Research Areas

The California Immigrant Data Portal is a project of the University of Southern California’s Equity Research Institute (ERI) to promote narratives to support the integration of diverse immigrant and U.S.-born communities; lift up the intersection of racial justice and immigrant rights; and strengthen the base for inter-sectoral collaborations.

Co-led with the California Community Foundation, the Council on Immigrant Inclusion is a 35-member panel of Los Angeles leaders that includes representatives from business, labor, education, law enforcement, government agencies and community-based organizations. For over a decade, the primary responsibility of the council has been to function as a working group that addresses public policy and strategy development to facilitate the integration of immigrants into the Los Angeles region and the local communities.

This collaboration led to the establishment of the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Los Angeles Justice Fund, which raised nearly $20M and provided legal assistance to over 2,200 individuals facing the threat of deportation. Since its establishment, the program has matured and evolved into Represent Los Angeles and has continued to provide a critical safety net to immigrant Angelenos. Furthermore, this collaboration unites stakeholders in our annual Immigration Summit and annual State of Immigrants in Los Angeles County reports.

Explore data maps created by ERI and those under our previous name, the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). These maps showcase data on the economic contributions of immigrants, the eligible to naturalize population in the United States, as well as DACA and Dreamer populations.

The annual release of the State of Immigrants in Los Angeles County (SOILA) report by the USC Equity Research Institute (previously CSII) unveils and examines data on how immigrants in LA County are faring to refocus the attention on how key players in Los Angeles and beyond can continue advancing a just and inclusive pro-immigrant agenda. It premiers at the annual Immigration Summit, built on the collaborative effort between the California Community Foundation, the USC Equity Research Institute, the Council on Immigrant Inclusion.

In July 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion that adopted the recommendations of the L.A. County Office of Immigrant Affairs (OIA) to create the RepresentLA program, building on its predecessor, the Los Angeles Justice Fund. Adopting the framework set forth in the report titled, Proposal for a Los Angeles Immigrant Community Legal Defense Program, RepresentLA is a merit-blind program that provides funds to organizations providing legal representation for removal defense and affirmative immigration relief, as well as social support services for clients and their families.

The National Equity Atlas is America’s most detailed report card on racial and economic equity. We equip movement leaders and policymakers with actionable data and strategies to advance racial equity and shared prosperity. The Atlas is produced by PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

This project is a book and also a collaboration between Institute for Social Transformation, the Everett Program at UC Santa Cruz, and USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute. We work with social movements for economic, racial, and environmental justice to push forward a more unifying economic narrative that centers on the voices of marginalized communities.

A work of stunning analysis and reporting, Charging Forward shows that the questions raised by Lithium Valley lie at the heart of the “green transition.” Threading movement politics, federal policy, and autoworker struggles, noted experts Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor stress that getting the lithium out from under the earth is just a first step: the real question is whether the region and the nation will get out from under the environmental degradation, labor exploitation, and racial injustice that have been as much a part of the landscape as the Salton Sea itself.

What happens in Lithium Valley, the authors argue, will not stay there. This tiny patch of California is a microcosm of the broad climate challenges we face; understanding Lithium Valley today is the key to grasping the future of our economy and our planet.

ERI’s work will also support creating new coalitions around economic, social, and environmental justice by linking economic prosperity, environmental quality, and civic health with bridging of racial and other gaps. Our collaborators include: Chris Benner at UC Santa Cruz, PolicyLink, Advancement Project’s Race Counts, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, Investing in Place, Southeast Asian Community Alliance (SEACA LA), Strategic Concept in Policy & Education (SCOPE), Enterprise Community Partners, Long Beach Forward, California Community Foundation, Los Angeles Funders Collaborative, The San Francisco Foundation, Weingart Foundation, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, Los Angeles Business Council, California Environmental Justice Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Rachel Morello-Frosh from UC Berkeley, as well as Jim Sadd, Martha Matsuoka, and Mijin Cha at Occidental College.

Lead Local was a collaborative research project bringing together well-respected local power-building leaders in the fields of community organizing, advocacy, and research. From 2018 to 2020, Lead Local sought to answer the question: How does community power catalyze, create and sustain conditions for healthy communities?

Producing in the Power Flower to understand the ecosystem of organizing and base-building, this framework has been used by many partner organizations to evaluate their work and plan for strengthening power in our movements.

New Frontiers in Integrated Voter Engagement

There are four themes from the Golden State IVE story that we think are relevant for Californians and non-Californians alike—and that we hope are easy to remember given its appropriate acronym: vote, organize, transform, and engage (VOTE). Taken together, these themes capture why groups employ IVE as a power-building strategy, what they are able to accomplish by harnessing IVE as part of their broader movement building, and the nuts and bolts of how they implement IVE.

The Changing States framework for progressive governance offers a three-part framework—conditions, arenas, and capacities—for determining pathways to progressive governance.

Metrics That Matter for Building, Scaling, and Funding Social Movements

This provides an evaluative framework and key milestones to gauge movement building. Aiming to bridge the gap between the field of community organizing that relies on the one-on-one epiphanies of leaders and the growing philanthropic emphasis on evidence-based giving, the report stresses several insights.

Engaging Voters, Scaling Power, Making Change

One key recommendation: protect the vote itself. That every voice is equal and everyone should stand and be counted has always been a radical idea—and the efforts in Florida, California, Ohio, and elsewhere are an attempt to make real the often-unfulfilled promise that has been at the heart of the American experiment.

These grants support researchers in crafting their own projects to power social change by fostering community collaboration and addressing real-world challenges.

The Scholar-Activist in Residence (SAR) program is an opportunity for ERI to host a movement activist/leader for approximately one month, to work with faculty to create opportunities for social movement research. We hope the SARs will deepen the university’s engagement with community-based organizations and leaders, and vice versa.