This article draws on ethnographic observations and interviews with Mexican community activists in California's Central Valley. Community leaders include an exemplary activist in Winters, in Yolo County, a middle-aged single mother, and a young Mixtec activist, the co-founder of a Mixtec intergenerational program, Se'e'Savi. Based on this evidence, several conclusions are presented regarding the ways in which civic competencies develop naturally in the course of growing up and migrating. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for designing programs meant to nurture immigrant civic engagement.

This presentation reports the results of a study conducted for the Corporation for National and Community Service measuring change in life skills of youth volunteers, pre and post participation in an AmeriCorps volunteer program, in comparison with a control group who may have volunteered but did not participate in a structured program for volunteering such as AmeriCorps.

This article compares and contrasts two rural immigrant communities (Woodburn, OR and Arvin, CA) along the Pacific Seaboard which are the destinations for Mexico-US migrants traveling to work in the U.S. farm labor market. The article goes on to discuss theoretical implications for understanding migration networks and dynamics, particularly the importance of recognizing that, typically, multiple Mexican migration networks converge in U.S. destinations rather than there being one-to-one correspondences between sending/receiving communities. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for development of "bonding" vs. "bridging" social and civic capital.

This presentation summarizes findings from is one of six community case studies from the 2001-2006 conducted as part of the New Pluralism study of immigrant settlement in rural U.S. communities. It draws on ethnographic observations, oral histories, and a community survey, describing the ways in which this town, which became famous due to Walter Goldschmidt's classic post-WWII study of land-use patterns and community life, As You Sow, So Shall you Reap, has changed over the past 60 years. The full 110 pp. monograph is available on request.

This monograph from the New Pluralism study of immigrant settlement in rural U.S. communities provides an in-depth account of the ways in which immigration has transformed Woodburn, Oregon over the past half century. The monograph draws on oral histories, ethnographic observations, and community survey data to provide insights about the "micro dynamics" of social and civic interactions in an increasingly diverse community. The monograph includes a discussion of the factors that led Woodburn city government and schools to develop innovative and effective approaches to immigrant integration.

This is a detailed study of the dynamics of immigrant civic participation among immigrants in California's Central Valley. It includes a discussion of the context of civic life in communities with concentrated settlement of disenfranchised immigrants and explores the genesis of civic activism and community leadership via oral histories of a range of extraordinary "grassroots" community activists.

This presentation utilizes a framework for visualizing the skills needed for successful entrepreneurship and interviews with entrepreneurs in Oregon and California as part of the New Pluralism study to analyze Mexican immigrants' experiences as small entrepreneurs. It describes the crucial role immigrant entrepreneurs play in revitalizing the economic life of rural communities and discusses implications for designing effective rural community development programs.

Conducted as the first step in a program of organizational capacity-building, this presentation to leaders of binational activists, leaders of Michoacan's hometown associations and federations reviews issues to be addressed in strengthening these organizations' roles in civic life in US communities with concentrations of Mexican immigrants and presents a vision of the potential roles they can play in advancing immigrant well-being and catalyzing immigrant civic engagement in the U.S.

This site has the resources developed in the course of an action-research project funded by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The site includes reports on research findings regarding Latino immigrant entrepreneurship in Iowa and North Carolina, profiles of successful Latino immigrant entrepreneurs, and an extensive entrepreneurship curriculum. The 20 modules in the Nuevo Empresarios Latinos curriculum (with versions in both Spanish and English) are aimed at providing practical lessons for self-directed learning--to encourage youth who are considering their career options to think about how to become entrepreneurs, for aspiring immigrant workers who want to set up their own small business, and for existing small business entrepreneurs who want to grow their business and put it on a more stable footing.