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The Center for Latino Policy Research (CLPR) was founded in 1989 in response to the research and policy challenges of limited educational and economic opportunities facing the Latino/Chicano population. 

CLPR is committed to sponsoring research efforts that have a direct policy impact on the Latino/Chicano population in the United States.

While CLPR will support policy research in any field in which there is strong faculty or student interest, our current research foci are in the areas of higher education access, migration, and political/civic participation. To this end, CLPR provides training and research opportunities for faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students; disseminates policy-relevant research publications; and conducts outreach meetings for campus faculty and administrators, public officials, non-profit agencies, advocacy groups, and the general public.

CLPR History

The roots of the Center can be traced to the spring of 1986 through the creation of the working committee that developed the concept for the Chicano/Latino Policy Project, later renamed the Center for Latino Policy Research. With sponsorship from the Berkeley Program in Mexican Studies, UC Berkeley faculty initiated an effort to coordinate high quality interdisciplinary research and training on policy relevant issues related to the Chicano/Latino population in the United States. Three years later, in March 1989, the Project was officially approved by the campus administration and affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Social Change.

The Project’s pioneers broke new ground when they instituted the Center for Latino Policy Research at UCB. The Project was then governed by a Faculty Steering Committee which included Joe Martinez, Margarita Melville, Alex Saragoza, Guadalupe Valdez, and Martín Sánchez-Jankowski served as Chair.

For nearly twenty years, CLPR scholars have played a central role in advancing the intellectual and empirical record on the demographic changes of California society and patterns of persistent inequity for Latinos. They have advanced current knowledge on a number of policy concerns related to Latinos, such as education, immigration, political participation and civic engagement, public health, and others. The Center has also added teaching and research offerings related to Latino policy issues and have exercised leadership in furthering public understanding of domestic policy and the development trajectory of Latinos in United States.

CLPR Executive Board

CLPR Staff

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