Trained as a political scientist, I study and teach on migration and settlement and the social and cultural transformations that these processes create.
About the scholar
Armando Ibarra is an associate professor and director of the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program and a faculty member at the UW-Madison School for Workers. His research and field of specialization are Chicana/o Latina/o working communities.
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For me, the Wisconsin Idea means producing knowledge about these issues in collaboration with community stakeholders. I see this work as a way to help all of us learn to live together as we face economic, demographic and environmental change. And make no mistake: the United States is changing.
During the last 30 years or so, trade and foreign policy initiatives by both parties have made us increasingly interdependent with our neighbors to the south.
The old era of “gunboat diplomacy” with Latin America has more or less ended, but our new relationships are still fraught and asymmetrical.
As the U.S. political economy moves resources north, life in countries like Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras becomes untenable for large numbers of people.
Climate change exacerbates these conditions. As a result, labor, too, moves north, even as some formerly secure U.S.-based jobs move south and further afield.
This new interdependence is reshaping the population of the United States even as it concentrates more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands both here and abroad.
Most demographers agree that in the future the United States will be more racially and ethnically diverse than it is now, and economic trends point to continued change that will make tomorrow’s labor market different from today’s.
In this context, change and inequality generate anxiety and conflict. Policies and political positions emerge from incomplete information, strengthening myths and feeding rhetoric that polarizes our country.
Some of my academic friends who study social movements say the United States is as divided politically and culturally now as it has ever been. I think I agree. So, what to do?
In a climate that creates the conditions for division and reactionary politics against the “other,” I engage in community-based research that seeks to identify root causes and consequences of these dynamics and consequently offers practical evidence-based conclusions and recommendations.
In addition to preparing academic publications and reports that could allow political leadership and policymakers to strengthen our communities by receiving newcomers from Latin America effectively, I have documented the lives, dreams, and struggles of ordinary workers, mostly people of Mexican descent, in our state.
This work has added a Wisconsin voice to national social science debates on labor, migration, politics and integration.
These debates are not new. For Latinos, they encompass generationally linked issues such as exclusion, segregation, policing, racialization and unequal access to education.
These debates and these realities also inform my work with students.
In partnership with community organizations in Madison, Milwaukee, and beyond, I have trained students to collaborate with marginalized communities in the production of knowledge that can help them address their most pressing concerns.
In all of this work, I seek to find ways for all Wisconsinites to build common ground and work for a shared, more just and equitable future.
This essay originally appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal’s Fueling Discovery section on May 4, 2020. Fueling Discovery is a special partnership between the Wisconsin State Journal and the College of Letters & Science.