Understanding Latinx Civic Engagement in a New Immigrant Gateway

Abstract

The U.S. South has experienced rapid Latinx growth; yet, little is known about how Latinx residents are civically integrating into new communities. This article explores whether, where, and why Latinx in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, are civically engaged. Participants in a Latino Civic Engagement Project conducted 382 surveys with fellow Latinx residents in a county with Latinx growth rates over 1,800% from 1990 to 2014. Among respondents, 58.5% had volunteered in the past year and 47.0% were members of a faith-based or charitable organization. Household income, educational attainment, and English proficiency were most strongly correlated with civic engagement (r = .456, r = .453, and r = .464, respectively). The main reason for engagement was the betterment of the Latinx community. Main barriers were lack of information (37.1%), limited time (17.2%), disinterest (7.8%), and documentation status (4.3%). Findings can shape conversations about Latinx engagement in ways that include, but go beyond, voting and political representation.

Keywords

new Latino destinations political engagement civic behaviors immigrants U.S. South

As of 2001, Latinx¹ are the largest minority group in the United States. Although not reflected in the electorate, they exceed African Americans and Asian Americans in population. By 2050, the National Center for Education Statistics posits that there will be more school-aged Latinx children in U.S. schools than non-Hispanic Whites. Despite increasing numbers, there is still a significant lack of engagement in civic and political activities compared with the overall population and also in relation to other racial/ethnic minority groups (Marcelo, Lopez, & Kirby, 2007). Race, ethnicity, citizenship status, income, and educational attainment all predict civic engagement. Holding other factors constant, being a member of a racial/ethnic minority, not being a native-born U.S. citizen, having a low income, and not having a 4-year postsecondary degree, each reduces the likelihood of civic engagement (Foster-Bey, 2008). Gender also plays a role, with women being 50% more likely to take on formal volunteering than men (Foster-Bey, 2008). Being Latinx reduces the odds of formal volunteering by 24% relative to non-Latinx (Foster-Bey, 2008).

To explain this, studies on Latinx civic engagement point toward the various challenges the Latinx face in the United States. Foster-Bey (2008) explains that “what often appear to be racial and ethnic disparities are actually reflections of class and income differences. For some ethnic groups economic disadvantage is further confounded by differences in citizenship and immigration status” (p. 1). Indeed, barriers to political and civic engagement include lower citizenship rates (60%) among Latinx, as well as a lack of inclusion that this group may feel among the Caucasian mainstream (Bedolla, 2012).

Given that Latin American immigrant groups have the lowest naturalization rates, and immigrants participate in electoral politics at lower rates than their native-born counterparts (Marrow, 2005), it is important to take into consideration actions beyond voting when measuring civic engagement of these groups. For instance, in a Chicago study, 45% of Latinx respondents belonged to at least one community group, with the majority being religious (Ready, Knight, & Chang-Chun, 2006). Involvement in an organization influences one’s sense of belonging and place in his or her community; therefore, one is more likely to help his or her community, becoming politically aware and active in the process. Furthermore, congregation activity beyond religious service attendance has a substantial positive effect on involvement in charitable and bridging types of civic organizations (Beyerlein & Hipp, 2006).

The extent to which demographic variables influence civic engagement may vary in different geographic Latinx communities. Price and colleagues (2011) demonstrated this in a study about Latinx civic engagement in three neighborhoods in three different cities: Little Havana, Miami; Pilson, Chicago; and Garfield, Phoenix. For Garfield and Pilsen, U.S. citizenship, homeownership, U.S. birth, some degree of English fluency, and higher socioeconomic status (SES) were most significantly and consistently associated with measures of neighborhood civic engagement. However, in Little Havana, SES was not as statistically significant in association with neighborhood civic engagement than in the other two neighborhoods. The authors suggest this is due to the relatively weaker and scattered institutional infrastructure in Little Havana.

This study builds on this research by acknowledging the barriers to civic engagement that Latinx face and recognizing that civic engagement goes beyond political participation (we measured a broader range of civic actions than other studies). Indeed, “expanding our interpretation of immigrants’ political incorporation to encompass all the ways that immigrants try to express their interests or exert their power helps capture the range of ways immigrants engage in U.S. political and civic life” (Marrow, 2005, p. 788). This study also fills a gap by covering Latinx civic engagement in a new immigrant gateway with rapid Latinx growth. Most previous research focuses on well-established gateways such as New York City, Chicago, and Miami, with a long history and more robust infrastructure of incorporating immigrants and Latinx into the sociocultural and political systems. In places that do not have this history, that infrastructure needed to be built. With Latinx growth rates outpacing the capacity of government and nongovernmental institutions to respond, new destinations tend to be lagging in fully including their Latinx residents.

As Mecklenburg County’s population doubled between 1990 and 2014 (from half a million to a million residents), the number of Latinx increased from around 6,700 to 132,000 (American Community Survey [ACS], 2017). Moving from Latin America (particularly Mexico) and other parts of the United States, Latinx were drawn to Charlotte-Mecklenburg to support the booming financial sector, often working in construction and the service industry. Other “pulls” included a low cost of living and a favorable climate. Initially “invisible” on the Charlotte landscape, Latinx gained visibility by starting businesses and families. Latinx were not only here to work, they were “here to stay” (Smith & Winders, 2008). Latinx children are now the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in local public schools. Still, Latinx are lagging in their institutional visibility. As Winders (2012) argues, an overlooked factor to immigrant incorporation is “how cities see, or do not see, immigrants within the structure of local government. If immigrants are not institutionally visible to governmental or nongovernmental organizations, immigrant abilities to make claims to or on the city as urban residents are diminished” (p. 58). Using ethnographic data from Nashville, Tennessee (also a newer Latinx destination in the U.S. South), she found very limited immigrant and Latinx presence in government and nongovernmental institutions, “driven by the way that the city engaged its neighborhoods and their governance and the way that local government parceled out immigrant issues across Metro departments” (p. 63).

This article examines this matter by investigating whether, where, and how Latinx are civically engaged in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The objective is to better understand current Latinx civic engagement in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Our specific research questions were as follows:

Research Question 1: Where are Latinx engaging civically in Charlotte-Mecklenburg?

Research Question 2: What are the demographics of those who are engaged?

Research Question 3: What motivates Latinx to engage civically?

Research Question 4: What are the barriers to engagement?

Currently, limited data exist on Latinx civic engagement in new immigrant destinations. This study addresses this gap and helps advance the conversation on how to enhance Latinx engagement. We hypothesized finding correlations between civic engagement and demographic variables akin to what other studies have identified and encountering many barriers to engagement because of the nontraditional destination context.

Method

From August 2017 to May 2018, Wendy Mateo-Pascual, cofounder of Camino Community Center, facilitated a new Latino Civic Engagement Project (LCEP) for Spanish-speaking Mecklenburg County residents. Camino Community Center is a comprehensive human services and empowerment organization providing an integrated service delivery model that focuses on promoting health and wellness, fostering hope, and facilitating economic opportunity primarily for the growing immigrant and low-income families in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. Camino served as the host for LCEP. LCEP enrolled 35 Latinx (divided into two cohorts) in biweekly 6-hour sessions to develop their leadership and civic engagement capacity. The program featured presentations from and interactions with local law enforcement, city and county governments, advocacy groups, the school board, and the court system. Participants developed their leadership skills and learned about local and U.S. history and political systems (Schuch, Mateo-Pascual, & Vasquez-Huot, 2019).

In addition to engaging in the sessions, participants were asked to conduct civic engagement surveys with their fellow Latinx community members. These surveys were conducted in person, outside of LCEP meetings, and during the time frame of the project. Each participant was asked to obtain at least 20 surveys, for instance, from neighbors, friends, clients, and colleagues. The one-page survey asked several demographic questions and whether respondents had engaged in a list of civic engagement activities in the past 12 months. This civic engagement index was created for this study and informed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (n.d.) civic engagement instrument and a social capital, civic engagement, and political participation study (Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). Respondents were also asked two open-ended questions about their motivation for and barriers to civic engagement. A verbal consent script, both of which were approved by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Institutional Review Board, accompanied the survey.

Survey data were entered into Excel spreadsheets. Quantifiable data were summarized and analyzed using SPSS (descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis). Respondents’ residences were mapped using their zip codes using ArcGIS (Geographic Information Systems). Responses to the open-ended questions were coded thematically and the occurrence of the themes was counted. Survey data are supplemented with observations and insights from our collective 22 years working with Latinx communities in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

Respondent Demographics

LCEP participants collected a total of 382 surveys with Latinx residents to better understand current Latinx civic engagement in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Table 1 compares survey respondents with the overall Latinx population in the county to illustrate the extent to which the survey sample was representative of the broader population. In terms of occupations, the largest percent worked in business and management (11.3% of respondents), followed by “homemakers” (“ama de casa”; 8.6%), construction (6.8%), education (6.3%), and health care (4.5%). The “other” category included waitress, paralegal, cashier, cable installer, and painter, and well as general responses such as “empleado/a” (employed) and missing responses (18.1%). Community survey respondents lived across the county, with concentrations that were largely reflective of the overall Latinx distribution.

Table 1.

Survey Respondent and Overall County Demographics.

Characteristic	Survey respondents (%)	Mecklenburg County Latinx^a (%)
Gender
Male	28.3	51.1
Female	51.8	48.9
Missing	19.9
Age (years)
Below 18	1.0	36.4
18-34	32.2	27.3
35-54	46.9	28.0
Above 54	14.4	8.3
Missing	5.5
Countries of origin^b
Mexico	33.3	40.0
Colombia	12.0	4.5
United States	9.1	—
El Salvador	7.6	10.3
Honduras	6.8	11.3
Puerto Rico	5.2	8.3
Peru	4.5	2.8
Ecuador	4.5	3.0
Educational attainment^c
Primary/less than high school	7.9	38.5
Secondary/high school or equivalent	30.9	24.6
College/bachelor’s or higher	50.6	17.9
Graduate	10.6	—
English proficiency^d
None	8.5	—
Basic	23.3	—
Conversational	18.6	—
Advanced	13.4	—
Fluent	36.2	—
Household income^b (US$)
0-20,000	25.1	12.5
20,001-40,000	33.8	31.5
40,001-60,000	14.9	19.6
60,001-80,000/74,999	8.6	11.1
>80,000/>75,000	6.5	25.4
Missing	11.0
Time in the United States (years)
Range	0.17-73	—
Average	18.8	—
Time in Charlotte (years)
Range	0.08-73	—
Average	12.1	—

Mecklenburg County statistics are from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2013-2017 estimates (ACS, 2017).

Venezuela, Cuba, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, Spain, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina were also represented at fewer than 4%.

The survey used the first term and the U.S. Census uses the second term(s).

About 9.3% of households are Spanish speaking. About one third of these households (32.4%) are considered limited English-speaking households. Among U.S.-born Latinx, 89.3% speak English fluently or very well. Among foreign-born Latinx, 30.5% speak English fluently or very well.

Results

This section answers the main questions outlined in the introduction.

Research Question 1: Where Are Latinx Engaging Civically in Charlotte-Mecklenburg?

Among community survey respondents, the highest levels of civic engagement in the past 12 months were volunteering (58.5% of the 382 respondents) and being a member of a faith-based or charitable organization (47.0%; Figure 1). As mentioned in the literature review, this reflects nation trends of Latinx engagement. More than one in three looked up information about a political candidate, signed a petition, attended a community meeting, or was a member of a neighborhood or school-based association. About one in four voted in local elections, collected money for a social cause, participated in a demonstration, or attended a local government meeting. These are higher percentages than previous studies have identified—possibly due to the sampling method of having engaged community members’ reach out to their network. Lowest engagement behaviors were writing a letter to a newspaper (8.1% had done this in the past 12 months) and contacting a local or state representative (13.9%). Almost 37% voted during the national elections, indicating that at least 37% of the sample was U.S. citizens; 2016 Census data suggest that, among the 86,709 Latinx in Mecklenburg County who are 18 years or older, 43.6% can vote (meaning they are U.S. born, or foreign born and a naturalized U.S. citizen). Results support that immigrants are more engaged at the community than the political level (Jensen, 2008).

Figure 1.

Percentage of affirmative responses of various civic engagement behaviors addressed in the community survey.

Research Question 2: What Are the Demographics of Those Who Are Engaged?

Between demographic factors and the 14 civic engagement behaviors, there were only three moderate correlations statistically significant at the .01 level. These were household income and national election voting (r = .408), time in the United States and voting (r = .409 for national and r = .406 for local), and level of English and looking up information about a political candidate (r = .437). In other words, respondents with a higher education level were more likely than those with a lower education level to vote. Respondents who had been in the United States for longer periods of time were more likely to vote than those who had been here shorter. This is likely because longer term and higher educated immigrants are more likely to be U.S. citizens, a prerequisite for voting. In addition, respondents with a higher English proficiency were more likely to look up information about a political candidate than those with lower English proficiency. This is probably because almost all local political information is only in English. Using Pearson’s correlation, household income, educational attainment, and English proficiency were most strongly correlated with overall higher civic engagement (r = .456, r = .453, and r = .464, respectively). This corresponds with previous research. In addition, a Poisson regression was run to identify predictors of civic engagement in survey respondents. In this analysis, age (p = .001), level of English (p = .000), and household income (p = .022) were determined to be predictors of increased civic engagement behaviors. Among the civic engagement behaviors, attending a neighborhood, community or local government meeting (B11 and B12) were most strongly correlated with overall higher civic engagement (index of all B1-14 combined).

Respondents’ gender, time in the United States, and time in Charlotte showed no or only weak correlations with overall civic engagement behavior. This contrasts with prior research that women are more likely to volunteer than men (Foster-Bey, 2008), that Latina women are more connected with community organizations than Latino men (Jones-Correa, 1998), that Latino men are more involved than Latina women (Wilkin, Katz, & Ball-Rokeach, 2009), and traditional assimilation theory that immigrants become more integrated into their sociopolitical community as they spend more time in the United States (Marrow, 2005). That said, from working in the community, we recognize and observe that Latina women and Latino men have different roles in the family and broader community, and that there are variations in civic engagement by generation, because women and men, and first-generation and second-generation immigrants are connected to different networks (Jones-Correa, 1998; Wilkin et al., 2009). In Charlotte, we see that women are participating more because they typically have more availability. We also see that the longer people are in Charlotte, the more they participate.

Research Question 3: What Motivates Latinx to Be Civically Engaged?

Among survey respondents who provided motivations for their civic engagement, more than one fourth (26.9%) reported that helping the Latinx community was their primary reason. This matches one of the cultural themes of engagement (“welfare of immigrant and cultural communities”) identified in a study with 80 immigrants from India and El Salvador in the D.C. area (Jensen, 2008). However, in contrast to the motivator of assisting those from the same country of origin, we found a strong sense of solidarity among Latinos as an ethnic group rather than separate countries of origin. We hypothesize this is because, as a newer immigrant destination, Latinx are uniting more than in established gateways with larger numbers of Latinx nationalities. This suggests a stronger sense of ethnic or cultural community will encourage residents to be more involved. Other survey respondents reported being motivated by social justice and better representation (16.1%), their family (7.9%), and to inform themselves of what is happening in the community. Motivations of helping the Latinx community and promoting social justice are a direct result of exclusion and discrimination felt by Latinx. This contrasts former research that feelings of belonging are positive correlated with civic engagement. For Latinx in Charlotte, the sense of not always being welcomed motivates people to promote a more inclusive society for their fellow Latinx and their families. In addition, a sizable portion (14.0%) mentioned not liking or being interested in politics. We suspect reasons for this are, at times, similar to the general U.S. population, but that they are also tied to engagement barriers faced by Latinx.

Research Question 4: What Are Barriers to Engagement?

When asked what would help them become (more) engaged, survey respondents wrote that the lack of information was the main barrier (37.1%), followed by a lack of time (17.2%), not enough interest (7.8%), and documentation status (4.3%). Remaining responses included having interest in a particular topic, better leadership and coordination to become and stay engaged, and child care at rallies. There were also several respondents who specifically mentioned they are already involved and plan on continue being involved.

In part, these barriers overlap with Jensen’s (2008) three cultural themes of disengagement (working hard leaves no time/energy for civic engagement, ethnic exclusion, not having citizenship) and Osterling’s (2001) barriers to school engagement (illiteracy, poverty, and competing family and job responsibilities). As in Wilkin et al. (2009), “[t]he low-income, new immigrant nature of this sample means that many respondents are constrained by their time-consuming struggles to access resources that they need for their families” (p. 394). What is new and interesting about our findings, however, is that the lack of information was much more frequently mentioned as a barrier to civic engagement than lack of time or citizenship. This suggests that, although time and U.S. citizenship matter in Latinx civic engagement, the main reason people may not be engaged is because they do not know how. Consequently, providing information on, for instance, how and where to make your voice heard when it comes to decisions about your neighborhood or school can increase engagement.

Discussion

According to our results, more than half of Latinx are civically engaged in their communities, even in an emerging immigrant destination context, and Latinx residents are engaged in a variety of ways. This is in line with findings from a traditional gateway, where “new immigrants in the urban context of Los Angeles—Latinx largely from Mexico and Central America—are developing critical features of civic engagement. They do this despite their relatively low socioeconomic status and, for many, linguistic isolation” (Wilkin et al., 2009, p. 402). Predicting demographic variables are also similar to what others have found. As such, Latinx civic engagement patterns and predictors appear to be similar in traditional and nontraditional urban destinations. We also find that Latinx’ motivations for involvement, as well as the barriers, are intrinsically linked to their underrepresentation in U.S. society and politics, which is particularly stark in newer Latinx settlements.

The Latinx Vote

“Every 30 seconds, a Latino turns 18 and becomes eligible to vote. That’s about 66,000 every month, or 800,000 every year,” Fernandez Campbell (2015) reported. At the same time,

[y]oung Latinos, between 18 and 29 years old, reported being too busy or unavailable as the main reason for not voting in the 2012 elections . . . A large number of those surveyed said they didn’t cast a ballot because they felt it wouldn’t make a difference. During the 2014 midterm elections, only 8 percent of voters were Latino. (Campbell, 2015)

In Mecklenburg County, the Latinx population is very young and 36.4% are below 18 years (ACS, 2017). This means that both nationally and locally, there is a great opportunity to register Latinx voters and encourage voting particularly among younger Latinx. That said, working in the community, we also hear noncitizen Latinx residents lament that citizen Latinx take their rights for granted and are less engaged in the community because they do not see the same issues affecting them anymore. The relationship between U.S. citizenship and civic engagement may, therefore, be more complex than research suggests. Rather than becoming more engaged when Latinx become citizens, the barriers and motivations for engaging—and, therefore, their engagement—shifts, for instance, from fighting for immigrant rights to voting.

Beyond Voting

As established, civic engagement goes beyond voting. This means non-U.S. citizens can also get involved and U.S. citizens can partake in ways in addition to voting. In terms of political integration, “[n]on-electoral politics is especially crucial to immigrants’ political mobilization since, as a group, they are disproportionately excluded from electoral politics by U.S. naturalization laws and face an additional ‘cost’ to voting compared with natives” (Marrow, 2005, p. 788). Latinx civic engagement can be promoted by encouraging activities that people are already more inclined to do (such as volunteering or being a member of a faith-based organization) or reaching people at local organizations they are already connected with to offer information about how to further engage.

We must also consider the outcomes of this engagement and that Latinx civic and political participation may not necessarily lead to Latinx representation. Although our findings suggest Latinx residents are engaged, the number of local Latinx political and civic leaders is scarce. In education, for instance, studies show that Latinx representation on school boards results in increased support for bilingual education programs, attention to the needs of immigrant students, hiring of Latinx administrators and teachers, and Latinx parent participation (Fraga & Frost, 2010; Leal & Hess, 2000; Neiman, Reyes, Fraga, & Krimm, 2010; Shah, 2009). In Charlotte, however, 24.1% of students are Latinx (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, 2017) but only 3% teachers (Glenn, 2016), and there is no Latinx representation on the local Board of Education. As a result of this—and by restricting access for individuals without a U.S. ID—schools struggle to engage Latinx parents, even though we repeatedly hear from Latinx residents how important their child’s education is to them.

That said, increased Latinx representation does not happen overnight; it needs to be nurtured. Given barriers to board participation (such as low educational attainments and English proficiency), other options such as participation in Parent–Teacher Associations (PTAs), becoming a school parent helper, and attending school events should be encouraged. Given the high numbers of Latinx students in schools and the importance Latinx parents place on their children’s education, schools have great potential for stimulating two-generational civic engagement. For instance, the introduction of civics-oriented curriculum led to an increase in participation not only among Latinx students but also among their parents (McDevitt & Kiousis, 2006). Such school-based efforts are likely to have significant positive ripple effects on political and civic engagement within and around Latinx communities across the broader community.

Breaking Down Barriers

Because civic engagement is correlated with income and education, promoting broader advancement of Latinx will enhance their overall SES and capacity to sociopolitically engage. Beyond these factors, Price and colleagues (2011) assert that “full cultural citizenship” is ultimately what will spur higher Latinx civic and place engagement. Latinx cultural citizenship

names a range of social practices which, taken together, claim and establish a distinct social space for Latinx in this country. Latinx social space is evolving and developing new forms, many of them contributing to an emergent Latinx consciousness and social and political development. (Flores & Benmayor, 1997, p. 1)

Latinx need to have opportunities to (co-)create social spaces and to feel like they belong in the United States and that their social, cultural, and political contributions are valued.

Political and Bureaucratic Incorporation

As Marrow (2005) discussed, immigrant electoral participation is shaped not only by individual immigrant characteristics, such as educational attainment and income, but also by structure, institutional, and contextual factors. The same can be said for broader civic participation. Akin to what Marrow (2009) documented in rural North Carolina and Winders’ (2012) study of Nashville, Tennessee, we observe that immigrant bureaucratic incorporation is preceding immigrant political incorporation, contrary to traditional political incorporation theories. In Charlotte, as in other new destinations, there is very limited immigrant and Latinx presence in government and nongovernmental institutions, and politicians are often not attuned to Latinx issues. Bureaucratic institutions such as public schools, medical services, social services, law enforcement, and the court system are generally more proactive at being inclusive toward immigrants. However, among these institutions, their level of inclusiveness varies based on whether they have a more service-oriented versus regulatory-oriented mission (Jones-Correa, 2005; Marrow, 2009). That said, political and bureaucratic incorporation cannot be seen as separate because government policies create inclusive or restrictive conditions that, respectively, enhance bureaucrats service or regulatory roles (Marrow, 2009). The structures and policies of local institutions influence Latinx engagement, oftentimes restricting rather than welcoming participation. Although some governmental and nongovernmental entities are working hard to engage Latinx residents, we find that the mixed landscape of welcoming and hostile is confusing for Latinx residents to navigate because they do not know where they stand with different institutions.

Study Limitations

The survey employed in this study was administered by community members who occasionally accepted incomplete surveys. We have confidence in the data that were collected, but greater oversight might have reduced the missing data. That said, the survey approach we employed was unique and helped us reach a hard to study population. It would have been beneficial to have data on U.S. citizenship, but we did not ask this because of the sensitivity around documentation status. In addition, male responses were underrepresented and future efforts should intentionally seek out to balance gender representation. That said, having LCEP participants conduct the surveys is a strength of our study because it helped build capacity among participants, and participants were able to access Latinx community members in ways that researchers, non-Latinx, and “outsiders” cannot always do.

Future Research

Future research could compare Latinx civic engagement in different neighborhoods because there are place-based differences—including the physical layout of the homes and built environment, local history, place personality, social functionalities, and demographic dynamics—that influence neighborhood civic and place engagement (Price et al., 2011). There is also potential to expand this study to examine to what extent Latinx civic engagement is occurring predominantly within Latinx organizations versus if their engagement is with(in) non-Latinx residents and institutions. In addition, additional studies can investigate which civic engagement behaviors produce which social capital, human capital, or financial gains among Latinx residents, and how best to promote Latinx representation, not only participation.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported, in part, by a grant from the United Way of Central Carolinas.

Notes

Author Biographies

J. Claire Schuch obtained her PhD in geography and urban regional analysis and works as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She employs participatory, action, and qualitative approaches to research immigration, Latinx inclusion, community health, and urban disparities. She cofounded the Receptivity, Integration, and Settlement In New Gateways (RISING) research group, and collaborates with local partners, including the Mecklenburg County Health Department, the Levine Museum of the New South, and the Latin American Coalition. An immigrant to the United States herself, she has resided in England, the Netherlands, Singapore, Chile, and Minnesota, prior to arriving in North Carolina.

Ligia M. Vasquez-Huot is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the Department of Public Health Sciences. As a Guatemalan American immigrant herself, she has focused on advocating for Latinx while living in Mecklenburg County. Her research interests include Latinx health, child physical activity, and active play.

Wendy Mateo-Pascual is originally from the Dominican Republic and has resided in the Charlotte region since 2003. She received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and social communication from the Autonomy University of Santo Domingo and a postgraduate degree in community development from Pontifical Catholic University. She is currently pursuing her master’s in public administration at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research interests include immigrant political participation and immigrants’ access to physical and mental health services. She is the cofounder of Camino Community Center in Charlotte and El Puente Hispano in Concord, North Carolina. Her community work and leadership has been widely recognized in Charlotte, earning awards for being among the 50 most influential women in 2019, the Mayor’s international community Global Leader of 2017, and a City of Charlotte proclamation of Wendy Mateo-Pascual Day in 2017.

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