PROYECTOS ACTUALES

East Lake Oral History Research

The goal of this project is to record the history of Latino businesses on East Lake Street. We aim to determine the specific factors that caused East Lake Street to transform from being a center of violence and drug trafficking to a more vibrant multicultural area with many thriving businesses. In 1995, a New York Times story called Minneapolis “Murderapolis” after a record 97 murders that year, and the center of this crime was around Lake Street in South Minneapolis. Mercado Central was the first business to come into the area in 1999 and began its transformation. After that, many more Latino businesses opened on Lake Street, as well as businesses of other nationalities and ethnicities. Although this area still faces many problems today, it has undergone many positive changes since the influx of these businesses into the area, including greatly reduced crime and poverty. We aim to study the process of this transformation and understand how and why it occurred. This will serve to both give a voice to Latinos/as, who have been and still are not often included in discussions of history in Minnesota, as well as provide historical evidence of the successful transformation of a community.

Austin Area Minority Business Project

Since 2017, HACER has worked with Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM), Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and other local organizations to promote Economic Development in Austin. HACER is evaluating the project exploring 40 indicators that help the us to gather information from the businesses in the area. When completed, this collaborative project will strengthen the Austin community.

ABCD in Rural Minnesota

ABCD in Rural Minnesota works with the Latino community of St. James, MN to identify their existing but under-utilized assets and incentivize healthy physical activities. With this project, HACER aims to understand why the Latino community of rural Minnesota is the least physically active in the region, and how to incentivize them to design healthy physical activities. The project will include an qualitative questionnaire and three Design Thinking workshops. After the Design thinking sessions, participants will present their initiatives to city officials.

Learning by Doing

This innovative qualitative research project seeks to reduce obesity and diet-related diseases in rural Latino communities. The project seeks to improve dietary habits among Latino individuals in rural Minnesota by understanding the grocery shopping process of Latino families. The findings from in-depth interviews and behavioral observation research are the inputs to design Learning-by-Doing workshops.

Creando Ando

Creando Ando aims to understand the Latino behavior when starting a business. The project also aims to build personal confidence and entrepreneurship mindset among the Latino community of Rochester through Design Thinking. The project will focus on Latinos and will foster the creation of new Latino business in the city. The project will directly work with 16 Latinos and will include a survey, three design thinking workshops, one business presentation and ten hours of one-on-one business coaching.

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COVID-19: ¿Qué HACER en estos momentos, y después?

As new information and research are consistently arising regarding the coronavirus, we are working directly with the Minnesota Department of Health in order to better inform Latino/a leaders as well as the Latino/a community about COVID-19. Through this project, we will be assessing the needs of the Latino communities in the Twin Cities Metro and greater Minnesota through polls and video focus groups. We will then be disseminating the information collected with Latino community partners and organizations working with the Latino community.

Census 2020

Latinos/as, have historically been significantly undercounted in the Census. This causes their communities to not receive the resources and representation that they need and deserve, which feeds into a vicious cycle of poverty and underrepresentation, making it even harder for them to be counted. Research has shown that Latinos/as are more likely to respond to the census if they hear about its importance from a Latino/Hispanic community organization. At HACER, we are working to serve as a trusted source of census information and assistance in order to elevate the voices of Latino communities. The past few months, HACER has been working hard to inform Latinos/as about the census and have been able to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. We’ve become well known in the Twin Cities area for this work on the census and have received several requests to participate in interviews and give more information on the topic. We have many connections in the area with organizations who can collaborate with us on census outreach. Our staff is highly knowledgeable about the census and is able to give census information and assistance in both English and Spanish.