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Latine Artists of Minnesota

2022, Arts and Culture /

HACER conducted three focus groups and 10 in-depth interviews with Latine artists and arts professionals to gain insights into the barriers, motivations, and goals of artists around Minnesota. Participants ranged in ages, backgrounds, geographies, genders, and practices. They were recruited through social media, contact with community leaders, contact with arts organizations, and through a snowball method of recruitment that relies upon referrals from colleagues and peers of the initial participants.

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Latino Renters in Minnesota

2021, Economic Development and Entrepreneurship /

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized housing stability as a critical social determinant of health. The quality, safety, affordability, and location of homes directly impact individual and family well-being. An equitable approach to housing stabilization and recovery measures is needed to address the persisting financial hardships and housing insecurity of Latines in Minneapolis. Recommendations include 1) education on renters’ rights to go beyond improved landlord-renter relationships; 2) continued investment in culturally responsive organizations to provide homebuyer education and counseling; 3) promotion of alternative models of homeownership; and 4) new outreach approaches to disseminate information on housing programs.

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Safe Route to Healthy Foods: Findings Report

2021, Public Health /

In 2014, Dr. Jerry Shannon and Asian Media Access collaborated on a study that looked at the relationship between food purchasing and transit, which was the first study of its kind. The findings were:
• Most low-income, urban communities have a net “outflow” of SNAP benefits, most often to suburban areas.
• Supermarkets and wholesale retailers play the largest role in providing food for SNAP clients, but stores in low-income neighborhoods are often seen negatively.
• Ethnic retailers were also often used by study participants for specific food items, but seldom as a primary food source.
Asian Medica Access and Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research have built on the previous report and designed a new project to further help define patters on food access among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and its relationship to the transportation, as well as different shopping behaviors influences by diverse cultures.

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Creando Ando 2020

2020, Economic Development and Entrepreneurship /

Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) designed and applied this Creando Ando Program in Rochester to increase self-confidence and foster an entrepreneurial mindset among the Latino community of Rochester.

For the development of the project, we designed three workshops utilizing the Design Thinking model, which refers to the cognitive, strategic and practical processes by which design concepts are developed. Due to COVID- 19, all workshops were conducted via zoom.

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Impact of COVID-19 on Latino-Owned Firms in Minnesota

2020, Public Health /

The COVID-19 pandemic has had sweeping economic repercussions. Evidence shows it has had disparate effects on both minority populations and people of color. To measure the economic impact of the pandemic on Latino-owned businesses in Minnesota, Hispanic Advocacy and
Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) and the University of Minnesota’s Extension Center for Community Vitality conducted both a qualitative and quantitative survey
to better understand how Latino owned businesses have fared since
he pandemic’s onset.

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Leaders of Tomorrow 2019

2019, Education and Youth /

The Leaders of Tomorrow is a leadership camp for Latino teens from the age of 13 to 17. The goal of this 4-day program is to empower
students to become leaders in their
communities. The camp takes place at Macalester College and includes speakers, workshops, and activities to develop leadership qualities and advocacy skills.
In 2019, HACER held two Leaders of Tomorrow camps, each four days long. The first camp had 16 participants and the second camp had 10 participants.

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Talking it Through

2019, Education and Youth /

In the fall of 2019, Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) put on
a program called Talking it Through, which was aimed at creating a dialogue between police officers and
Latino/a youth. HACER was motivated to create this program to address the hostility between the police and
people of color and the profiling and discrimination from police officers that affect nonwhite people. Since we
are a Latino organization, we chose to focus this project on Latino and Latina youth. The project involved two workshops: One informative session in which the youth participants could learn from police officers, lawyers, psychologists, and other community workers about their rights when interacting with the police and the services and resources that are available to them; as well as one interactive session in which the youth and police officers could talk about their perceptions and experiences in a safe environment. The outreach for this project was
difficult, as getting youth, especially those who have had problems with the police, to attend a workshop and
speak with police officers, is not easy. However, the youth, police officers, and other who attended all came
away with new and valuable knowledge. HACER learned a lot about how to conduct a program such as this and is now looking to replicate and improve on the program.

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Learning-By-Doing

2019, Public Health /

Many Latinos, especially more recent immigrants, benefit from a healthier lifestyle in their country of origin. There they ate more natural, less processed foods and had more physical activity in their daily lives.
However, as these immigrants adapt to the mainstream U.S. culture, they often adopt a less healthy diet
and a more sedentary lifestyle. Additionally, the language barrier many Latinos face can limit their access to the healthcare system because they have a limited ability to communicate their needs clearly with their doctors and other healthcare providers. To address these challenges and improve the health of Latinos, Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) developed a pilot research and outreach project with the Latino community of St. James, MN, called Learning by Doing. This project involved in-depth interviews with nine Latinos residents of St. James and then two interactive nutrition workshops conducted in Spanish. The project was highly successful, and the results have encouraged HACER to expand the program to other Latino communities.

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