Beyond Translating Cultures: Organizational Cultural Brokering and Latin@/e/x Community Resilience after the "Mobile Home Parks" Fire

Background and Purpose: As wildfires increase in frequency and severity, rural low-income Latin@/e/x communities face disproportionate risks and barriers during disaster recovery. Institutionalized disaster recovery frameworks, designed primarily for administrative efficiency, struggle to account for the cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic realities of Latin@/e/x wildfire survivors. This study examines the critical role of community-based organizations (CBOs) rooted in Latin@/e/x communities as organizational cultural brokers in wildfire disaster recovery. Specifically, this study addresses: (1) how Latin@/e/x CBOs leverage culturally rooted knowledge to create opportunities for collective healing; (2) what challenges CBOs face in integrating culturally rooted knowledge into disaster resilience programs; and (3) what opportunities exist for mutual learning and collaboration between local community practices and state disaster resilience frameworks.

Methods: This qualitative case study focused on CBO responses to the 2020 "Mobile Home Parks" Fire in a rural Oregon county serving predominantly low-income Latin@/e/x communities. Data were collected through 23 semi-structured interviews, three focus groups, participant observations, and a review of relevant documents. Participants included CBO staff, community members, and disaster recovery stakeholders. Data were analyzed using qualitative methods to examine how CBOs navigated the cultural landscape between wildfire survivors and conventional disaster recovery systems.

Results: Findings reveal significant barriers to wildfire recovery for Latin@/e/x communities, including linguistic barriers, resource scarcity, systemic trauma, and cultural disconnection from standardized recovery frameworks. Two distinct models of organizational cultural brokering that address these barriers emerged: one-way cultural brokering, in which CBOs primarily translated and facilitated access to existing disaster recovery systems through linguistic interventions, case management, and culturally rooted outreach; and multi-way cultural brokering, a transformative, circular approach in which CBOs co-created new recovery pathways rooted in survivor culture and lived experience with community members. This multi-way model positioned Latin@/e/x community members as primary decision-makers and centered culturally grounded healing, grief processing, trauma-informed care, and survivor leadership development.

Conclusions and Implications: When disaster recovery frameworks clash with local culture, those with the least institutional power bear the greatest burden. This study demonstrates that CBOs leveraging culturally rooted knowledge can develop innovative, equitable, and transformative disaster resilience strategies when recognized as decision-makers within their communities, rather than solely service providers. Effective cultural brokering requires institutional commitment to long-term leadership development, institutional humility, sustained pre- and post-disaster relationship-building, meaningful policy reform, and robust accountability mechanisms. Implications for practice and policy include the adoption of shared governance models among CBOs, government agencies, and funders, as well as the revision of disaster recovery assessment tools to better reflect diverse living arrangements, informal housing networks, and culturally specific understandings of recovery.