Janet Martinez
Lupe Renteria Salome
The presentation includes a discussion about the use of community data in the report “Indigenous Migrants in Los Angeles County” and considerations for institutions interested in partnering with community-based Indigenous migrant-led and serving organizations. Through community-engaged research, Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo (CIELO), an Indigenous women-led organization, and the University of Southern California Equity Research Institute (ERI) spent months working closely together to understand the data better and shape the research findings as partners. In relation to the Day 2 theme, Governance of Data, we emphasize that one of the main ways to build and sustain trust as an external partner is by respecting indigenous community processes and supporting indigenous-led organizations to develop their own data collection protocols. Due to the virtual lack of detailed U.S. Census Bureau data on Indigenous migrant communities, the report relied on community surveys collected by CIELO responses as the primary data source. Although not as aligned with traditional data gathering practices, the surveys yield rich data on Indigenous migrant communities that are not captured in any other administrative datasets and are unlikely to have come from more formalized survey methods. By designing in-person surveys administered by trusted community messengers in Indigenous languages, CIELO’s staff were able to gather data on their communities in ways that larger governmental survey and polling efforts have not. CIELO staff understood the need to collect information on their communities in ways that built community trust and were culturally appropriate. We hope participants learn from an active partnership with research centers.