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Despite substantial gains in educational attainment and a growing presence in the U.S. workforce, Latinas continue to face one of the largest wage gaps among women in the United States and California, according to two new UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) data briefs examining national and California wage trends from 1990 to 2025.

Press Release & Media Advisory → Democracy & Voting Rights

UCLA Voting Rights Project Issues Statement on Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Decision

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee to uphold voting restrictions in Arizona, which could make it harder to challenge other voting laws moving forward and further weakens the Federal Voting Rights Act, Chad Dunn – co-founder and legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, a flagship project of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute – issued the following statement.

Professor Hayes-Bautista in The Sun of San Fernando Valley: “UCLA Study Shows Latinos, Other Non-Whites Hit Hard By Coronavirus”

“The epidemiology of diversity in California is plain: Overall, the curve for COVID-19 case rates observed in the white, non-Hispanic population, in each age group from newborns to 80 years and over, is consistently lower than the curve for all other racial and ethnic groups,” said co-author David Hayes-Bautista, professor of health policy and management…

Chad Dunn in Newsrust: “Justice Dept. Sues Georgia Over Voting Restrictions Law”

The legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, Chad Dunn states, “when the Department of Justice undertakes a case of this nature, it’s done its homework and is familiar with facts that are not even usually publicly reported… So I believe when the Department of Justice brings a case like this, it has what…

Professor Laura Gomez in Vox: “What the hysteria over critical race theory is really all about”

Critical race theory also highlighted how, even when the law changed to increase racial equity, institutions disrupted the intentions of those laws and tried to get around them, Laura Gomez, a University of California Los Angeles law professor who co-founded the school’s critical race studies program in 2000, told Vox.

UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center in UCLA Newsroom: “UCLA receives $1.45 million bequest for research related to artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz”

The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center has received $1.45 million in a bequest gift to support research and scholarship related to the art and life of Raphael Montañez Ortiz, a Puerto Rican American pioneer of the 1960s destructivist art movement, founder of the first Latino museum in the United States and recipient of the UCLA…

LPPI in Bluffton Today: “Federal unemployment programs end Saturday: Here’s what you need to know in South Carolina.”

Latinas hardest hit by job loss as economy recovers. Latinas have left the workforce in droves as a result of the pandemic. A report by the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Initiative found that Latinas have the highest rates of unemployment and workforce departure of any demographic in the U.S. (June 16) AP

Statement From UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute on the For The People Act

Statement from Sonja Diaz, founding director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute on the failure of the U.S. Senate to move the For The People Act forward.

Professor David Hayes-Bautista in McKnight’s News, Perspective, and Analysis: “Affordable housing options needed to address growing, aging Latino population”

“When Social Security was instituted, then Medicare built on top of it, the assumption was that at age 65, Latinos would get both,” David Hayes-Bautista, Ph.D., a professor of public health and medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the UCLA School of Medicine, told the media…

Dr. David Hayes-Bautista in From Press: “Tackling Latino health, caregiving and housing is key as older population grows”

Older Latinos already face housing, health, and caregiving challenges, and concern is growing that as the “browning of the graying” of America continues, as longtime UCLA public health researcher David Hayes-Bautista has written, the economic and social impact on Hispanics and the U.S. will be significant.

Sonja Diaz in Spectrum News NY-1: “Cash payments take center stage in Newsom’s 1st recall ad”

Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy & Politics Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Newsom’s positive ad presents messaging that will resonate with families and young people who have been hard hit by the pandemic by highlighting the cash payments, help for businesses and an expansion of preschool.

Professor Matt Barreto in Bloomberg Law: “Half of Unvaccinated People Would Get the Jabs From Their Doctor”

“Local doctors and nurses of color are very trusted messengers. And so our best path forward is by working with those local doctors and nurses who look like us, who are from our community, encouraging us to come into their doctor’s office and take notes,” Matt Barreto, a professor of Chicano/a studies at UCLA, said…

Press Release- Latinas were more likely than other groups to drop out of workforce during pandemic, UCLA LPPI study finds

A report published today by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute examines unemployment figures for Latinas as well as changes in the number of Latinas in the U.S. labor force since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas in Peninsula Press: “The GOP’s best bet to accelerate gains with Latinos? It may be more Trumpism”

Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, the director of research at UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute, lamented the fact that Latino voters have typically been treated as a monolith by political pundits. He adds, “Latinos are the second-largest voting group in the country and we just don’t do the same yet, at least not until recently.”

Professor Noriega in Los Angeles Times: “Hollywood’s treatment of Latinos is an open wound. Healing it requires a reckoning”

“Since Hollywood’s earliest days, white Americans needed to see nonwhites as different, not similar, said Chon Noriega, a veteran UCLA film historian and the departing director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.”

LPPI in The Daily Wire: “MSNBC Host: Democrats Are ‘Way Out of the Mainstream’”

A post-election report by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative of 13 key states found that Biden won the Hispanic vote three to one in nine states. “Only in Florida was Biden’s margin among Latino voters less than 2 to 1,” it said.

Dr. Noriega in Wrap Pro: “How ‘In the Heights’ Could Flip the Script on Hollywood’s Sketchy History With Latino Culture”

Chon Noriega, professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television and former director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, said that “In The Heights” is a welcome counter to Hollywood’s decades-long tendency to not only stereotype Latinos as maids, gang-bangers and sex symbols but also to homogenize the various cultures of Latin…

Dr. Dominguez in HITN Television: “Entrevista con Rodrigo Dominguez I Estudio DC”

Rodrigo Dominguez’s appearance in Estudio D.C. discussing Biden’s immigration plans and the urgency for Congress to pass an immigration reform that is inclusive of the entire undocumented population.

Dr. David Hayes-Bautista in Radio Bilingüe: National Latino Public Radio Network: “Healing Farm Worker Trauma. Also, Preparing for the Next Public Health Crisis.”

As the pandemic raged through California for the past year, Latinos died in disproportionate numbers due to structural inequalities such as lack of bilingual physicians, greater exposure to the virus in the workplace, crowded housing, and lack of health insurance. Dr. David Hayes-Bautista and researchers warn that if these structural inequalities are not remedied, the…

Dr. Rodrigo Dominguez in Univision: “¿Por qué casi no votan los mexicanos que migraron a EEUU?: afirman que los candidatos carecen de una agenda para ellos”(In Spanish)

Rodrigo Dominguez, originally from Mexico City and currently resides in Los Angeles, cast his vote online for the midterms elections. He points out that, unlike other people, he has been attentive and active about the Mexican elections, so the Facebook algorithm helped him to find out the registration dates and deadline to cast the vote….

Professor Avila in Times of San Diego: “East LA, a Cradle of Mexican-American Culture, Seeks Greater Political Identity”

“I think of East Los Angeles as the neglected stepchild of Los Angeles. And that’s largely because of its unincorporated status. There’s no local control, and there’s no form of community self-determination,” said Eric Avila, a professor of Chicano studies at UCLA who is unaffiliated with the special district campaign.

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