Publications
The Tomas Rivera Center conducted a multitude of studies, reports, and sponsored invitational seminars aimed to educate the general population, all surrounding the issues faced by the Hispanic community in Texas. The specific products they published were reports, sourcebooks, seminars, executive summaries, and policy pamphlets. These products could be purchased through the TRC itself, and were distributed to politicians and policymakers through brochures like the one shown below which advertised the products available to be purchased from the TRC.
The center hoped to aim their products at specific consumers like Hispanic legislators, Hispanic newspapers, magazines, and television, local elected officials, universities and public education.
Seminars (Executive Summaries included)
A seminar hosted by the TRC was to provide the attendees with information on a specific topic; the seminars included presentations from a variety of scholars on the subject, and often would result in an “executive summary” or a report document which summarized the main topics discussed at the seminar, and possible solutions and ideas.
The following example is the cover of an executive summary from the TRC that researched the poverty among Latino populations and the effects of such struggles. This report was compiled from a seminar hosted by the TRC on April 8th, 1988 for guests concerned with the increasing poverty among the Hispanic population to discuss findings from current research and to identify areas for action.
This example is an executive summary from a research report published by the TRC. It was not based on a seminar hosted by the TRC but it does provide an informative example of what would be covered in an executive summary. The Feminization of Poverty researched the amount of female-head-of-home families and the connections between them and poverty. The report found that not all Latino groups are affected as deeply by poverty, essentially poverty does not exist in a vacuum, even in the Latino community. This report was presented in The Magnitude and Persistence of Poverty Among Latinos seminar mentioned above.
Sourcebooks
A sourcebook is a collection of data on a general topic for researchers, politicians, and policymakers. They included graphics, and summarizations of data compiled by the TRC for consumption. The two following examples are of the covers of these sourcebooks, which were available to be purchased from the TRC.
Reports
A report is an officially released study summary, methods, and results on a variety of topics published by the TRC. These reports are meant to be consumed by policymakers, and to be cited when discussing political topics related to the reports. The example below is the cover of a report, focused on the economics in San Antonio, Texas, more specifically about the neighborhood area of the “Westside” in San Antonio.
City Contract Dollars was published to review and analyze the city’s Small and Minority Business Advocacy Program (MOBE), which aimed to increase the number of contracts given to its minority community. The program was considered a success by its own standards within the first year but it left out the segment of the Westside, one of the poorest areas for the city. The report cited that while San Antonio began to improve, more work needed to be aimed towards the poorest segment of the city.
Policy Pamphlets
A Policy Pamphlet is meant to provide small bite-sized goals from the TRC to their target audiences in a small portable document. The example provided below titled “Hispanic Economic Policy Agenda” describes the current state of economics for Hispanic populations, its two main goals, appointment of professor Richard Santos (expert in Hispanic youth employment), some challenges faced by Hispanic populations, and upcoming seminars hosted by the TRC to educate the general public on these topics.
Disprove Biased Research
While this type of product is not officially listed as a category by the TRC, one of the Center’s goals was to investigate studies and to disprove biased or unreliable research on the Hispanic community.
The following provides an example of a study conducted in California performed by Donald Huddle, which argues that the immigrants drain the state’s economy, costing taxpayers over $18 billion. The report from the TRC cites multiple errors and mistakes made by Huddle in his research, which many politicians cite as reasons for anti-immigrant rhetoric.
