Two teams headed by CLS affiliate faculty have secured significant grants for applied research from the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment.
One team led by Clinical Professor of Law Erin Barbato, will help to create a Center for DREAMers, administered through the Law School. The Center will serve the approximately 11,000 people considered “DREAMers” in Wisconsin. It will work with organizations to coordinate the provision of specialized legal representation, mental and social services, and career and educational counseling to ease the burden of some of the uncertainty experienced by undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children.
Another team led by Marla Ramírez and Almita Miranda, will advance a university/community research partnership titled “Retrofitting Latinxs into the Wisconsin Historical Narrative.” The three main goals of the project are to: 1) increase primary sources on Latinxs in Wisconsin in the state archives; 2) train students and community members to conduct oral histories; and 3) make these histories widely accessible to students, researchers, and the general public. The projects will contribute primary sources to the Wisconsin Historical Society through video and audio recorded oral history interviews, transcriptions, and cultural artifacts that capture the diversity of Latinx communities, collaborating with students, staff, and faculty at UW-Madison, at other campuses, and community partners throughout the state. To disseminate the collected primary sources, the project will partner with K-12 educators to implement Latinx histories in their curricula. The project is part of a statewide initiative known as the Wisconsin Latinx History Collective.
“We’re excited to see our faculty moving forward with these projects,” said Director Armando Ibarra. “It’s great to see faculty with similar interests find each other through our Program and work together on projects that matter both to the academy and to the broader community.”