A graduate student from Latvia is seeking Latvians in America interested in helping her with research on ethnic identity.

Elīna Ivanova, who is studying for a master’s degree in geography at the University of Latvia, is looking into how Latvians form and maintain their national identity.

The research, she told Latvians Online in an e-mail, is tied to geography because she is examining the migration process. Ivanova is looking at aspects such as the distribution of Latvian communities and how both the host country and the homeland affect the development and maintenance of identity.

Ivanova has set up an online survey and is asking Latvians in the United States to complete it by April 20. She wants responses from both recent immigrants and from the exile community—even from those individuals who are in the second or third generations and might no longer speak Latvian.

The survey is available in Latvian and in English.

After several years in which musical acts from Latvia were among those performing at the notable South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, it appears the Baltic country has come up short. However, that does not mean SXSW will lack a Latvian presence.

Latvian-Canadian vocalist Katie Stelmanis and the rest of her new trio, Austra, are scheduled to take the stage during the festival’s music programming, which runs from March 15-20.

For Stelmanis, it will be her second time at SXSW. She performed there last year, too.

Stelmanis, who is part Latvian, also identifies with Toronto’s GLBT community, according to interviews with Canadian Dimension, AfterEllen.com and Dummy.

She is a classically trained musician who at one point was headed for a career in opera. Now she produces and performs music described as dark and electronic.

Previously in a band called Galaxy, Stelmanis in 2008 released a solo album, Join Us. In 2010, she got together with bassist Dorian Wolf and drummer Maya Postepski to form the band Private Life. The trio subsequently changed its name to Austra.

Austra is set to release its debut album, Feel It Break, in May on Canadian label Paper Bag Records and British label Domino Records. The latter’s website notes that Stelmanis is a “a unique talent in possession of some seriously evocative vocal stylings who grew up on a diverse musical diet.”

Austra’s most recent single from the forthcoming album is the wonderful “Lose It,” which can be heard on the SoundCloud website.

During SXSW, Austra is scheduled to perform at 10 p.m. March 17 in Emo’s Main Room, 603 Red River St., Austin.

For more on Austra, visit the band’s website, www.austramusic.com, or its Facebook or MySpace pages.

Public schools should only teach in Latvian, the official language of Latvia. Or Latvia should just have two state languages, the other being Russian. Whichever you choose, there’s a petition to sign.

The nationalist alliance Visu Latvijai – Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK and an organization called “Sargi valodu un Latviju” used the website www.sargivalodu.lv to get out the word about its petition drive. The petition demands that the constitution be amended to guarantee that elementary and secondary public education is guaranteed by the state, but only in the official language—Latvian.

A total of 10,000 signatures were collected by the end of February and now will be presented to the Central Election Commission (Centrāla vēlēšanu komisija). If all the signatures are legitimate, then the commission will have to organize another petition drive, this time seeking a tenth of all voters, to force the Saeima to consider the amendment.

Meanwhile, Vladimirs Lindermans, head of the Jan. 13 Movement (13. janvāra kustība), and Osipov Party leader Jevgēņijs Osipovs announced March 4 that they will be collecting signatures to recognize Russian as a second state language, according to TVNET and other media. They have formed an organization called “Dzimtā valoda” to push for changes in Latvia’s constitution.

Similar to the petition on Latvian in public education, the effort to recognize Russian could result in forcing the Saeima to take up the question.