The Center for Latina/os and American Politics Research is an initiative aiming to create and share knowledge on how Latinx communities participate in and influence national politics.
Rodney Hero founded CLAPR and it's now supervised by Francisco Pedraza, associate professor at ASU's School of Politics & Global Studies. CLAPR's research projects are student led and catered not only to other academics and students, but also the communities being researched.
Pedraza said CLAPR is unique in its findings not because of its content, but because it focuses on providing its knowledge through initiatives, sharing relevant and accessible information with local Latinx communities.
He said other faculty and administration have been helpful with the initiative, as ASU is uniquely positioned to support its "ambitious vision" and "hungry students."
One of the ways CLAPR has been able to organize and share its research with a larger audience has been through their Community Pulse on Public Policy, founded by Nathalya Galvez, ASU alumna and a CLAPR founder.
"Community Pulse is not just about understanding policy, it’s about making sure our communities' lived experiences, concerns and insights shape the dialogue," Galvez said. "It’s about honoring the people behind the data."
Erika Landa, a senior studying political science, serves as CPPP's lead research analyst.
CLAPR student leaders have had first-hand experiences with the issues addressed by the initiative such as changes in federal aid policies, which has impacted Latinx participation in higher education, Landa said.
"It just makes me upset because there are so many insights that people from our community can provide in academic spaces," Landa said. "But their voices are being taken away due to these financial burdens, and I don't think that's really fair."
Most recently, CPPP organized a webinar to address heat vulnerability in Arizona. The webinar consisted of a discussion between CLAPR members, city of Tempe officials and climate experts to discuss how local communities have been and continue to be affected by rising summer temperatures in Arizona.
CLAPR has additionally created the Construyendo Puentes program, an initiative designed to facilitate the access to research otherwise hindered by language barriers.
READ MORE: Construyendo Puentes builds bridges through translating research
By offering translated versions of their research, Construyendo Puentes allows Spanish speakers to access research on their own communities to better understand the issues that affect them.
"A lot of the works that are produced by the students at CLAPR, they're based on a lot of their ideas and the directions that they want to go in," Landa said.
When addressing the importance of CLAPR on a broader scale, Pedraza said understanding the ways in which Latinos participate in, and influence politics on a local scale is key to providing a well-rounded comprehension of American democracy.
"All of these public policy issues and debates," Pedraza said. "I think can't be adequately understood without Latinos getting adequate consideration."
Edited by Andi Ruiz, Emilio Alvarado, Grace Lawrence and Sophia Keeling.
Reach the reporters at lnatiell@asu.edu.
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Leticia Natiello is a politics reporter at The State Press. She is a second-year journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. This is her first semester with The State Press.
