How Was The Data Collected?

We interviewed individuals who were personally affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico as well as institutions that provided aid to those displaced families.

The displaced families we interviewed are those individuals and families with whom Lilly Sin Barreras has created strong relationships. All of the families interviewed had left Puerto Rico and came to Hartford after Hurricane Maria.

We interviewed a combination of government officials, non-profit organizations, religious organizations, and grassroots activists for Hispanic communities. We compiled a comprehensive list of institutions to interview after careful discussion with our community partner, Lydia Velez Herrera of Lilly Sin Barreras. After this meeting, our list consisted of roughly 45 institutional organizations to reach out to. The interviews were voice recorded, however, all interview recordings have been deleted upon transcription of the content, and all personally identifiable information of the displaced families has been removed from the transcriptions. In order to protect the welfare and privacy of individuals an IRB approval was also acquired. 

We completed a total of thirteen interviews including representatives from Capital Region Education Council (CREC), Capital Workforce Partners, City Council, the Hartford Public School System, Catholic Charities, Trinity College, Dressler Law, St. Patrick/St. Anthony Church, the ESL Department of Capital Community College, United Latinos in Action, United Way of Connecticut, and the Hartford Public Schools’ Welcome Center.

We completed six interviews via phone with displaced individuals to whom Lydia Velez Herrera introduced us. We conducted interviews both individually and as a group. After completing each interview, we wrote a memo that summarized the main content before we coded the interview. The interviews with the families were conducted in the Spanish language, and therefore, a memo was written in English for members of our team who did not speak Spanish. 

View our poster advertising our project here