Community‐Based Applied Research With Latino Immigrant Families: Informing Practice and Research According to Ethical and Social Justice Principles

• Author: JOSÉ RUBÉN PARRA‐CARDONA,ANA BAUMANN,MELANIE DOMENECH RODRÍGUEZ
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2011.01351.x
• Published date: 01 June 2011
• Date: 01 June 2011

Community-Based Applied Research With Latino

Immigrant Families: Informing Practice and

Research According to Ethical and Social Justice

Principles

ANA BAUMANN,PH.D.

n

MELANIE DOMENECH RODRIŁGUEZ, PH.D.w

JOSE

ŁRUBE

ŁN PARRA-CARDONA, PH.D.z

All abstracts are available in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese on Wiley Online Library (http://

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/famp). Please pass this information on to your international

colleagues and students.

This manuscript describes the implementation of two community-based programs of

research with Latino immigrant populations exposed to intense contextual challenges.

We provide background on our program of research and specif‌ic implementation of an

evidence-based parenting intervention. We also describe how our research efforts were

seriously affected by immigration-related events such as the ICE raids in Utah and a

history of discrimination and exclusion affecting Latino immigrants in Michigan.

These external political and social challenges have affected the very core principles of

our efforts to implement community-based approaches. The current manuscript de-

scribes key lessons that we have learned in this process. Finally, ref‌lections for research,

practice, and social policy are included.

Keywords: Latino Immigrants; Research Ethics; Community-Based Research

Fam Proc 50:132–148, 2011

INTRODUCTION

The present-day United States is predominantly populated by descendants of im-

migrants. In Census estimates for the 2005–2009 years, 74.5% of the population was

White American. What has changed, dramatically quickly, is the ethnic distribution of

the immigrants arriving in this country (Census Bureau, 2010). In the 1970s, 75% of

foreign-born persons in the United States were of European origin (Grieco, 2010). In

2007, Europeans made up 13.1% of immigrants whereas Latinos (53.6%) and Asians

(26.8%) comprised the bulk of foreign-born persons (Grieco, 2010). These rapidly

Family Process, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2011 rFPI, Inc.

132

PROCESS

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Melanie Domenech Rodrı

´guez,

Department of Psychology, Utah State University, 2810 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322. E-mail:

Melanie.Domenech@usu.edu

n

Washington Universit y, St. Louis, MO

wDepartment of Psychol ogy, Utah State Universi ty, Logan, UT

zMichigan State Universi ty

changing demographics among foreign born persons living in the United States have

yielded a series of recent changes in the social and political context of the country that

have come with challenges and exclusionary legislation (e.g., Arizona SB 1070

1

).

These issues may seem purely political and disconnected to the applied and schol-

arly work many helping professionals engage with on a daily basis. However, for those

of us that conduct our research and practice with immigrants and/or ethnic minori-

ties, these seismic shifts in demographics and their accompanying legislative and

social sequelae have deeply affected our research, our practice, and our personal

well-being. The present paper documents the intense challenges that we have faced in

our research studies, which are applied in nature. We describe how we negotiated

these political, contextual, and social challenges from within our research paradigms,

which combine a community-based orientation with rigorous scientif‌ic traditions. We

also discuss the role of our professional ethics and personal integrity in informing how

we proceeded. Finally, we ref‌lect on how these experiences and lessons learned can

benef‌it family therapy practitioners and researchers, as well as social policy.

OUR COLLABOR ATION:TH E BASE

Two of the authors (Drs. Parra and Domenech) have been colleagues since the late

1990s when they met and discovered a shared passion for promoting the well-being of

Latino families through intervention research. The two met through a common

mentor (Dr. Marion Forgatch). Dr. Forgatch is a key Parent Management Training-

the Oregon Model (PMTOt) treatment developer (e.g., Forgatch, Patterson, De-

Garmo, & Beldavs, 2009). With her support, we generated a network of Latino mental

health professionals with a common goal to reach Latino families. At present, the

three authors are engaged in active collaborations across three sites, Me

´xico, Michi-

gan, and Puerto Rico. Previously, two of us (Drs. Domenech and Baumann) collabo-

rated on the implementation in Logan, UT, with consultation support from members

of the network (including Dr. Parra). Part of the success of our collaboration is that we

share a community-based approach to intervention research that is committed to

following rigorous scientif‌ic methods to test the effectiveness of the interventions.

SHARED RESEARCH PH ILOSOPHY

Our community-based orientation is built on the nuanced and critical analysis

forwarded by community-based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR is a collabora-

tive approach that prescribes equal participation from researchers and community

members in all dimensions of the research process (Israel, Schulz, Parker, & Becker,

1998). Within this tradition, ‘‘community’’ is broadly def‌ined as all those who are

affected by the research (Horowitz, Robinson, & Seifer, 2009). While we do not claim

that we uniformly follow the methodology, we do adhere to the general value orien-

tation toward science and the requirements for generating new scientif‌ic knowledge.

For example, a core CBPR principle consists of privileging different ways of knowing,

understanding that scientif‌ic objectivity is one way of knowing but not the only way of

knowing (Horowitz et al., 2009; Minkler, 2004). In our work, this has been evident in

1

Arizona Senate Bill 1070 gives a great deal of authority to law enforcement agents to proac-

tively seek verif‌ic ation of residenc y status for any perso n ‘‘reasonably su spected’’ of being a n

undocumented imm igrant. The full tex t of the bill is avail able on-line at: ht tp://www.azleg. gov/

legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf

BAUMANN, DOMENECH RODRI

´GUEZ, & PARRA-CARDONA / 133

Fam. Proc., Vol. 50, June, 2011