My Photo

Archives

More…

Hispanic Online Marketing

Archives

More…

Hispanic Mobile Marketing

Hispanic Media

Hispanic Education, Government, & Advocacy Groups

Categories

Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 05/2004

« August 2014 | Main | October 2014 »

September 2014 posts

My Latina identity in the classroom: Teaching from a multicultural perspective

September 30, 2014
By Ivana Cusick

This Hispanic Heritage Month, I have had the privilege of celebrating with 156 preteens — my Spanish I students at Loch Raven Technical Academy in Baltimore. Every year, it’s a powerful opportunity to establish a culturally responsive classroom community — one that allows me to share more about myself, to expand my students’ perceptions of what a Latina woman looks like and to learn more about the unique cultural orientations they bring to our work together. Through sharing our different pasts, we orient toward the future.

Growing up in this state, I experienced the full range of educational possibilities, attending private and public schools across the state. During my time at this university, I began to understand how this range fit into a much larger national story — the reality of deeply unequal educational opportunity depending on demographics. During my junior year, I attended a Latino leadership conference hosted by Teach For America and soon recognized my own opportunity for impact. I joined the organization to become a teacher in the city I call home. That’s when I met my class.

At the school where I teach, students come from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, and most of my students don’t share my race.

At the beginning of the year, they are surprised to learn that because I am multiracial, I identify as both white and Latina. This revelation opens up a conversation about broader issues regarding race and culture.

In our discussions, we’ve explored so much — the power and danger of stereotypes, the importance of identity and the relationship between identity and leadership. Four principles guide our conversations in the classroom: positividad, entusiasmo, respeto and comunidad. Every day, my students grow further in these values and I strive to live up to their examples.

The opportunity gap facing low-income students in this country is staggering, as is the underrepresentation of Latinos in the teaching profession. Although about one in four U.S. residents under age 18 identifies as Latino, just 8 percent of teachers identify as such. Addressing this underrepresentation is critical, both so more Latino children have Latino teachers they can look up to and so both parties get to have the types of conversations we are having in my classroom. I hope and believe my students are developing, along with knowledge of verb tenses and vocabulary, meaningful commitments to multiculturalism — ones that will inspire and empower them through their lives.

It is an honor and a privilege to serve my students alongside more than 1,000 Latino Teach For America corps members and alumni and thousands of others from a range of backgrounds. As you consider what you are going to do about the injustices that surround you, I hope you consider joining us.

Source: The Diamondback

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Hispanic Culture, Hispanic Education | | Comments (0)

| |

In western Nebraska, old-timers work to keep heritage from fading among U.S.-born Latinos

September 29, 2014
By Bobby Calvan

We all know that the Latino population is growing rapidly. But many of us don’t realize that most of that growth is not from the arrival of new immigrants – but from new generations of Latinos born in the United States.

The share of Hispanics who are immigrants is declining, according to the Pew Research Center. Just a third of Hispanics of Mexican descent were foreign born.

According to Pew, the share of foreign-born Hispanics now stands at 36 percent, down from 40 percent.

Chabella Guzman, a reporter at the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, is among those of Latino descent who was born in the United States. There are many others like her across Nebraska.

Guzman wanted to explore a story on how far some have gotten away from their ancestral roots. Guzman said some Latinos could no longer speak Spanish or had limited fluency – herself included. She noticed how some Anglicized the pronunciations of their Hispanic surnames.

As she did her reporting, the focus of the story began to shift. Instead of writing about how some folks were seemingly losing their culture, she decided to focus on how some were trying to hold on to their heritage.

The result was a story that appeared this past Sunday on the front page of her paper’s lifestyles section. Coincidentally, Guzman’s story appears smack in the middle of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

A colleague at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Professor Luis Peon-Casanova, accompanied me to Scottsbluff several months ago. He shot a few pictures and produced a video of a Mexican dance group, which is part of the online package.

Sunday’s story is the first of a multistory collaboration with the Star-Herald. In the coming months, The Heartland Project will be producing a story on the role of spirituality in confronting the challenges facing the Lakota at Whiteclay and Pineridge.

The collaboration with the Star-Herald began with a conversation last spring with the paper’s editor, Steve Frederick, while attending the annual convention of the Nebraska Press Association.

Soon after, I was in touch with the paper’s assistant editor, Bart Schaneman, who gave his enthusiastic support. Earlier this year, he wrote a column about the project.

The city of Scottsbluff is located in Nebraska’s Panhandle, about a six-hour drive from Lincoln, the state capital. It is an ethnically diverse community of 15,000. About a third of the city are residents of color, much of it comprised of folks with Latino heritage. (Nebraska as a whole is about 80 percent white and about 10 percent Latino.)

According to Guzman, many of western Nebraska’s early Latino settlers worked in the surrounding fields of sugar beets.

Guzman’s story quotes Mary Ann Shockley, who teaches traditional Mexican dance. She wonders what will become of the old ways as American-born Latinos move further from their roots – the language, old family recipes, the dances and the traditions handed down from the generations before.

People like Shockley are trying hard to preserve their heritage. It’s a challenge, she concedes, but an important mission that she and others say must be done.

Guzman is doing her part, albeit as a journalist bringing attention to the challenges facing her community.

Source: Asian American Journalists Association

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Hispanic Culture | | Comments (0)

| |

Does Latino Presence On Television Reflect The Growing Population?

September 29, 2014
By Bentley Curtis

Latinos in today’s society comprise 17 percent of the total United States population, according to a Columbia University study, but does that number reflect the presence Latinos have on television today?
Shows like “Cristela” and “George Lopez” are examples of programs that reflect an all-Latino cast. However,  shows of this nature do not come around very often.

To gain deeper insight into this issue, Bonnie Zane, who worked in casting for the “George Lopez” show, spoke to me about this gap. When asked about her thoughts regarding Latinos being underrepresented in television, she said that it is the result of a few different issues.

She spoke about the bottleneck in this matter being the “higher ups” as she called it, referring to the networks and studios who make the final decisions. “All I can do is cast color blind and bring a cross section of everyone to the audition,” said Zane.

Her personal opinion on the matter is that the number of Latino actors available to pull from is significantly smaller in comparison to the larger non-Latino population. Hence, the number of roles people are cast into will reflect the size of the overall acting population available. When asked about the quality of the roles that many Latinos are chosen for and the danger of feeding into stereotypes she said, “There’s always going to be backlash about casting diversity… I cast the best actor who gives an accurate depiction of what the role is.”

One initiative inputting diversity and highlighting talent of color are showcases by each network. The intention of these showcases are to give opportunities to performers of color and create more equality across the industry. “It’s never going to be the same as majority population”, Zane said, “but at least it’s a step in the right direction.”

After interviewing Zane, I spoke with Sandi Logan, the casting director for Latino based program “Cristela.” She attested that the lack of experience Latinos have in a wider variety of roles is a main attributing factor that prevents greater presence on television.

“In casting ‘Cristela’, there were not a lot of Latinos to choose from who do comedy. Many of the roles that Latinos are given and do well are limited to things like detective based programs such as ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’,” Logan said, “It’s not to say that Latinos don’t have the talent to do broader roles, it’s just that they don’t have the experience to do many of those other roles. Also, from a casting standpoint it’s more about what’s available to us in the world of television in terms of programming.”

When asked about her thoughts regarding casting people of color in the future, specifically Latinos in larger roles, she explained that in order for Latinos to attain those lead roles, they have to put themselves in a position to gain a wider variety of experience. Once the experience is attained, there will be a greater probability of larger or even lead roles for Latinos in the future.

“There is definitely a push and a need for diversity, with the percentages of monitories increasing in America, people want to watch themselves on TV,” said Logan.

In an attempt to gain a more concrete understanding, I spoke with Dr. Mary Beltrán, an associate professor of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas, Austin whose area of expertise is in the construction of race, class and gender in U.S. television. More specifically, she works with Latino representation and participation as it pertains to Hollywood film and American narrative television. “Latinos are still among the most underrepresented ethnic group within the entertainment world, despite the strides made in the past few years,” said Beltrán.

When asked about her thoughts pertaining to the lack of Latino representation in television, she attributed it to the lack of writers, producers, and executives that are of Latino origin or descent. She also believes that if Latinos put forth more effort to support other Latinos, such as writing letters to the networks about the show’s importance or spreading awareness throughout the community to gain viewership, it would create demand for more programming.

When I addressed Logan’s point about Latinos lacking a variety of experience and the way that it negatively impacts the opportunities made available, Beltrán disagreed stating that the lack of visibility is due to the characters not being well developed or richly based for Latinos.

“Scripts are written from a fairly white perspective, if it was by a Latino writer the setting might be different expanding beyond typical workplace scenarios,” Beltrán said. “The stories would be broadened to give the characters more depth. It wouldn’t just be your typical police procedural…Latinos wouldn’t be cast as mere side characters, they would be able to play the lead.”

Lastly, she discussed the misconception that Latinos only want to watch Spanish-speaking programs when that could not be further from the truth. Dr. Beltrán discussed various studies and statistics that supported this point saying, “The networks just are not listening.”

Beltrán concluded our conversation saying, “While many shows have touted about having a greater amount of diversity in their casts, it is still rare to see a Latino actor or actress in an ensemble cast or a Hispanic take the lead role.”

After our interview she referred me to a few scholarly works, one in particular stood out from Columbia University entitled "The Latino Media Gap." In the analysis, the study defines the concept of "The Latino Media Gap" as a conundrum, because of the contradictory fact that as Latino consumer power grows, relative Latino media presence shrinks. It also addresses the point that Latinos are mindful of their image and when anti-Latino content is presented, the ratings will reflect the group’s sentiment. Even though issues surrounding Latinos in television are starting to be addressed more frequently, many changes still have to be made in order to make an impact, and relatively quickly.

According to new census data, Caucasian babies have fallen into the minority category for the under five years of age group, where as the number for Latinos have risen. In a report by U.S. News, the reasons for this rapid increase in growth is contributed to high birth rates and immigration among the Latino population and other ethnic minorities. It is said that by the year 2043 “white majority will be gone” so these issues will have to be dealt with if not sooner than later.

Source: Neon Tommy

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Hispanic Market Size, Hispanic Media | | Comments (0)

| |

Hispanic Borrowers Diminishing in California Housing

September 30, 2014
By John Gittelsohn and Prashant Gopal

Jose Ramos lived the American Dream as a real estate agent who owned two houses in the majority Hispanic city of Santa Ana, California. Almost a decade later, homeownership for the 48-year-old Mexican immigrant is out of reach.

Ramos said the housing crash in 2007 wiped out his income and he lost both homes to foreclosure. Since then, mortgage standards have tightened, and he can’t afford to buy in his neighborhood because investors have bid up prices to almost pre-bust levels.

“The interest rates are low, but the prices are so high,” Ramos said during an interview in the two-bedroom apartment he shares with his wife and three daughters. “Where’s the opportunity?”

Hispanic borrowers like Ramos have been shut out of the two-year housing recovery more than other groups in California, denying them the chance to rebuild wealth through homeownership. The Hispanic share of the market for mortgages to buy homes fell to 22 percent in 2013 from 24 percent the prior year and barely half of the 2006 peak, according to an analysis of federal lending data by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based non-partisan research group. The share last year for blacks fell to 2.8 percent from 3.1 percent while it increased for whites and Asians.

More Hispanics are dropping out of the market even as their numbers grow, surpassing whites this year as the largest ethnic group in California, accounting for 39 percent of the population, according to the state demographer.

Accruing Wealth

“The Hispanic community is going to make up a larger and larger portion of the population,” said Taz George, an Urban Institute researcher. “If they’re struggling to qualify for loans or to afford home purchases, that has huge implications for their ability to accrue wealth over time.”

The narrowing of economic opportunity for Hispanics in California, who had a 9.2 percent unemployment rate in August, may become a political issue. The group’s growing influence and tilt toward Democrats has made it hard for Republicans to win statewide office, said Mark Baldassare, chief executive officer of the Public Policy Institute of California, a non-partisan group.

“Economic opportunity and mobility are major issues in California,” Baldassare said. “These are some of the driving factors in why people participate in elections, particularly when they feel like they’ve been left behind.”

Homeownership Rate

Homeownership continues to be a significant source of wealth in the aftermath of the housing crisis, according to a September 2013 study by Harvard University’s Joint Center for (0425290D:US) Housing Studies. Owning a home is consistently linked with increases of as much as $10,000 in net wealth for each year a home is owned, the study said. In contrast, renters generally don’t experience any wealth gains.

The California homeownership rate for Hispanics was 41.9 percent last year, compared with 62.7 percent for non-Hispanic whites, according to the U.S. Census. The Hispanic rate was 47.9 percent in 2006.

The challenge for Hispanics is even greater in California, which is among the nation’s most expensive states for housing. The median price of a single-family home was $480,280 in August, up 8.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the California Association of Realtors (0595651D:US). The U.S. median-priced home was $219,800 in August, the National Association of Realtors reported last week.

San Francisco

The affordability squeeze is most acute in big cities where high-paying jobs have been created during the recovery, driving up housing prices. In the San Francisco Bay area, near the Google Inc. (GOOG:US) and Facebook Inc. (FB:US) headquarters, the Hispanic share of purchase originations fell to 9 percent last year from 25 percent in 2006, according to the Urban Institute analysis.

The portion for Asians grew to 35 percent from 26 percent in the same period. Whites jumped to 53 percent from 41 percent. In the Los Angeles area, which includes Santa Ana, the Hispanic share dropped to 23 percent last year from 46 percent in 2006.

“The recovery itself might be further exacerbating the racial disparities in wealth because the people recovering are more likely to be white and the people scraping by are more likely to be black and Hispanic,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of the national polling and research firm, Latino Decisions. “Where there are opportunities, those loans are being taken up by people already in the middle and upper class.”

Ramos invested in his first house in 1999, a $209,000 duplex at 1052 W. Camile St. in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Ana, according to public records. In 2004, he bought the house two doors away at 1042 W. Camile for $370,000.

Foreclosures Surge

Prices in his ZIP code peaked at a median $604,000 in July 2006, according to real estate information service Corelogic DataQuick. They plunged 60 percent to $240,000 in January 2010 and climbed back to $402,500 as of August.

Easy financing helped people like Ramos acquire homes they couldn’t afford and cash out their equity to take on more debt. When the credit stopped and prices plunged, they lost their property. At least 13 of the 47 homes on Ramos’s block of Camile Street went through foreclosure or sold for a loss since 2007.

Public records show Ramos lost 1042 W. Camile to foreclosure in January 2009 after loading up with at least $437,100 in adjustable-rate loans. He lost the house at 1052 W. Camile in June 2010 with $520,000 in debt. In August 2013, he filed for personal bankruptcy.

“Bankruptcy is really hard.” he said, sitting on his apartment couch as twilight descended. “Some people” — he pointed his finger like a gun to his head — “Pow!”

Tighter Credit

After losing their homes, Californians in particular are struggling to reenter the market as prices soar. In the second quarter, only 30 percent of California households earned enough to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced single-family home, down from 36 percent a year earlier, according to the California Association of Realtors. The U.S. average affordability rate was 57 percent.

Lenders’ requirements of higher credit scores after the housing bubble burst have also reduced the mortgage flow. Tighter credit excluded as many as 1.2 million Americans from buying in 2012 who would have qualified under the pre-bubble standards, Urban Institute’s George said.

“The pendulum has swung too far,” George said.

Credit has been least accessible in hard-hit communities like Santa Ana. Last year, lenders closed only 16 purchase mortgages in Camile Street’s census tract, according to the Urban Institute analysis. There were 123 purchase mortgages in 2005 and 112 in 2006, the peak selling years. More than 80 percent of the area’s borrowers since 2001 were Hispanic.

Wake-Up Call

“I call it a wake-up call,” Gary Acosta, chief executive officer of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate (0594898D:US) Professionals, a national trade association based in San Diego, said of the Urban Institute analysis. “A lot of people Barack Obama owes his second term to are part of the Hispanic voting block. This contingent is going to be important politically as well as economically. Policymakers who are attentive to this issue should be rewarded.”

Many of the new owners in Santa Ana are absentee investors who paid cash, according to Orange County records. Nationwide, cash purchases made up 38 percent of home sales in the second quarter, down from a record high of 42 percent in the first quarter, research firm RealtyTrac reported last month.

U.S. Representative Mark Takano, a Democrat representing a majority Hispanic district in California’s Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, said he’s worried about the number of homes in his neighborhoods that are owned by investors instead of families who have a stake in the community.

Political Issue

“Latinos represent California’s future middle class and there is a political issue here and it is an issue for the Latino community to rally behind: Better policies and opportunities to encourage homeownership,” Takano said.

Julian Castro, a descendant of Mexican immigrants who became the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in July, has said the Federal Housing Administration is working with lenders to ease credit by making it clearer when they’ll have to absorb the costs of soured loans.

Castro will deliver remarks tomorrow at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute session titled “Rebuilding the Minority Middle Class.”

“It’s time to remove the stigma associated with promoting homeownership,” Castro said during a Sept. 16 speech to the Bipartisan Policy Center forum in Washington. “When done responsibly, it strengthens communities and boosts our economy.”

Loosening standards would be risky for low-income borrowers who face challenges if the housing market crashes again, according to Edward Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. They’re now better off waiting for values to drop before purchasing because prices have gotten so high in California, he said.

Risky Loans

“These calls for looser lending are really putting these individuals who tend to be lower income and minority in harm’s way,” Pinto said.

Ramos, the former homeowner, now earns most of his income managing 30 apartments, which are a five-minute walk from Camile Street. His family lives in a unit provided by his employer. Ramos also sells exercise equipment and continues to try to deal houses.

His clients have closed on five homes this year, mostly properties in Riverside County towns like Corona, Moreno Valley and Perris, where the prices are lower and the driving commute to jobs in Santa Ana can stretch two-hours in each direction.

“If I buy, it won’t be here in Santa Ana,” Ramos said.

An investor bought 1042 W. Camile for $182,000 in 2009, less than half what Ramos paid in 2004, according to public records. It sold again in January 2013 for $238,500 to Russell Ghorishy, an engineer and business consultant from Newport Beach, California, who owns three rental homes that went through foreclosure.

“I should’ve bought more,” Ghorishy said.

Camile Street

Ghorishy, an immigrant from Iran, took his two children to Camile Street to show them how the other half lives.

“I want to make sure they don’t take for granted what they have,” he said.

Ramos took his children to Tijuana, Mexico, to show them they had a lot to be thankful for, even after the family’s financial setbacks.

His oldest son, Manuel, is a senior at University of California at Riverside, majoring in economics and finance. Manuel said he learned a lot about real estate from his family’s experience and by working with his father on deals.

“The majority of our clients are Hispanic and they want to buy a house but it’s so difficult,” Manuel, 21, said during an interview in the apartment living room. “In reality, it’s the American dream to own. You don’t want to live in an apartment the rest of your life.”

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

Posted by on September 30, 2014 | | Comments (0)

| |

Latino voter participation in midterm is big question mark

September 29, 2014
By Lisa Hagen

While a record number of Latino voters participated in the 2012 presidential election and helped President Barack Obama win in key states, some analysts said at a panel Monday that they are worried about Latino voter participation in the upcoming midterm election.

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza which hosted the panel, said 31 percent of eligible Latino voters participated in the 2010 midterm election. She said that while voters may be frustrated with the delay of Obama’s executive action on immigration policy, they must continue to vote in every election cycle.

“Poor Hispanic participation in the midterms undermines progress on our policy issues,” Murguia said. “The National Council of La Raza is not encouraging anyone to sit on the sidelines. We are asking our community to vote and participate.”

Matt Barreto, co-founder of the research and polling group Latino Decisions, explained that the turnout rate for the midterm race is unknown including how the Latino vote will impact Senate races that could determine who holds the majority.

“It is unknown how GOP will do among Latino voters and unknown whether Democrats will be able to mobilize at the historic rates they did in 2012,” Barreto said.

Focusing on Texas, he questioned the timeline of when it will become a Latino-influenced state. He said that Latinos are 30 percent of eligible voters in Texas, but in the 2012 election, 22 percent of eligible Latino voters participated.

He said there were 2.6 million Latinos registered to vote in Texas while there were 2.2 million eligible Latino voters who were not registered.

Compared to other voting bases, Barreto added that there is a lack of outreach to Latinos from campaigns and politicians to encourage them to come to the polls.

In Latino Decisions’ 2012 poll of likely voters, he said 25 percent of Latino voters in Texas received a call from a campaign encouraging them to vote, the lowest outreach of any state the group surveyed.

Jessica Reeves, director of marketing and partnerships for Voto Latino, a group that encourages registration for Latino youth, said one way her group has helped register eligible Latino voters is through an online voter registration, especially in Texas where voters are required to have approved forms of photo identification.

If the Latino vote continues to grow and campaigns conduct more outreach to engage these communities, Barreto said Texas has a real chance of becoming a purple state in the next few election cycles.

“It’s going to take good candidates to do that outreach to do that,” Barreto said. “If that’s not going to happen, it’s always going to be, ‘Texas could be competitive in 10 years.’ ”

Barreto said he’s beginning to see that effort in Texas, estimating that the state’s increased competitiveness may take two election cycles.

“I think you’re starting to see (serious investments and exciting candidates),” Barreto said. “I think if there’s more effort in 2016, then by 2018, it could be a surprise year and if not, then the next.”

Source: The Houston Chronicle

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Current Affairs | | Comments (0)

| |

Grand Rapids will be 25 percent Latino by 2040, predicts USC demographer

September 29, 2014
By Garret Ellison

After giving a serious presentation filled with demographic data that paints a clear picture of the ethnic makeup of the “Next America,” Manuel Pastor keyed-up a slide that compared the surveyed popularity of the U.S. Congress to getting a colonoscopy, a root canal or having head lice.

Perhaps not surprisingly, each of those awful things was more popular than Congress, which has been mired in single digit approval ratings for years.

The slide got a big laugh, but Pastor, a prominent demographer and sociologist with the University of Southern California, was not on stage for comedy.

The numbers speak to the increasing political polarization and the American people’s shaken faith in institutions, which Pastor characterized as a hurdle that’s driving people further apart at a time when so many large, important issues facing society today require they find a way to come together.

“We have moved from broadcast to narrow-cast,” Pastor said. “We’re just getting information that reinforces what we already think. In part, that’s causing a real challenge in term of being able to agree on what has to happen.”

Pastor was in Grand Rapids for several appearances this last week. On Wednesday, Sept. 24, he gave a well-attended talk at the Wealthy Theatre, sponsored by Spectrum Health, about changing demographics in the U.S., Michigan and Grand Rapids.

Future U.S. a 'majority-minority' nation

Based on U.S. Census data, demographers like Pastor predict that by 2043, the U.S. will be a “majority-minority” nation in which the majority of workers will be African Americans, Latinos and Asian Pacific Islanders.

The national level demographic shifting can be seen in West Michigan, where minorities dominated multiple categories of population growth over the past decade while the Caucasian population has either fallen or leveled-out.

The Latino and Pacific Islander populations in particular are surging on a local, statewide and national level, said Pastor. Populations of both ethnicities nationwide have grown by 43 percent during the period measured by the 2010 Census. In Michigan, the Latino population grew by 35 percent in that time, while the Caucasian and African American populations shrunk.

The change is not being driven by immigration, Pastor said, but rather births to immigrants and people of a non-white background already living in the U.S.

“Immigration is slowing down and has been for the last 3, 4 years,” Pastor said, due in part to economic troubles in the U.S., better border enforcement over time, improving economies in Latin American countries and a “sea change” in fertility rates of women in Mexico.

In Grand Rapids, Pastor projected that by 2040, nearly a quarter of the city’s population will be Latino, and “it’s now spilling outside the city into the suburbs.”

Demographic shifting stressing economic inequality

The demographic shifting is resulting in a generation gap that’s exacerbating societal divisions, he said. The median age of Caucasians in Michigan is 42, but for Latinos it's 24. Pastor said older people are generally neglecting to make investments necessary for the benefit of subsequent generations.

“Even as were seeing the ‘Next America’ come to us, we’re seeing an America marked by a high level of income inequality,” Pastor said.

In Michigan, poverty has surged in the suburbs. Grand Rapids saw its suburban poor increase nearly 88 percent since the 2000 census. In the Detroit Metro area, the increase was closer to 115 percent. All of the state’s 14 congressional districts saw an increase, a trend reflected elsewhere in the industrial Midwest.

Pastor contrasted the poverty statistics with a slide showing data on average CEO pay, which is now 200 times the average income of workers. In 1960, it was 20 times.

The increasing diversity and poverty in American suburbs was highlighted recently by the racial-tinged strife in Fergusen, Mo., where disparities between the ethnic makeup of the community and the city’s police force have been heavily criticized.

In 2012, "severe income inequality" was identified as the biggest global risk by a panel of experts assembled by the World Economic Forum. Standard & Poors analysts are now warning that rising income inequality is undermining the growth of tax revenue in across the country.

“This inequality will reproduce itself unless we do something about it going forward,” Pastor said.

Pastor said the way to begin reversing the trend is to frame economic policies around bridging generations and demographics. Speak to the aspirations of young African Americans and Latinos, he said. Invest in education. Stress equity and inclusion.

“We are pitting old America against the Next America,” he said. “We are pitting city against suburb, one party against another, our past against our future. We need to realize when all the pieces fit together seamlessly, we get the tapestry of what’s long been considered the American Dream.”

Source: M Live

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Hispanic Market Size | | Comments (0)

| |

Groups Register Fewer Latinos than Hoped; Optimistic About Turnout

September 29, 2014
By Suzanne Gamboa

A national Latino voter registration campaign launched by two leading Hispanic groups is falling short of its goal, a possible indication of how Latino voting will fare in November’s elections.

The $5 million register-by-mail campaign announced in January by National Council of La Raza and Mi Familia Vota sought to register 250,000 in at least seven states. The campaign had registered about 80,000 as of Monday and another 10,000 more were expected, Janet Murgúia, NCLR president and CEO., said.

Even so, advocates spoke optimistically about the Latino electorate's potential for impact in next month's elections, but moderated their hope with some warnings of "headwinds" that could affect turnout.

Clarissa Martinez De Castro, an NCLR deputy vice president, said the voter registration goal of 250,000 was “extremely ambitious,” but that the more than 80,000 registered exceeds the mark for registrations in 2012, a presidential year.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) has projected a Latino turnout in November of 7.8 million, a 17.9 percent increase from the 6.6 million Latinos who voted in 2010, a number the group is sticking with. Martinez repeated that projection.

Arturo Vargas, NALEO executive director, said the number is very conservative and recognizes that much of the 2014 growth is driven by population growth, he said.

Since the 2010 midterms, another 4 million Latinos are eligible to vote. That means that there are 25.1 million, 17.9 percent, more Latinos eligible to vote this election, said in a phone interview Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic research at Pew Hispanic Center.

Because there are more Latinos eligible to vote, more Latino voters are likely to turn out this November. But the share that turn out could be about 32 percent, about the same as in 2010, Lopez said. In addition, there could be a larger number of Latinos not voting, he said. In 2012, a year of record turnout for Latinos, more Latinos eligible to vote stayed home than went to the polls.

“Keep in mind the strong headwinds this community is facing,” Martinez said.

She said beyond the president’s immigration decision, Latino voters are affected by voter ID laws, political campaigns who do not invest in voter registration, decreases in voter registration resources from non-partisan sectors and lack of outreach from both parties.

Matt Barretto, co-founder of the polling and research firm Latino Decisions and co-author of a newly-published book on the Latino vote, said there are a number of unknowns going into 2014, such as how the GOP will do with Latinos and whether Democrats will be able to mobilize the vote.

“I think we are entering an election where there haven’t been as many unknowns (about the Latino vote), especially as we contrast that to 2012,” Barretto said.

But there are places where Latinos are expected to have influence, such as in congressional districts where races may be decided by 2 to 4 percentage points. The number of Latino eligible voters is higher than those points in those states, he said. Latino voters could have impact in 14 GOP districts and 10 Democratic, he said.

In addition, Latinos could have influence in four of 7 competitive Senate races, including possibly Kansas, where an independent may unseat the Republican incumbent. Also, Latinos could have influence in nine gubernatorial races, he said.

“What are the campaigns doing? Are they reaching out and trying to get every Latino vote.”

Latino Decisions' Gary Segura, said Latinos potentially could have influence another way, by not voting.

It would be an act of influence for a Latino voter to decide not to vote for Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina when Obama delayed acting on immigration to help Hagan win, he said.

“You could argue that in any instance where a Latino-preferred candidate loses, and that Latino community turned out in smaller numbers because of that disillusionment, that Latino still did make a difference,” Segura said. “The decision not to vote is still a political decision.”

To which Murguía later said: "National Council of La Raza is not encouraging anyone to sit on the sidelines."

Source: NBC News

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Current Affairs | | Comments (0)

| |

Hispanic Millennials, Not What You Think

September 29, 2014
By Karl Greenberg

Hispanic Millennials are the second-largest group of Spanish-speaking Americans, and 17% of total U.S. Millennials. And the median age of Hispanic Americans is 27 to 37.

Full-service diversity agency Pinta, comprising “cultural interpreters” delivering research-based strategies, tapped business school students at Florida International University to look at third-party research on Hispanic Millennial cultural identity and habits.

Joe Gutierrez, head of strategic planning and managing director of the agency, shared the stage at Advertising Week with the agency's CEO, Mike Valdes-Fauli, to reveal the findings, among which is that this younger demographic of bilingual, bicultural Americans is very home oriented, with 20% living in multi-generation homes, and they are big spenders, laying out 50% more on CPGs than non-Hispanic Millennials (NHM). In the first quarter this year, car sales grew 13% among the cohort.

"And they have a big influence on family purchase decisions," said Gutierrez, adding that 22% of Hispanic Millennials help with family finances versus 9% of NHM; and they assist elders in their homes with language and with maneuvering the U.S. system.

"So at an early age they are aware of adult issues, and they also have children earlier." And, he said, they view close friends as extended family way more often than do NHM's. The are also entrepreneurial by nature, partly because they are optimistic and already involved in their own households. "Hispanic-owned businesses are growing at twice the rate of the general market," he said.  

"Generally, they are more optimistic about their own futures and less doubtful about the integrity of the systems of government, because their parents' nations of origin probably have corrupt governments," he said, adding that they are early adopters, with 54% using mobile, and 40% are mobile-only versus 9% of NHM's.

Brands, he noted, should consider relationships with influencers because HM's over-index for direct contact with actors, artists and brands via social media. "And television is very important," he said, adding that one third of TV viewing time is on Hispanic media.

Valdes-Fauli said because of the strong identity of Millennial Hispanics as bicultural, it's a big mistake to simply address Hispanic marketing language and superficial connections with Hispanic culture when speaking to them. "Sixty-seven percent of Hispanic Millennials want to stand out and be recognized as Hispanic, and close to 70%, regardless of language, are focused on Latino culture and reward brands that acknowledge that.

"Hispanics may resemble the mass market more than the do their parents. In fact they don't resemble their parents much, and they aren't the general market," said Valdes-Fauli. "They were once defined as Hispanic by language and culture, now they are Hispanic by choice. So they shouldn't be an afterthought; but they are at the center of your brand. It's no longer a specialized segment. They are a revenue driver."

Source: MediaPost

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Hispanic Culture | | Comments (0)

| |

Trouble with alcohol varies among Hispanics

September 29, 2014
By Sarina Gleason, Michigan State University

New research untangles Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban-American subgroups from overall alcohol use data about Hispanics.

The study indicates that the risk of alcohol abuse and dependence can vary significantly among these different subgroups.

Using pre-existing national data that looked at the incident rate of alcohol use disorders over a period of time, Carlos F. Ríos-Bedoya of Michigan State University reports that the annual incidence rate isn’t the same among all Hispanics and prevention efforts shouldn’t be the same either.

“The problem is major lifestyle and migration differences among these subgroups aren’t taken into account in most of the survey data that’s been collected,” says Ríos-Bedoya, an assistant professor in the College of Human Medicine. “The result is an inaccurate picture of this population.”




Hispanics are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States and often have been identified as having a higher risk for alcoholism.

Yet, Ríos-Bedoya counters that stereotype, showing that one group in particular, Cuban-Americans, has the lowest incidence rate—less than one percent—among their counterparts. They also are half as likely to develop a drinking problem than non-Hispanic whites.

“Cuban-Americans typically come into America as political refugees with no threat of immigration laws and have been able to thrive and become part of mainstream society,” Ríos-Bedoya says.

“They don’t face as much adversity as, say, Mexican-Americans, who often cross the border illegally and find themselves with little to no options to become part of the mainstream.”

His study indicates the annual incidence rate of alcohol abuse among Mexican- Americans is more than twice that of Caucasians, with Puerto Ricans showing almost three times the risk.

“Even though Puerto Ricans are born US citizens and have easy access back and forth between countries, they have a much higher risk factor in part because drinking starts at an earlier age and is a larger part of their culture growing up,” Ríos-Bedoya says.

The legal drinking age in Puerto Rico is 18 years old.

Ríos-Bedoya indicates that alcohol use is one of the most prevalent disorders in the United States and also one of the most costly, with more than $6 billion spent on treatment and prevention each year.

He also adds that since birth rates are among the highest across the nation within the Hispanic population, it’s important to introduce preventive measures early and develop programs that are specific to each group’s differences.

“The onset of this problem starts in young adolescence so it’s important that we start early,” he says.

“Although treatment is important, developing preventive measures that fit each group’s culture is what could be the most effective all around.”

Source: Futurity

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Hispanic Health | | Comments (0)

| |

Hispanic voter buck assumptions, back GA GOP candidates

September 29, 2014
By Doug Richards

The crowds of Spanish-speaking shoppers that fill DeKalb County's Plaza Fiesta also give Georgia Democrats a measure of hope for this election. With Georgia's Hispanic population growing, Democrats hope non-white voters will help them surprise Republicans in November.

But the assumption that Hispanic voters will support Democrats may be flawed, according to an 11Alive News poll released last week.

The poll showed the race for governor between Democrat Jason Carter and Republican Nathan Deal to be neck-and-neck. But the poll showed Hispanic voters backing Gov. Deal 40 to 29 percent.

Same thing in the senate race. Hispanic voters surveyed backed Republican David Perdue 44 percent to 32 percent for Democrat Michelle Nunn,

The poll of 550 voters sampled fewer than 40 Hispanic voters, proportionate to the amount of expected Hispanic voter turnout.

"We tend to vote more for candidate than party," said Antonio Molina, chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party's Latino Caucus. But Molina concedes that GOP family and religious issues appeal to many Hispanic voters.

"We know that there are things within the Republican Party that might seem appealing to Latinos," Molina said

The numbers have meaning beyond this election. Democrats have been counting on the growth of Hispanic voters to help flip Georgia from a red state into a purple or blue state in a decade or so.

"But if Republicans can tap into just a certain amount of Latino voters — it doesn't have to be a majority, but a certain, solid 20-30% –they can be competitive in statewide elections forever," said Dr. Kerwin Swint, chairman of the political science department at Kennesaw State University.

The Democrats would like to thwart that. The numbers suggest it won't be easy.

Source: WXIA 11 Alive

Posted by on September 30, 2014 in Current Affairs | | Comments (0)

| |

Next »

HT via Email



Categories

Recent Comments

Archives

More…

Recent Posts

September 2015

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30      

Analytics


Hispanic Trending

Promote Your Page Too