My name is Grace Adam, I am an incoming senior Economics major and Social Justice minor here at University of Portland. This summer I have been remotely interning at the Coalition of Communities of Color (CCC) in Portland, OR.
The CCC is a coalition of culturally specific non-profits around Oregon, and they help support and work with their members to combat racial and socioeconomic disparities through advocacy and research. The CCC is active in supporting and advocating for specific legislative bills each session to provide more supportive and meaningful policies for marginalized communities. They also aim to provide community-based research to battle racism in data collection and research publications.
My project this summer is to create a resource for the CCC and their members to use when conducting formal research, it is called the Research Justice Roots Project. This resource is essentially a big spreadsheet that has seven policy framework areas; this includes Environmental Justice, Infrastructure Development, Wellness, Education, Economic Prosperity, Strengthening Democracy, and Public & Community Safety. Within each framework I am researching sub-policy areas to find existing publications, reports, datasets, and legislation.
With the support of one of CCC’s Senior Researchers, Dr. Mira Mohsini, and CCC’s Director of Research, Dr. Andres Lopez, I have learned how to identify racist data and information. They have provided me with webinars and presentations to learn about racism within data collection and how to address it. I am learning a lot about programs and legislation in Oregon that are supposed to help marginalized communities by creating this spreadsheet. This resource will be used when CCC and their members want to conduct formal research, they can utilize this spreadsheet and find background information and research that exists in particular policy areas.
Later in the summer I will be presenting my work to the other researchers and the Advocacy Director. I have greatly enjoyed my time with the CCC and look forward to the rest of the summer working with them!