Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) is a nonprofit, community-based research organization that originated in 1988 as a collaborative effort between Ramsey County Human Services, Communidades Latinos Unidos en Servicio (CLUES), and Metropolitan State University to address the lack of information about Latinos and Latino issues in Minnesota’s public discourse. HACER is housed within the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA).

HACER’s mission, is to provide the Minnesota Latino community the ability to create and control information about itself in order to affect institutional decisions and public policy.