By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

Amigas Latinas last week released some of the results from Proyecto Latina, its survey assessing the needs of Latina LBTs in Chicago and its surrounding areas.

At a Jan. 31 presentation at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St., Amigas Latinas Co-chair Alicia Vega said that while much of the data had not been fully analyzed yet, preliminary results already point to challenges women in the community face as well as advancements they have made.

About 300 respondents ranging in ages from 13 to 60 completed the survey, which was administered both online and on paper between January and July of 2007.

Nicole Perez, a graduate student and lead researcher on the project, described a number of the results.

Nearly 70 percent of the respondents reported that they had experienced discrimination at some point in their lives. Slightly more than half of the incidents—50.1 percent—were based on the respondents’ ethnicity.

“Something we realized is that, overall, people reported a lot more discrimination based on race than they did on sexual orientation,” Perez said.

A portion of the survey also focused on domestic violence. A number of women reported being abused verbally, physically or sexually by another female, according to Perez.

But Vega said the report also pointed to many positive results. A good number of women, for example, rated themselves as being in “excellent” or “very good” physical and mental health.

She also said Amigas Latinas were pleased with the diversity of the respondents. Besides Chicago and the collar counties, women from Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, California and Puerto Rico, among other locations, responded to the survey. She added, however, that data from the more far-flung locations would have to be discarded, since the surveys intent was to assess the needs of local Latina LBTs.

At this point, the data is to be used to plan community forums and address the issues raised in the survey, as well as in conference presentations, according to Vega. She also said the research would be available to researchers interested in the Latina LBT community.