The USC Equity Research Institute (ERI), formerly known as PERE and the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII), promotes forward-looking narratives that support the integration of diverse immigrant and U.S.-born communities; lifts up the intersection of racial justice and immigrant rights; and strengthens the base for intersectoral collaborations.
Our work on immigrant integration and racial justice brings together three emphases: scholarship that draws on academic theory and rigorous research, data that provides information structured to highlight the process of immigrant integration over time, and engagement that seeks to create new dialogues with government, community organizers, business and civic leaders, immigrants and the voting public to advance immigrant integration and racial equity.
ERI’s research will challenge and nuance common narratives by applying a racial justice lens; by promoting the mutual interests of immigrant and native-born communities in the U.S.; and by supporting multi-racial, intersectoral, and cross-movement collaborations in all of our research processes and products.
Explore ERI’s immigrant inclusion and racial justice reports (including USC CSII’s past Immigrant Integration and Racial Justice reports from 2008 to 2020)
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.
The California Community Foundation’s (CCF) Council on Immigrant Integration 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.
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.
Racial Justice at ERI and beyond
ERI’s goal is to create a sustainable, racially just work environment and contribute to building a world rooted in equity. For ERI, to be a racially just organization is to create and work in an environment free of discrimination and inequities, and to be more effective in the impact of our external work on social, economic, and racial equity.
ERI staff’s commitment to racial justice will be lived out by:
- Actively living our values through our team agreements;
- Using a racial justice lens when we analyze and talk about data, in our ways of communicating, in our onboarding processes, and in our writing;
- Working to address root causes of inequities, which are present in our policies, practices, attitudes, power dynamics, and cultural messages;
- Being mindful of conflicts on the journey; and learning to listen, own, and heal from mistakes made.
ERI’s organizational commitment to racial justice will be lived out by:
- Sustaining a racial justice team and an ongoing process of education and cohesiveness in order to create open and supportive workspaces;
- Developing ways to take collective, collaborative action for systemic change in the organization;
- Educating ourselves through race, gender, and other aspects of our identity that are tied to complex histories, and play significant roles in how resources and power are distributed; and
- Supporting staff and affiliates in developing their capacity to work effectively across differences with staff, students, faculty, and external partners by growing culture-specific awareness, knowledge, and skills.
