The JBS Center of Excellence in Language, Culture, and Diversity
The Center of Excellence (CoE) in Language, Culture, and Diversity provides our clients with services that support their efforts to communicate effectively with diverse audiences throughout the United States and abroad. We can ascertain how a particular group of people uses services, elicit information from typically difficult-to-reach populations, and provide culturally relevant technical assistance and training. Our Center’s multilingual and multicultural staff members ensure that the message is meaningful and relevant to the intended audience.
Working With Diverse Populations
Some of the populations we’ve worked with are:
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African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics/Latinos
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U.S.-based populations from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, including indigenous populations
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Mainstream and marginalized populations in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America
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Migrant and seasonal farmworkers
Selected Languages We Speak and Write
Our Team
Our staff is multidisciplinary, multicultural, and multilingual, with national and international experience. We have the capacity to collect data, conduct focus groups, and provide language translation in 20 languages other than English, including Spanish, Vietnamese, German, Mandarin, and Russian. We have worked in every State and Territory and in more than 110 countries, including those in Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, and Southern Asia. Senior staff members include Jorge M. Nakamoto, PhD; Roger Rasnake, PhD; Susan Gabbard, PhD; Elena Cohen; Carmen Sum; Hien Duc Do, PhD; and MinhTuan H. Nguyen.
What We Do
We help our clients reach their audiences in culturally relevant ways through written and oral communication, training and technical assistance, and assessment and evaluation.
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Project in the Spotlight: National Agricultural Workers Survey
The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) is the only national information source on the demographics and working and living conditions of U.S. farmworkers. Since 1989, more than 50,000 farmworkers have been interviewed for this project using survey methods designed to interview a random sample of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. These methods address the geographic mobility and seasonal availability of farmworkers as well as other factors that make this population difficult to survey. This population is challenging to reach because it includes a large number of respondents who have limited education and limited English-language skills. Members of this population are often poor, are immigrants, live in rural areas, are highly mobile, and are available only seasonally to be surveyed.
Special reports produced from NAWS have addressed issues such as child labor, farmworker health, and emergency housing. Because of the richness and expansiveness of the survey, many Federal and State agencies and nongovernment organizations have funded the project to include questions that provide data of particular interest to these agencies and organizations.
A partial list of organizations and agencies that use NAWS information includes:
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Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce
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Commission for Labor Cooperation
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Department of Housing and Urban Development
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Department of State
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Employment Training Administration, Department of Labor
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Environmental Protection Agency
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General Accounting Office
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Legal Services Corporation
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Migrant and Seasonal Head Start
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National Administrative Offices
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National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
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National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health Services | |
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Other Sample Projects