, please. 

 So, in 2014 our office convened a group of experts to 

assess how to best measure constructs related to 

civic engagement, social cohesion, and social 

capital. One of the recommendations was to complement 

the CPS data that we collect with more research at 

the sub-national or local levels by using diverse 

research approaches to tap into the complexity of 

volunteering and civic engagement. In response our 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

4 

office developed a research grant program for 

institutions of higher education. And since 2015 we 

have awarded 34 cooperative agreement grants to study 

and measure these concepts by using diverse research 

methods and approaches. 

 The presenters today are two of our 2017 grantees. 

Their research provides more insight on Latinx civic 

engagement at a more local level and how to ignite 

civic engagement of Latinx youth, adults, and 

seniors. Next slide, please. 

 So the structure of the webinar today is as follows, 

we will begin with introductory and framing remarks 

by Dr. Amy Ramos who is a Senior Research Consultant 

at Harder and Company, and has conducted community 

based research with vulnerable populations throughout 

California in projects that address equity and civic 

engagement. She will be followed by our two main 

presenters and their teams. Dr. Suzanne Pritzker who 

is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, an 

Associate Professor at University of Houston, and a 

few of her team members, as you will see. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

5 

 And then we will hear from Dr. Marisol Clark-Ibáñez 

who is a full Professor and Chair of the Department 

of Sociology of California State University San 

Marcos and her team. We will finish the presentation 

portion with brief reflections from Mr. Victor 

Garcia, Director of the California Campus Catalyst 

Fund from Immigrants Rising. And Angelica Razo, Texas 

State Director of Mi Familia Vota. And finally for 

the last 25 or 30 minutes we will open it up for Q&A. 

 But as Jenelle said, if you think of any questions, 

comments, or useful resources during the 

presentations, feel free to add them to the chat. So 

now I will pass this on to Dr. Amy Ramos to provide 

some introductory remarks. Thank you. 

DR. RAMOS: Thank you so much, Andrea. And as Andrea said, 

my name is Dr. Amy Ramos. And I would like to just 

open up by reminding us how imperative it is for the 

future of our country to ensure that our Latinx 

communities, regardless of age or geography, 

understand how to become civically engaged. In 2020 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

6 

we witnessed the mobilization of Latinx communities 

across the United States. For example, we saw record 

turnouts in states like Arizona. However, 

opportunities for sustained civic engagement for 

Latinx communities are scarce. The nature of civic 

lives of our Latinx communities in the United States 

is an important barometer for the future of 

democracy, if for no other reason than that Latinx 

make up a significant share of the population. 

 The Latinx population, which includes people of any 

race, was 62.1 million in 2020. The Latinx population 

grew by 23%. Let that sink in for a minute. The gaps 

in Latinx civic engagement are reflective of our 

inequities that continue to plague our educational 

system and contribute to our social class divide. The 

social class divide in civic participation is well 

documented. We all know many of the factors that 

contribute to this divide. For example, people who 

attend college tend to show higher rates of civic 

participation. We also know that access to 

opportunities that close the divide are limited for 

our Latinx communities. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

7 

 A viable solution to increasing the Latinx civic 

engagement must be focused on eliminating the 

inequities before the transition to adulthood and 

propagating knowledge on how our civic system 

functions using culturally relevant approaches that 

Latinx communities value. 

 Today we have the privilege to hear directly from two 

innovative teams who are challenging the status quo 

on what it means to be civically engaged and how to 

increase the Latinx civic participation. So with that 

said, at this time I’d like to pass it to Dr. Suzanne 

Pritzker to kick us off. 

DR. PRITZKER: Thank you for the opportunity to share 

our work with you today. During our presentation you 

will hear both from a member of our youth research 

team and members of our University of Houston team, 

as we share some of our findings around what Latinx 

youth experienced as facilitators and barriers to 

their civic engagement, as well as youth-driven 

strategies to support expanding civic engagement on 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

8 

the part of Latinx youth. So we will start off our 

presentation with Katherine Avila, one of the youth 

co-researchers on our team. Over to you, Katherine. 

KATHERINE: Thank you, Dr. Pritzker. So hi, everybody. My 

name is Katherine Avila and I’m here today as a 

member of the Youth Expert team to share about the 

work I have been part of since my senior year of high 

school, which now to say that I am a current senior 

in college, it just makes me really excited to be 

here to share the things that we have found from this 

project. But before we do get started we want to 

thank AmeriCorps for giving us the opportunity to 

share our work here today, as well as for funding 

this project, that means a lot for us here today. So, 

next slide. 

 Thank you. So I’m going to be talking about some of 

the background on this project. So, personally I got 

involved in this project due to an organization 

called Young Emerging Leaders that came to my high 

school that was run by Mi Familia Vota. And this 

organization is where I first learned how to send 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

9 

letters to Congress, call Congress, it’s also where I 

met Angie and Denise, who you will be meeting later. 

And I just got involved in this project because I saw 

that even though my high school consisted of over 

3,000 students there was not much civic engagement 

going on. 

 I mean, to say that there weren’t that many students, 

and I was sometimes one of the only ones attending 

these very informative meetings. And this project is 

just very unique because it connects to the Latinx 

youth which is very essential to trying to find the 

different facilitators and barriers to their civic 

engagement to talk to them. And in order to 

communicate with them there were Youth Experts 

guiding these conversations with them in schools. And 

so like I mentioned, I am one of eight Youth Experts 

in Houston, Texas, however, there were eight other 

Youth Experts in Denver, Colorado. And we were just 

sitting in conversation and focus groups with our 

classmates, other Latinx teenagers, and we would ask 

questions like, what is civic engagement and what are 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

10

the things that are allowing us or getting in the way 

from getting civically engaged? So, next slide. 

 So as Youth Experts we got the opportunity to be a 

part of a research team, which was really exciting 

for us because it was the first time we did things 

like this. We got involved in things like learning 

about the IRB process or being part of like the 

people that are creating the questions. We were able 

to help with that. And then once we ran all the 

students and got all their information, we were able 

to sit with them in conversation with grad students 

with doctors and talk about what this data that we 

were getting, all these responses that we were 

getting what it meant, and interpret that. 

 And this picture just shows how we would meet at the 

University of Houston. Like all of the Youth Experts 

in Houston, we would meet and sometimes we would talk 

to the students in other group, and at the University 

of Denver, and just like write it down and exchange 

thoughts, and it was just like a working process that 

was really exciting. And it just meant a lot to me 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

11

because I remember some of the students that were 

part of my focus groups and the conversations that I 

had in my high school were some of my friends, and 

even though we were close friends none of these 

things ever came up. Like we never talked about 

barriers and facilitators that allowed us to get 

civically engaged. So it was a good opportunity to 

also have these conversations. But yeah, I will pass 

it on to Denise. 

DENISE: Next slide, please, thank you. Good afternoon. 

My name is Denise Moreno. I’ve been part of this 

project since its inception and was the main point of 

contact between the Houston Youth Experts and the 

rest of the team. So now we’re going to start with 

our findings. Throughout the focus groups youth spoke 

about what encouraged them and discouraged them to 

participate in a wide range of context. So, the youth 

identified everything you see here as both barriers 

and facilitators to civic engagement. So it included, 

as you can see, how economics and politics, and their 

community, their schools, their family, their peers, 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

12

and even themselves affected their participation. 

Next slide. 

 So our first context is individual. Next slide. So 

youth recognized that their primary barriers and 

facilitators to civic engagement included within the 

individual, as you can see here, factors included 

youth lived experiences with issues or personal 

motivations, the changes that they wanted to see, or 

the examples that they wanted to make, but it also 

include emotions. How their fear, anxiety, hope, and 

hopelessness affected their participation. Next 

slide. 

 So now this quote is one of our youth participants. 

Each of the quotes presented today specifically makes 

the connection between the barriers and the 

facilitators that the youth experienced and the 

strategies that they recommend. In this quote we can 

see how the youth talk about change, but I want to 

bring your focus to the bold part where it says, “As 

long as they know that there’s a safe space that they 

don’t have to constantly go to, but they can use it 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

13

when they can.” So it shows us how the youth wants 

safe spaces that they’re not forced to go, but 

they’re there when they need it. Next slide. 

 So this brings us to the individual strategies. Youth 

identified within the individual context three 

strategies. The first is youth want to see safe 

spaces for engagement. Spaces where everybody is 

welcome and that they’re teen related. Youth also 

talked about the need to increase civic knowledge. 

This can be done by the sharing of personal stories 

and teaching youth about their rights, both as 

students or as immigrants. And finally youth want to 

see positive youth-focused messaging. And they 

recommend that this could be done through just 

amplifying youth voices and treating youth seriously. 

Next slide. 

 So next we have our peer context slide. So within the 

days our youth discussed how their peers acted as 

barriers and facilitators to their civic engagement 

by the way they encourage or discourage each other. 

They discussed about the peer energies. So it’s just 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

14

more about how committed the youth are or how there’s 

a lack of commitment and participation. They also 

spoke about wanting to see their peers as leaders and 

how that’s encouraging to them, but the lack of youth 

leadership is discouraging to them. Next slide. 

 And in this quote we have another participant where 

they’re talking about their participation with their 

peers. And once again I’d like to bring your 

attention to the bolder part, “If somebody’s curious 

or wants to join, you have to sit down with them and 

actually talk about it.” So this talks about just 

communicating with each other peer to peer. Slide. 

 So this brings us to our youth-driven strategies for 

peers. And the peers recommend two main things within 

peer relationships. And this is communication should 

be done directly to youth. Peers want to hear from 

other peers. They want to hear their stories, their 

passions. They want to learn from other peers how to 

get involved. And secondly, they want to share their 

experiences in supportive spaces where they can have 

opportunities to share knowledge. Slide. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

15

KATHERINE: So hello again. I’m going to be talking about 

our findings for the family context. So, next slide. 

And so we were able to poll some of the family-based 

facilitators and barriers of civic engagement. And 

some of the facilitators that we found were that how 

certain family members experiences that the Latinx 

youth saw or heard of allowed them to become 

civically engaged, like encouraged them to, like they 

were pushed by it. But however, some students spoke 

on how being able to see some of these family 

member’s experiences also discouraged them from being 

civically engaged because of safety concerns that 

they had or like that their families had for them. 

And next slide. 

 And so, this is a student. A lot of students were 

echoing how a big barrier of their engagement was the 

lack of conversations with their families due to 

different opinions and discussions. And so some of 

the things that they want is that – Like as the 

student said if other adults that knew more about 

this, about these topics or were more active were to 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

16

reach out to the parents like theirs and just inform 

them they believed that their parents would be more 

involved. So this leads me to talk about the 

different strategies that we saw and we heard from 

these students, and what they want, which I will be 

talking in the next slide. 

 They want to see like the families – As that student 

said, they do want to see the families involved. 

Which means that they also want information that is 

provided in Spanish, information that is clear and 

accessible to their parents, while still addressing 

their family’s fears towards being civically engaged. 

They also would find that if having these adults talk 

to the other adults, and their parents being involved 

in those conversations addressing the safety as well 

as like the good in being civically engaged, they 

believed that their families would be more engaged 

and that would take away that barrier of, the 

discouragement in being involved. So, yes. That just 

means putting parents on board in whatever way that 

they can help. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

17

 And for our school context that I’m going to talk 

about next. So next slide. So schools are a huge 

factor for like Latinx youth because they do spend a 

lot of time there. And some of the facilitators that 

we found was that students saw that if they had youth 

models that acted as resources for them at schools 

and make them feel heard, make them feel included 

then this would affect the school climate, and it 

overall make them a better environment for them. But 

there’s a huge barrier such as like the GPA and 

putting academic first, which I will talk about in 

the next slide with the strategies. 

 So, students are very aware that there’s no time or 

no space dedicated to these things. So, yeah, so like 

this quote says, if they had like a conversation, if 

they had a space or like a time to have these 

conversations they were at school at least once a 

month about what was going on, then they would be 

able to like do something with all of that. And they 

keep going on saying that if one of them do it or 

they see that a lot of people are doing this then 

everybody would follow. That’s how they know that 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

18

their school, their classmates were able to follow it 

if everybody is doing it. So they just kind of need a 

space and a time to do these things. And so, next 

slide. 

 So this leads me to the strategies that we came up 

for for schools. So the Latinx youth want to see 

programming setup for them that allows them and 

informs them about how to register for voting, like 

gives them information about current events, but they 

also want to see that their teachers, principals are 

involved in what they’re doing, that they helped them 

out, and that means by offering school clubs that 

have these things available to them. And set aside 

class time or assemblies that focus on these topics 

so that they can have these conversations. Next 

slide. 

REBECCA: Hi, good afternoon. I’m Rebecca or Becca 

Saenz. And I’ve been on a team for about a year now 

helping to review this data and helping connect the 

findings with existing research. And so right now I’m 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

19

going to be talking a little bit about the community 

and the neighborhood context. So, next slide, please. 

 To frame it as one of our Youth Experts has, so much 

of the daily activity for Latinx youth happens within 

this context, and it’s really made up of their 

different family members, friends, neighbors, and I 

think a lot of what the facilitators and barriers 

consist of include the adults in their community, as 

you can see. Whether or not they model civic 

engagement, whether or not their messaging around 

youth voice is positive, and then they’re also made 

up of their access to community resources as youth 

and how relevant the issues for civic engagement are 

to their community specifically. Next slide, please. 

 So, during our focus group discussions we can see 

here in this quote a real call for community 

organizations to take the time to make change in 

their communities. As one of our youth put it here 

they want to see the consistency from these 

organizations and to see that they actually mean it. 

And I think that this just calls to the desire to see 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

20

lasting and sustainable change that truly benefits 

their community. Next slide, please. 

 And so, from this community context we see two main 

strategies emerge. The first is to provide communitybased opportunities for engagement. The youth feel 

the need to increase youth awareness of community 

issues. And once they’re aware of how they can create 

change then they can get included in actually making 

it. So this can be done with outreach methods that 

both benefit the youth and reach them where they are 

in real time in their real settings through means 

like youth friendly communication that they can then 

go on to share with their peers. And then we have our 

second strategy that touches on taking a community 

focused approach. And the youth lead a call here with 

this strategy to recruit youth and encourage their 

leadership in their communities here. Next slide, 

please. 

 So next I’m going to be talking about the 

sociocultural context. Next slide. So as one of our 

Youth Experts, Alexis, who you all will meet in a 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

21

later video, points out is that this context 

discussion is about combating social issues on a 

smaller scale and then on a larger scale. And you 

really see that in the facilitators and barriers that 

the youth identified here. This context consists of 

the social environment which includes the racial and 

ethnic dynamics, age, demographics that the youth are 

in, as well as the cultural norms, beliefs, and 

values. These things also were shaped by things 

shared by the media and on social media, as well as 

things that they fear such as speaking out as a young 

person. Next slide, please. 

 So, the youth talked about making information 

relevant to them as a way of ensuring that other 

youth will want to get involved. They talked about 

the influence of social media as a way to do that. 

And we had one youth quoted here who says that they 

use a lot of social media and maybe we can use that 

as a reference to show all the situations that are 

going on right now. Next slide, please. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

22

 So, we have two more strategies, again, in this 

context. And first is to engage all youth in civic 

engagement and this can be done in a few ways that we 

show here, some of which are by creating a social 

environment where youth voice is taken seriously and 

really valued, and where youth of other racial and 

ethnic backgrounds are also included. Our youth 

voiced a real desire for an environment for these 

things to come together so as to not feel so isolated 

in their pursuit for change. And then our next 

strategy is to use social media to share information 

about issues and ways that youth can get involved, 

specifically to the Latinx population. Our youth 

experts have identified that in all youth, including 

immigrant youth have rights, and the youth want to be 

able to share this with others through these means. 

Next slide, please. 

DR. PRITZKER: So finally, I want to share a little bit 

about how youth discussed the influences of economic 

and political context on their civic engagement. So, 

next slide. The youth in our focus groups spoke 

extensively about the influence of politics. The 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

23

presence and absence of political discussion, trust 

and mistrust towards political leaders, as well as 

policies. They spoke about immigrant policies, as 

well as age restrictions, like the voting age, on 

their engagement and ways that that impacted whether 

they were able to engage or not. They also spoke 

about barriers posed by economic factors. For 

example, the need to work to support their families, 

a lack of access to transportation, and barriers 

posed by the cost of participation. 

 And so on the next slide we want to share a brief 

video from Alexis Ruiz, another one of our youth coresearchers, and he connects exactly these economic 

and political influences with the types of specific 

youth-driven strategies that emerged in our findings. 

So next slide, and can you play it please? 

ALEXIS: ...which is the economic and political context 

that goes into civic engagement. So I remember, I 

mean often times, a lot of youth won’t get involved 

in civic engagement due to economic reasons that stop 

them, and besides the fear that – especially Latino 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

24

parents have for their youth in getting civically 

engaged. I think, oftentimes and I would always talk 

to my high school friends about why they wouldn’t get 

involved, a lot of it has to do with money and 

transportation. So I think what we could do is create 

clubs for each high school in which they could get 

funding to provide them food, you know, at no cost, 

and they can eat and have transportation. Those are 

the two main things that hinder. You know, food is 

already enough of an incentive. Well, free food is 

enough of an incentive and then if they had 

transportation to get home and to wherever they need 

to be then that’s another plus because a lot of 

times, you know, parents work long hours, and they 

don’t want to drive another whole hour to go pick up 

their children after working a long day. So, that 

will definitely create more access and allow more 

youth to get involved. 

 And also providing financial incentives for youth to 

get involved. I remember when I first heard about 

this research I was already – the incentive of being 

around a doctor, and being around scholars, and being 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

25

around other intelligent people was already enough of 

an incentive to me, but when I saw those Amazon gift 

cards coming my way I was like, ‘Okay, this is pretty 

cool that I see my work coming back to me.’ So I 

think by knocking down those big barriers in terms of 

transportation and money, and providing spaces where 

you can talk about these things is going to be a big 

way that we can actually start creating change and 

allowing us to take youth seriously, and allowing 

them to foster and grow and change the current 

situation that we’re living in. So yeah, I really 

appreciate you guys. 

DR. PRITZKER: So, next slide. So the strategies that 

emerged from our focus groups include those 

highlighted by Alexis. Eliminating cost barriers, 

providing food and transportation, as well as a 

desire for inclusive opportunities to engage in 

change with other youth across different. Next slide. 

 So as we reflected on the many youth-driven 

strategies that emerged from our research across 

context, we looked across them and really identified 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

26

a set of foundational principles that seem to connect 

across these strategies as really essential in 

supporting Latinx youth civic engagement. And so I 

really want to focus on these implications from our 

work. That Latinx youth want safe and supportive 

spaces that support them directly, that address youth 

and their family fears, and enable them to learn 

their rights around civic engagement. Youth want 

youth-led spaces that promote youth leadership and 

provide space for peer to peer communications where 

youth can come together to learn and support each 

other in civic actions. 

 They spoke about wanting accessible communitytailored information about current issues and change 

efforts that directly impact them and their families, 

and information that is culturally and linguistically 

designed for youth and their families. Those 

strategies consistently show a desire for positive 

messaging and modeling that highlight ways Latinx 

youth are already having societal impacts. Showing 

civic role models, helping youth see their power, and 

encouraging family pride in youth civic success. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

27

 And finally, as Alexis pointed out and as we saw 

across strategies as well, youth want strategies that 

reduce institutional barriers to participation. 

Supporting transportation and food access, 

eliminating participation fees, eliminating GPA 

requirements that are often associated with civic 

opportunities in schools that can prevent Latinx 

youth participation in civic activities. 

 So as each of you move forward in your own work with 

AmeriCorps programs that engage youth as host to 

young AmeriCorps members, as AmeriCorps staff and 

researchers, we hope that these foundational 

principles that emerge directly from youth’s own 

perceptions and experiences can help guide and engage 

Latinx youth in your civic programming. So, next 

slide. 

 As we wrap up our presentation I’d like to share a 

few resources that we hope will be helpful to you, 

and I’ll put these in the chat as well. These are 

links to both reports and infographics that we’ve 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

28

produced that are on the AmeriCorps site. And then 

two infographics that highlight some of the findings 

from our broader study that we will share with you as 

well. So, again, we want to thank AmeriCorps for this 

opportunity to, both for supporting this work and for 

this opportunity to share our work with you all 

today. And I will now pass this onto Dr. Marisol 

Clark-Ibáñez. Thank you. 

DR. CLARK-IBÁÑEZ: Hi, everybody. Great to have so many 

people here and from across the country. As I go 

along I’m going, I gave you some links that relate to 

our projects and resources. And we have a couple 

colleagues joining us: Michelle Ramos-Pellicia and 

Valentina Martinez-Rodriguez. Michelle is 

experiencing some technical difficulties so I’m going 

to do our slides together. So Michelle, if you by 

chance hop on, let me know. 

 So thank you, thank you everyone for being here. We 

want to – I saw some really great connections with 

the Houston project. And we are going to share with 

you about two funded research projects that 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

29

AmeriCorps’ generous funding in the Research and 

Evaluation Office gave us to study the efficacy of a 

type of inclusive curriculum that we delivered. So, 

next slide. 

 This is not even all the team members, but I’ve 

highlighted the ones who are here presenting. But I 

wanted, if you saw in the chat, you can see that the 

founder of these programs and PI, and co-PI, and 

Research Director of the NLRC during the time of 

these projects, Dr. Arcela Nuñez-Alvarez is here, and 

she is now Director of Universidad Popular, and so 

it’s great to have team members here from San Marcos, 

and to feel free to use the chat as a way to 

elaborate and add. 

 And I also want to point out that the National Latino 

Research Center at Cal State San Marcos also had, at 

times 30, up to sometimes 40 research assistants and 

interns that were students and community members, 

along with other staff members. So, let’s go to the 

next slide. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

30

 Because this is a national webinar we just really 

wanted to give a quick focus to the geographical 

location. We’re located in the San Diego County 

region, but we are in the north part of the county, 

and this is where many of our participants come from. 

And so the impact of the US-Mexico border, issues of 

immigration are very significant for our communities 

where we live. Next slide, please. 

 Okay, so to work with the community, and in the 

community we really needed to come up with a concept 

of civic engagement that was not so abstract or 

philosophical because as you’ll see we know that our 

community members were already kind of moving within 

the community and doing so much great work. So you 

can see what our kind of operational definition is. 

People or groups find ways to improve their community 

and social institutions. Next slide. 

 And as it was already mentioned by Dr. Ramos and our 

Houston team, while there is an ever growing 

population of Latinx communities, and individuals, 

and families, the actual civic engagement, seeing 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

31

some surges of increased participation, but I really 

like the way Dr. Amy Ramos talked about how do you 

sustain this moving forward. And I feel like our 

presentation is going to hopefully inspire and give 

some ways that you all in your own communities can 

kind of tangle with this issue and do so in a way 

that’s participatory and with an eye on sustaining. 

Next slide. 

 So, even though there’s a narrative around the Latinx 

population as a sleeping giant, meaning such a 

growing population, and when will they wake up? Well, 

we really didn’t want to use that, that format of, or 

that rhetoric that they’re sleeping. I mean, there’s 

a lot of problems with that metaphor anyway, but 

instead we chose a community cultural wealth 

framework that’s really highlighting what is already 

happening in the community, within families through 

generations. And you can see just a touch of Tara 

Yosso’s theoretical framework that we created, this 

program, the programs that we’re going to be 

presenting, and also our research approach of looking 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

32

at things through an asset based rather than a 

deficit based framework. Next slide. 

 Okay, so I mentioned we’re going to talk about two, 

give an overview of two programs, funding the 

research of two programs. And one is Cultivating 

Leadership, Cultivando Liderazgo. And as you can see, 

I won’t read every line on this slide, but studying 

the efficacy of this approach is what brought us into 

connection with AmeriCorps. And obviously the idea of 

this first point of bringing the principles of 

democracy and understanding civic engagement and how 

people can participate, this was really the 

intersection of the grant funded research, and then 

the curriculum that was being delivered. And these 

are photos from folks that were participating in our 

various programs over these last years. Alright, 

let’s see, next slide, please. 

 And I wanted to point out about the curriculum. Now 

this is a very fast overview. And so, if you want 

copies of our reports and other resources, we are 

more than happy, and even some publications that are 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

33

out there and in the works, we are very more than 

happy to share this with anybody, and we’ll put some 

more contact information. But, the curriculum was 

created, even before this Cultivando Liderazgo truly 

got off the ground, by Anna Orthon and Arcela NuñezAlvarez. And they worked with the standards of the 

California Department of Education on civics. And 

very importantly they created a curriculum that 

really connected what the government and all these 

social institutions are, but to our community members 

lives. And this is what the basis of what the classes 

were. And as the last point below shares, that we 

also grounded the curriculum within the human rights 

principles. Okay, next slide. 

 Okay, so how did we measure this? And those of you, 

if you’re in the audience maybe you’ve probably done 

these surveys, if you were part of the team at one 

point or another. We did create a very, very long 

survey. And it’s really important to acknowledge the 

fact that the National Latino Research Center really 

did quite intensive training on culturally sensitive 

and linguistically appropriate research assistants, 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

34

and of course the staff being bilingual, to be able 

to conduct these surveys one on one in more of an 

interview conversational format, even though they 

were quite long. 

 And we did draw on questions from elements of the 

census and other standard questions around civic 

engagement where we measured attitudes, knowledge, 

and behavior, and also we wanted to also see the kind 

of content being learned of the Cultivando Liderazgo 

curriculum. So we did three points of contact as the 

student enrolled in the class, you know, before it 

started, after about ten weeks, and then a year 

later. And this also took quite the effort, and also 

generous funding, to make sure that students were in 

class, that the interviews were followed up on, and 

we had – I’m forgetting off the top of my head, but 

we had quite an amazing completion rate, even all 

three time periods. Next slide. 

 Thank you. And this is just indicating that there 

were just over 300 surveys started and the time 

period. And I just saw a chat bubble pop-up that 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

35

Andrea, our grant officer, noted. At the time doing 

all of our reporting every year, a pretty phenomenal 

completion rate up to T2 and T3. Next slide. 

 Okay. So, for this first larger delivery of the 

curriculum in the Liderazgo program, we just provide 

here a snapshot of our participant’s demographics. I 

also wanted to share that the National Latino 

Research Center, led by Dr. Nunez-Alvarez, delivered 

stakeholder and presentations based on what you see 

in the age group. The elders, millenials, and 

actually women to share just specific drilldowns from 

our project and from the results. So again, all of 

these are available. We can share them and 

collaborate in the future, for sure. Next slide. 

 Okay. So, if you can remember what Andrea showed at 

the beginning of the presentation in terms of 

volunteering and volunteering and voting. I feel like 

the beauty and the power of these projects really 

showed that the students in Cultivando Liderazgo are 

indeed civically engaged. And so the question doesn’t 

become, how do we ignite – Well, how we could ignite 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

36

more, that’s a good question. But the question really 

becomes is how do organizations and other 

stakeholders in our regions tap into and support and 

amplify and elevate community members who are ready 

to go? So, and of course the curriculum and the 

organizing that was done to enhance the students, and 

when I say students it’s a multi-generational group 

of community members that came together, how do we 

make this get to the next level? Next slide. 

 Okay. And then something that was pretty fun for us 

to see is the learning that actually happened because 

there was, you know, civics, facts, and dates, and 

basic civics 101 type of class that was delivered in 

a culturally relevant, linguistically sensitive way, 

and in a participatory way. And we saw the results of 

this group, and remember it was about 300, that there 

was gains across all of the measures. And there was 

an overall 10% gain in the civic knowledge. But if 

you can really look at what was the baseline. I mean, 

the baseline was already pretty high, if you think of 

your own civics education and how much you’ve 

retained it, and so we were able to retain and 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

37

increase this already very meaningful level of civics 

knowledge. 

 Some differences, though. We did deliver Cultivando 

Liderazgo in different parts of our county. And so 

the rural areas had slightly less gains, whether the 

participants had access to or used technology, and 

the knowledge of English resulted in some 

differences. But as I mentioned, everybody showed 

progress. So it was really an amazing program and 

curriculum that was delivered. Next slide. 

 Okay, so I’m about to pass it over to Valentina, who 

is going to highlight some of the, briefly, some of 

the findings of what happened when we took this first 

three years of delivery and the elders who were 

participating, and some of them who were 

participating in Cultivando Liderazgo, really we 

could see there was specialized needs to create a 

class specifically for elders. Valentina, are you 

ready? 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

38

VALENTINA: Yes. So, as Dr. Marisol said, Cultivando 

Liderazgo really did teach us a lot about students 

and civic engagement, but it also demonstrated that 

need for particular targeted attention to Latino 

immigrant elders. So, if we could go to the next 

slide. 

 So, Cultivando Sabiduría’s purpose is to first and 

foremost honor elder’s experiences and create a 

learning environment that centered wellness, 

community leadership, and civic engagement. The 

program saw a total of 300 students between the years 

of 2017 and 2020, right when the pandemic hit, and 

even after I believe there was an attempt to follow 

up between the program staff toward Cultivando 

Sabiduría students, to just do those checkups and see 

how the students were doing during the pandemic. 

 So, if we go to the next slide we can see a snapshot 

of the students that were involved in this program. 

So the majority of the participants were female, 

however there was a significant male participation, 

we see 19.2%. And the majority of the students were 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

39

between the ages of 55 to 65 years old, with most of 

them reporting as independent or needing very little 

to no help with daily needs and activities. Next 

slide. 

DR. CLARK-IBÁÑEZ: If you could stay on this, go back 

just one. We also wanted to share something that was 

really important, you’ll see it in the next couple 

slides, how important it was to have the bilingual 

and strong Spanish speaking staffing, students. And 

also to point out that the students in Sabiduria were 

not, they didn’t have higher levels of formal 

learning, and most had around an elementary level 

education in their own home country. One thing I want 

to also point out is that we do have a presentation 

that’s specifically about literacy and literacy 

classes, and other material developed, so if anybody 

here wants more information about that we can also 

share that. Next slide. 

 Thank you. So, the courses, the classes that were 

held every Thursday morning, technically 9 to 11, but 

as folks will, folks here in San Marcos were involved 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

40

in the project know that the students would start to 

arrive at around 8 and wouldn’t leave often until 

noon. And you can see some of the courses that the 

students themselves asked for. And also, because this 

is based in a popular education approach, that they 

themselves also started teaching in these areas and 

leading, and having the shared collaborative approach 

to these courses. Next slide. 

 Great. And these are photos from those Thursday 

mornings from technology, from crafts, and from the 

couple of the literacy classes. And like I said, we 

developed some of the deliverables from this grant 

funded work that are guides and overviews and videos 

that can definitely make this all come alive much 

more. Next slide. 

 Well, we wanted to wrap up because I know we were 

asked to talk a little bit about the adults or 

elders. We wanted to wrap up one of the more 

significant and meaningful findings of delivering, 

yes, civic engagement type of program, but the fact 

is that the students and the elders in the class 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

41

really it was a common refrain to feel like I’m going 

to my class, I’m going to school. And we saw how 

important it was to feel like I’m finally kind of 

getting to become the student that because of life 

and work, and all sorts of other challenges in life 

they were navigating, they found this place, and this 

really echoes I think what the Houston group talked 

about is having an inclusive space and place for this 

to occur, and how much literacy is connected with 

civic participation. So next slide, please. And 

Valentina? 

VALENTINA: Yeah. So, elders participating in this program 

were not only presented with culturally validating 

and relevant curriculum, but they also left with 

feelings of accomplishment, community, and purpose. 

So as we can see in this quote from Dona Alicia, one 

of our students, she said that she wants to be a good 

example for her children and her grandchildren, and 

they should never give up. So this impact goes beyond 

the individual elder and on through the next 

generation. So that was really, really cool to see. 

And if we go to the next slide, we have another 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

42

student Dona Carmen who says that at 79 years old 

she’s able to achieve the goals that she sets out for 

herself. And she’s learning and helping her 

community. So this just goes to the further, to the 

impact that this program has, not just on the 

individual, but the community as a whole, which is 

really the model of Cultivando Sabiduría. Next slide. 

 So, we developed this guide with Dr. Marisol, and 

these resources and links can all be shared with you 

all. But we developed this guide to provide details 

of the program that we created to ignite and validate 

the civic engagement activities of low-income Spanish 

speaking Latino elders. This guide also describes the 

curriculum in detail and provides recommendations for 

broad implementation based on analysis of both the 

qualitative and the quantitative data. And as was 

mentioned, there was also a really big push on 

literacy. So we have the Community Resource Book as a 

culturally informed approach for teaching Spanish 

literacy to Spanish speaking Latino adults ages 50 

and older who have no to low formal levels of 

education. So these two resources were created and 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

43

made accessible to all so that others interested in 

implementing similar programs and approaches would be 

able to take what we have learned and bring it into 

their space. Next slide, please. 

DR. CLARK-IBÁÑEZ: Okay. And to wrap up, like we said, 

the home where you can find many of these resources 

is at the National Latino Research Center at Cal 

State San Marcos. There is a publication in a journal 

that really focuses on Cultivando Liderazgo in much 

more detail. And let’s see, I’m going to, as soon as 

we’re done here, I’m going to upload this whole 

presentation in a PDF and you all can cut and paste 

here. And we actually also have a publication that’s 

under review, a scholarly publication about Sabiduría 

as well, and that should – You know, we’ve turned in 

our revise and resubmits, and please keep in touch in 

terms of what other type of work you’d like to do, or 

how this could maybe help each of you in your own 

kind of seeking to connect and work with your Latinx 

population in your own region. Next slide, the last 

slide. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

44

 Great. So, one of the things I want to also just put 

a plug in for is that ETHA and NLRC have Dr. Konane 

Martinez, the Faculty Director, and her contact 

information there because the NLRC provides technical 

support, coaching, assessment, and evaluation, and is 

an amazing resource in order to help colleagues, help 

community, participatory research, and other 

methodologies. So please feel free to reach out to 

Dr. Martinez and myself as well, and some other 

members of the team who have been commenting in the 

chat. Any one of us would be happy to collaborate and 

discuss future directions. Thank you so much. I 

appreciate everybody’s attention and engagement with 

our presentation. Thank you. 

ANDREA: Thank you so much. So I have a number of 

names. Thank you Amy, Suzanne, Katherine, Denise, 

Rebecca, Marisol, Valentina, and I know Michelle is 

having difficulty. So before we go to Q&A, I am just 

going to have Victor García from Immigrant Rising and 

Angelica Razo from Mi Familia Vota to just say a few 

words in terms of what you heard or any other piece 

of information you’d like to bring in. Victor? 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

45

VICTOR: Sure, thank you Andrea. So, first of all, 

thank you so much to the teams in Houston and in San 

Diego for the amazing research that you’re each 

leading in your respective areas. I think that there 

is a lot that we sort of were able to sort of glean 

from the research that you provided and help us think 

about how it is that we implement our programs, 

whether we are funders, whether we are program 

designers, implementers, and such. 

 There was a question or an idea that surfaced both 

from Amy and from Marisol, which I think is good for 

us to pause on, which is around the sustainability of 

programs. And sort of what that prompted me to think 

about was how is it that we really conceptualize 

about sustainability overall, right? I think so many 

times our initial sort of take is on the cost of the 

programs that we implement, that we fund, and such. 

And I think it’s important for us to think of it in 

two sort of complementary ways. There certainly is, 

you know, how it is that the programs are funded, how 

folks are incentivized to participate, and such. I 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

46

think we heard that from each of the teams and from 

the short video that was presented. But there are 

also cost efficient ways in which we can sustain the 

work in our respective programs, right, whether it is 

how we look at engaging youth leadership on our 

boards, on our councils that develops our programs, 

how it is that we build in specific ways for youth 

engagement, and for the engagement of folks in 

general in our programs. 

 The other is the sort of sustainability of civic 

engagement overall by participants in our programs, 

right. I think the sort of long term vision that we 

all have for the work that we do is that folks, 

whether they’re young when they participate in our 

programs or whether they are seniors that we really 

think about where will they be even after they 

participate in our programs. What will be the long 

term sustainable impact of the programs that they 

engage in? So, whether that is thinking of them as 

the future professionals who will implement programs 

like these or whether it is about our elders who will 

go back into the community and to their families and 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

47

go share about the benefits of being civically 

engaged in their communities. 

 And so, I would love for the presenters to be able to 

chime in about that distinction if they see it as 

well, and to hear from others who might have 

questions if they align with that sort of 

understanding of sustainability too. 

ANGELICA: Thank you, Victor. Hi, everyone. My name is 

Angelica Razo. I’m the Texas State Director for Mi 

Familia Vota and we’ve partnered with Dr. Pritzker 

and her team at the University of Houston Graduate 

College of Social Work. When this program got started 

I was a youth organizer, so I was working very 

closely with some of the youth leaders that are now 

part of the research project and others. And to me it 

was just so exciting that everything that we were 

seeing on the ground, stories we were hearing from 

our youth, the feedback they we were giving us, that 

we would have an opportunity to validate this through 

our research. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

48

 And so, I would say like taking a step back away from 

how we’ve been able to implement these findings, why 

civic engagement is so important to us as an 

organization and us as a community is that civic 

engagement is a tool that we have to develop leaders 

across all sectors. I loved what Victor was saying 

about where are these folks going to go in the 

future, where will they end up? 

 And the way we have seen our young people develop 

because of civic engagement, because they’re helping 

as project management, because they’re leading civic 

clubs at their school, and they’re delegating tasks, 

and they’re managing projects, and they’re learning 

their personal narrative to share that and inspire 

others, that’s their college essay, that’s their 

scholarship essay, that’s their interviewing skills 

that they have, that’s the media spokespersons that 

we have, the future academics we have because now we 

have young people that are part of a research team. 

 And so for us it’s just, it’s the long term vision 

that we have. Our mission as Mi Familia Vota is 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

49

social and economic prosperity and justice for our 

community. And we see that as a tool to be able to 

prosper as a community. Yes, we are an organization 

that is deeply devoted to turning out Latinos and 

voter registration, and helping people with 

citizenship workshops, but the end game is truly 

justice, prosperity for our community, and that’s why 

these programs are so important for us. 

 In terms of some of the takeaways that we had, as I 

was hearing Dr. Pritzker name those components I just 

was able to name – I was also able to see how they’re 

showing up in their program. I think the youth-led 

spaces is just super important. Young people need to 

see their peers leading these spaces and being 

active, that’s how they inspire each other. The peer 

to peer empowerment is so crucial. And we as an 

organization, there is a tiny place where we need to 

step back and allow young people to really step into 

these spaces, and take charge, and have agency in 

that. Providing the safe spaces is also something 

that’s really important. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

50

 When I was a youth organizer I would hear in the 

classrooms as we were doing voter registration people 

saying, ‘You’re never going to vote. Latinos don’t 

vote. We don’t care.’ And so battling that narrative 

and really providing a space where people can say, 

I’m not really sure what civic engagement is, I’m not 

really sure what the requirements to register to 

vote, I’m not really sure what advocacy is, but I 

want to learn because I care about my community is 

just so powerful. And so that’s why this research has 

been very impactful for us because we’re able to see 

from evidence, like how is it that we as an 

organization can take these findings and incorporate 

them into our programming knowing that they’re coming 

from hundreds of students that have said this is how 

civic engagement can become more accessible to me? 

 More accessible, more creative, more fun, more 

lively. And so for us as an organization we are 

committed to doing that, not just in Texas where I’m 

based out of, but across all of our different, our 

states because we just see the change and we see the 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

51

long term end game. So thank you so much for allowing 

us to be a partner in this. 

ANDREA: Thank you so much. I love the fact that you’re 

bringing in evidence with practice and how we bring 

those together, and that is a challenge, and very 

important, and I know it’s something that we think 

about every day, and I would like for us to be able 

to talk a little bit more about that. So we’re going 

to move into the Q&A. If you have specific questions 

please either type them in there to me, Andrea 

Robles, or just to everyone, and we’ll have the team 

come on. Let’s see what other things do I need to 

tell you. And when you’re typing in a question, if 

you want it to go to everyone just make sure that 

you’re hitting it to everyone. 

 So thank you all for such a wonderful and engaging 

conversation, and for all your work. And I know that 

this takes a community, not just all of you, but all 

your team members that have been part of this. Arcela 

who was very much part of the work in San Marcos 

talked about sustainability and how important this 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

52

was in terms of the community. I think everybody 

could read her comment here, but talking about how 

sustainability is largely contingent on compromise, 

comunitarios. That it’s not tied to funding or 

incentives, it’s about being in touch, being able to 

touch people’s lives in meaningful ways. 

 And I know all of you have been talking about voice 

in some way. So youth voice, senior voice, right, 

something that’s meaningful, culturally appropriate, 

these safe spaces. So, I guess I have a couple 

questions to start off. Let’s see, so if you had to 

right now, I mean, we have our AmeriCorps programs 

and we have our AmeriCorps seniors programs, and it’s 

engaging all age groups, but mainly we have a lot of 

people who are between 18 and 26, and then people 

over 55, and mostly our grantees are nonprofits. So 

from yourself as a researcher or from the work that 

you have done, how would you talk about, I mean just 

a little bit more in terms of this issue around the 

safe space and voice, what would you recommend to our 

grantees or our programs who are trying to do that 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

53

work right now and really engage that? And so I’ll 

turn it first to Suzanne and then to Marisol. 

DR. PRITZKER: Thank you for that question. I’m actually 

going to pass it along. Katherine, would you like to 

talk a little bit about sort of what we’ve learned 

and about safe spaces, and what that could look like 

for organizations? 

KATHERINE: Yes. So, from the student’s speaking on the 

focus groups, we talked about how especially in 

schools it would be really useful to have these 

actual physical safe spaces, but as well as, they do 

want to see like the freedom for them to guide them 

themselves, but also these organizations come in and 

help out with resources, and tutorials, and how to do 

different things, and get involved. So yeah, I think 

close connection. I mean, from that just keeping up 

with them was also very important. Yeah, I don’t know 

if somebody wants to jump in. I don’t know if I’m 

answering it all. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

54

DR. PRITZKER: Katherine, I think the one thing that I 

would add is I think something that really came 

through across our focus groups is the sort of larger 

fears, whether youth themselves are immigrants, 

whether their family members, whether extended family 

members, the larger community that the level of fear 

that came into thinking about civic engagement was 

evident across our focus groups whether they were in 

Houston, whether they were in Denver, whether they 

were in these Spanish language focus groups, English 

language focus groups, you know, consistently that 

came across too. So I think there’s both safe spaces 

that in terms of what Katherine was describing, but 

also places to really talk through what does it mean 

to engage with those fears about my own safety, my 

family’s safety, my community’s safety? What are my 

rights? And to be able to kind of break those down 

and have those conversations too is something that I 

think came through a lot in our work that would be 

helpful. 

ANDREA: Thank you. Marisol? 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

55

DR. CLARK-IBÁÑEZ: Sure. And I just saw, I think Ruben 

put something in the chat just now, because I guess I 

interpreted, Andrea, your question as how can the 

AmeriCorps programs engage all this great work that’s 

happening? And really immigration status is a 

barrier, right. If immigration status is contingent 

upon being a volunteer or getting a stipend, you 

know, if you have a significant population who are 

undocumented then you really have to find which 

programs would engage and appropriately compensate 

and nurture that relationship. So I feel like just 

thinking through what some of the issues could be and 

that takes a larger conversation, but I think it’s a 

really important conversation to bring up at the 

national level, at the federal level in terms of the 

parameters that these programs have around them. 

 But I also wanted to share that Andrea and her team 

were amazing to try to connect us with state and 

local programs. And I think Andrea, you and I were 

reflecting it’s like, oh my gosh, it never quite 

worked out because the smaller nonprofit approach 

needed more support to be able to host some type of 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

56

AmeriCorps programming. We weren’t ready, but there 

wasn’t a lot of funding on our end to try to get it 

ready. And then also I know we have some folks who 

are in city government that maybe this is, that is 

the perfect way to go is connecting with city 

government into nonprofits and campuses to connect 

that civic, the local and the state level programs. 

 And so, I think it would be very exciting to see the 

type of AmeriCorps programs, whether it’s for the 

grandparents, for the elders, or multigenerational or 

college students flow through our city governments. 

And then they’re the ones who know all of the movers 

and shakers and organizations that we can then tap 

into, because if it’s just the state to us littler 

entities, it was really hard to do. And I know it 

could have been great opportunities, but we just 

couldn’t make it happen. Yeah, I think if that’s 

where that question was going. Thank you. 

ANDREA: Thank you for all your comments. So here’s a 

question from Arcela. And I have a few people who to 

want to partner with all of you. But a question, as 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

57

researchers, and that’s to all of you, how do you 

cultivate and nurture relationships of trust and 

reciprocity with the community members you are 

studying? Now I think all of you used more 

participatory approaches, that might be something 

that people who are listening might know of or might 

not, so can you tell us, again, from your different 

perspectives? And then for Angelica, and Amy, and 

Victor who have seen the work that you’ve been doing, 

what is it that drew you to these groups and that you 

trusted with the population that you’re working with? 

So let’s start with Suzanne and your team. 

DR. PRITZKER: Sure. So I think kind of part of what you 

were just saying that I think designing this work, 

one, in partnership with Mi Familia Vota, we worked 

with Angie and other folks at Mi Familia Vota from 

the start on this project and really thinking about 

what did they want to know, what did we know, how do 

we work together on that? We had actually previously 

worked together in multiple capacities. But then I 

think designing this study intentionally as a 

participatory research study so it wasn’t university 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

58

researchers going in and doing this work, but really 

designing youth research teams, really building 

relationships with youth who then, like Katherine, 

like Alexis, who were then themselves conducting 

focus groups, engaging recruiting. 

 So really the entire sort of engaging with youth was 

being led by youth. We worked with Katherine and 

others on the research team to train to really build 

those skills, to build relationships, and I’m 

actually going to ask Denise to talk a little more 

about this. So that it was peer to peer, it was 

community-based relationships that really helped make 

this research happen. One of the things I really 

enjoyed about this project was actually going back 

and just reading through transcripts and seeing the 

ways in which our youth leaders were really able to 

just encourage and support really meaningful 

conversations because they were trusted members of 

the community with whom they were engaging in this 

research. Denise, do you want to add anything? 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

59

DENISE: I agree that the participation in the program 

with Mi Familia Vota was key to my relationship with 

the youth and just being a support to them. It was 

maybe them, the ones who were recruiting who were 

asking the questions. That made it a lot easier for 

the youth to just open up and talk about the issues. 

I just tried to stay as much in the background as I 

could and just come in just as a support to the youth 

experts who were the ones who actually do a lot of 

the work. 

ANDREA: Thank you. Marisol, your team? 

DR. CLARK-IBÁÑEZ: Yeah, I’ll just be real brief here, 

because I know you’re asking other participants on 

the panel to also chime in. But I think the basis of 

community and participatory research really speaks to 

what Suzanne mentioned in having researchers who are 

from the region who have a long term commitment. And 

I think one of the things, working with the NLRC over 

the years was, what I saw as a powerful approach, 

you’re not always able to do it, but whether there 

was research funding or not, the community work 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

60

continued, and the prolonged engagement and sustained 

engagement of working with schools, school districts, 

presentations, and that type of work continues 

whether there’s a grant that pops up, and then all of 

a sudden you go back into the community. 

 And it’s not always possible, and just to be frank, 

you can’t always do community participatory methods 

for every project, but for sure the work that we 

presented has it. And I wanted to give a shout-out to 

the Office of Research and Evaluation of AmeriCorps 

because they fostered and sponsored a grant 

initiative for community conversations which we, at 

the NLRC we were able to do oral histories, photo 

elicitation interviews, and working with community on 

what those questions might be. And we also have that 

report to share if you wanted to see an example of 

what we did. And it was very meaningful for 

participants and researchers and team members alike. 

So, yeah, I’ll stop there and let others also chime 

in. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

61

ANDREA: And we’re still talking about these issues 

around trust and how you communicate with people. So 

Victor, what is it that you saw? And Angelica and 

Amy, I think if you’re still there, what’s the 

beauty? What do you see in the work that these groups 

are doing? 

VICTOR: Sure, I’ll just share really quickly 

anecdotally the very first time that I became aware 

of Marisol’s research and the research of her center 

was actually at a conference with a very similar 

format to this where the folks that were accompanying 

Marisol were student action researchers, and that for 

me was like an immediate sort of way to recognize 

that this is an organization that really is living 

their mission. The research is about the Latinx 

community and the Latinx youth community was there 

presenting on their original research. And I think 

when we see those kinds of examples I think it really 

speaks to not only sort of the commitment to the 

work, but folks living the vision of what they intend 

to do. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

62

 And so we through the Catalyst Fund partnered with 

campuses across California, we have for the last 

three and a half years. And in each of those places 

that is the constant. We look for, in our case, 

colleges and universities where students are helping 

to inform what it is that they want to see on their 

campus, whether they’re working with a president, or 

a vice president, or a dean, really we see the 

mission of that institution coming alive by students 

saying, well, this is the way in which these things 

are not really playing out on our campus, yet it’s 

part of our campus’ sort of vision for change. 

 And so that I think is really the constant that we 

want to see. I see that as well with, even though I 

have not met the folks from the Houston, I can also 

tell that is the approach that they’re taking. And I 

think that whether one is a funder or one is looking 

to sort of partner around expanding opportunity for 

students for elders or for others, that we really 

look at what is it that makes that vision or that 

vision of the organization come alive. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

63

ANDREA: Thank you. Angelica? 

ANGELICA: Yeah, I would say for me, definitely the 

foundation was trust, and I had known Dr. Pritzker in 

other spaces, and that was really important to me 

that somebody that I already knew, trusted in the 

civic engagement space from the academic world was 

coming to us. Yes, it was a no-brainer. We want to 

partner with you. And then I think the other thing is 

like the mutual understanding. We operate on 

different timelines. Nonprofits are already at 

capacity. Like for our youth leadership development 

program it’s really important that we’re providing 

opportunities to students, not just asking them of 

time. And so the idea to have youth leaders as part 

of the research team was, I think that was like the 

cherry on top. 

 And I think that was really beautiful. And for us as 

an organization it allowed us to take a step back 

from my time and some of our other folks’ time, and 

really let the young people be the main point of the 

research, and drive those conversations, and be 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

64

active there. And so that’s why I thought that yes, 

this is a great partnership. Timelines are going to 

change, things are going to come up, and I was okay 

with that because the partnership fit. 

ANDREA: Thank you. Alright, so I’m looking at the 

time, we have six minutes, and of course I want to 

talk to you for a lot longer. But the point though 

for the audience is people have been putting up 

resources, we have our website, the transcript, and 

the webinar will be available in just a couple of 

weeks. So if you for some reason cannot get to those 

links, you’ll have those. And this is an important 

topic and it’s an important priority for the new 

administration in terms of really engaging diverse 

populations. As Amy pointed out, Latinos are a large 

percentage of the population. 

 So I just want to ask you briefly, I just want to 

give each of you an opportunity to say something, 

even something that surprised you when you were doing 

the work, or something you heard from someone else, 

and I’ll just go in order, and just anything that 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

65

struck you. So Amy, I’m not sure if you’re on. I’ll 

start with you. 

AMY: Yeah. I just want to end by really celebrating all 

the work that’s been highlighted today, and the 

passion and compassion that everyone has as part of 

all of these teams to really be able to meet 

communities where they’re at. So we talked about 

trust, we talked about how to actually build some of 

these authentic relationships, and that really is 

what’s cemented in my mind today, and want to make 

sure that we make space to continue to propagate 

these effects across the nation. 

ANDREA: Thank you. Suzanne, how about your team, you 

and your team? 

DR. PRITZKER: Sure, I’ll jump in first. So it’s 

actually, maybe the observation I want to make is not 

just specifically about today, but actually in 

working with Katherine, both as a Youth Expert and 

other members from the Youth Expert team, but 

circling back and preparing for this presentation. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

66

Katherine, who was part of our research team starting 

four years ago, I just read a reference letter for a 

doctoral program, and just seeing the ways in which 

being involved in doing this participatory research 

where we bring youth in and really emphasize youth 

voice in the ways seeing that Katherine is going to 

be a future leader, a future researcher building off 

the kind of work we’re talking about today is really 

I think something, as we think about youth leadership 

and youth voice, really kind of piggybacking on what 

Angie brought up earlier just that this is laying the 

roots for developing future leaders in so many 

spaces. And I think that just brought it full circle 

for me. 

ANDREA: That’s an outcome for us. Katherine, so you’re 

next. 

KATHERINE: Thank you, Dr. Pritzker. Yeah, I think ever 

since I’ve been coming back to look at all the data 

and all the findings that we found, it’s nice, 

because even when we running through it, like new 

things kept coming up, like there’s so much 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

67

information here and it was nice because it has been 

four years, and it was nice to like remember, and 

look at the transcript that I got, like whenever 

Denise and, the whole team kind of gave me a 

transcript to do for the focus groups, and just 

remembering all that I learned back then, and all I’m 

that learning now with the findings. And there’s just 

a lot of information that is really nice to see and 

be a part of ever since like four years ago. And it 

feels good being part of this team. 

ANDREA: Thank you. And I guess you’re an example of 

sustainability, right, you’re still with it. Denise? 

DENISE: Yeah. I just want to echo what they said. 

Seeing the youth grow throughout the program was an 

amazing experience. And also the youth really wanted 

to talk about the issues once they were really in a 

safe space, they were very open to talk about not 

only why they participated, but the barriers and the 

fears, and like Dr. Pritzker mentioned before, fear 

was a very key factor throughout each focus group of, 

‘I don’t participate because I’m fearful of X, Y, and 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

68

Z.’ And it was very interesting to hear. And like I 

said, it was great to just – Giving them the space to 

talk and hearing that they, as long as we give them 

the space they will have those discussions, and they 

are wanting to be leaders, basically. Yeah, thank 

you. 

ANDREA: Thank you. Rebecca? 

REBECCA: I want to speak from the perspective as a 

Latina graduate assistant who came into this research 

and onto this team a little bit later, after the 

focus groups happened. It was just, you know, being 

really grounded in this research and having myself 

lived through some of these experiences, and those 

fears that Denise and the other youth have been 

talking about. Seeing teams, like the ones present 

today, are just really awesome and really inspiring, 

and I’m glad to hear about it, and to keep on 

contributing to that. 

ANDREA: Thank you. Marisol? 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

69

DR. CLARK-IBÁÑEZ: Yeah, just briefly to echo what our 

Houston team is talking about is the actual 

development of the folks who were sort of on the 

backstage, and delivering has been very promising. 

The engine that not only the NLRC provided, but also 

through Universidad Popular that really branched out 

to the census, hard to count, it branched off to 

other redistricting issues. It just had an amazing 

ripple effect. But what your original question, like 

something stuck out, and the note that I had is 

around the Houston team’s education and high school, 

like how can high schools help? 

 And I just wanted to share at the National Latino 

Research Center Cal State San Marcos there was a 

concerted effort to bring the civics 101 through a 

Chicano studies lens into the high schools, and to 

teach it as either a free class or some type of way 

to get at students in their classes, whether it was 

alternative high schools, non-traditional high 

schools, or regular high schools, and also the role 

in supporting high school mecha. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

70

 And so I just wanted to throw that out as ways that 

high schools may or may not have the capability to do 

it, but you from the outside may have the resources, 

skills, and passion to bring it to them, and then 

that’s where the collaboration can hit. So that’s 

what struck me from the original presentation. And 

Valentina? 

ANDREA: Yeah, Valentina? 

VALENTINA: Yeah. So it’s been honestly really cool to see 

the different perspectives, both us working with an 

older population in Houston and with younger. Like 

Rebecca, I did come in later, so I was part of going 

through the reports, not so much being in the 

classroom. But what stood out to me throughout my 

time on the project and just reflecting here now is 

the importance of community. How it wasn’t just about 

civic engagement, it’s about making people feel 

heard, having a space where people can come to. Being 

like yeah, there’s this person that I know and I’m 

going to go to them. And that network that really, 

like it breeds, not breeds, but it creates people 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

71

wanting to be civically engaged, but it also builds 

stronger community ties. And that was something that 

really stood out to me and was really beautiful as I 

was going through all the videos, and the pictures, 

and just seeing. I think there’s a picture on a slide 

too where we have, or in our guide book where there’s 

a younger kid, I think he’s like seven with an elder, 

right, working together and learning, just how it is 

intergenerational and really rooted in community. 

ANDREA: Thank you. And finally Victor and Angelica. 

VICTOR: Thank you, Andrea. I know we’re out of time so 

I’ll make this brief. I just want to commend everyone 

and thank you, Andrea for creating this space. I 

think while a lot of these themes and these topics 

are evergreen, I think it’s so important for us to 

have this conversation across states at a national 

level to really build on our collective knowledge, 

and to be able to create new tactics and 

opportunities for folks to engage. So thank you for 

creating this space. 
ICF Transcription 

Webinar Recording Latinx and Civic Engagement

72

ANDREA: Thank you. And Angelica, where are you? Maybe 

she had to drop. Well, I know there were 23 more 

messages that I didn’t get to. So, we will make sure 

to download that. And if you have any specific 

questions, again, you can send it in, or there’s 

evaluation@cns, there it is, evaluation@cns.gov. If 

you want to go ahead and just submit any other 

questions or if you want some contacts, please feel 

free to do so. And you also have Suzanne and 

Marisol’s contact right there. But I want to thank 

you all for all your wonderful work. And Arcela 

Nunez, thank you so much for you and all the work you 

have done. Yes, this will be available. So hopefully 

we’ll do it again. Bye. 

 

END OF FILE