HispanicTrending

May 30, 2008
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ

Move over Obama girl.

More than 20 stars from the Latin music and film community released a Spanish-language video in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Thursday, days before Puerto Rico’s primary.

The video, "Podemos con Obama," or "We can With Obama," features such Puerto Ricans as actor John Leguizamo and hip hop artist Don Omar, and international pop stars Alejandro Sanz and Paulina Rubio. Actors George Lopez and Jessica Alba also participated.

The video comes as Obama seeks to woo Hispanic voters, who generally have preferred rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries.

Obama, who is closing in on the Democratic nomination, also is looking ahead to a general election where many Hispanics who tend to favor Democrats may consider Republican John McCain because he supports allowing those in the U.S. illegally to eventually become citizens.

Produced by Andres Levin, the video was inspired by one he made earlier this year Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, titled "We Are The Ones," and unveiled just before the Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio in March. Both Alba and Lopez also participated in that ad.

The video opens with Spanish text that says President Bush was re-elected in 2004 by roughly 3.5 million votes, and that 8 million Hispanics who were eligible to vote did not.

"Your vote makes all the difference," the video says before Sanz appears playing guitar.

Clinton is favored to win Puerto Rico’s primary Sunday, but how well Obama does could signal how much work he has to do win over the broader Hispanic community. Last week, he gave a policy speech on Latin America in which he restated his willingness to meet Cuban President Raul Castro under certain conditions. He also said he would immediately allow relatives to travel to and send money to the island.

Clinton’s campaign touts her long history with Puerto Rico, and with Hispanic voters generally. The claim comes with the implicit correlation that many will not vote for Obama, who is black, because of tensions between the two communities in some parts of the U.S. over jobs and other resources.

But in a sign of the complicated racial and ethnic politics at play, many of the Hispanic artists in the video also are black.

About half the artists are U.S. citizens, but the inclusion of people like Sanz, a Spaniard, and Mexico’s Rubio is nod to the influence of Latin cultural icons across borders and to the continued ties between Hispanics in the U.S. and Latin America.

"The Latino voting community in the states is very wide, and there are many age groups," Levin said. "Every different artist in the video has a completely different fan base, so I hope everyone who sees it will identify with their favorite artist."

Source: AP

May 29, 2008
By BOB DEANS

A record 11.9 million Hispanic-Americans will vote in this year’s presidential elections, a staggering 59 percent more than cast ballots in 2004, a progressive think tank estimated on Wednesday.

With nearly eight in ten Hispanic voters backing Democrats over Republicans in presidential primaries this year, the Latino vote could swing several key battleground states come November, said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network.

"This is a community that is much more Democratic than it was in 2004 and is going to be voting in much greater numbers," Rosenberg told reporters during the release of a report by the organization looking at the growing political heft of Hispanic voters. "It is a new day. Hispanics are poised to play a very major role in the 2008 elections."

Energized by the heated rhetoric on immigration, the study found, Hispanic-Americans have voted in record numbers during this year’s presidential primaries. Their impact could be felt heavily in several swing states with large Hispanic populations, including Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.

"The immigration debate has fundamentally altered the desire for civic participation in the Hispanic community," said Rosenberg. "They are blaming the Republican Party for the anti-immigration sentiment, the anti-immigration rhetoric in America today."

In Florida primaries, Hispanics have made up 12 percent of the total vote, up from 9 percent in the 2004 presidential primaries, according to independent exit poll data the NDN has assembled.

In California, Hispanics have accounted for 29 percent of all votes in this year’s primaries, up from 16 percent in 2004.

Even in the heartland, Hispanic voting is up. Hispanics comprised 4 percent of all voters in this year’s presidential primaries in Ohio, up from 3 percent in the 2004 primaries.

In Georgia, Hispanics made up 3 percent of all voters in this year’s presidential primaries, unchanged from 2004.

And Hispanic voting has trended heavily Democratic.

In 2006, 69 percent of Hispanic voters backed Democratic candidates, with just 30 percent voting for Republicans. That was a marked shift from the 2004 elections, when GOP candidates drew 40 percent Hispanic support and Democrats received 59 percent of Hispanic votes.

The Hispanic flight to the Democratic Party has continued this year. Of the 4.6 million Hispanics who have voted in this year’s presidential primaries, 78 percent have backed Democrats, while 22 percent have supported Republicans, according to exit poll data assembled by NDN.

In some states, Hispanics are voting overwhelmingly for Democrats.

In Texas, 88 percent of Hispanic voters backed a Democrat in this year’s primaries. In California, 80 percent of California Hispanics voted Democratic. In Georgia, 62 percent of Hispanic voters backed a Democrat, with 38 percent voting Republican, exit polls showed. And in Ohio, 81 percent voted for Democrats.

It’s a dramatic reversal from the 2004 elections, when George W. Bush won a second term in the White House with 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, said Andres Ramirez, vice president for Hispanic programs with NDN.

"Right now the GOP is nowhere near that level," said Ramirez. That’s a problem for the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, who hopes his Arizona background will help him with Hispanics.

"He needs to claw his way back up to 40 percent," said Ramirez. "I’m not sure he’ll be able to do that."

McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky countered that McCain was reelected to the Senate in 2004 with the backing of some 70 percent of Hispanic voters in Arizona, according to exit polls, and that his positions on immigration, national security, education and the economy continue to resonate among Latinos.

McCain has made three television ads in Spanish, including a Memorial Day release that focused on the contributions Hispanics have made to the U.S. military.

"He’s well-positioned and we are making a strong appeal for support among Latinos and feel he can do well," said Sadosky.

A Hispanic population boom is fueling the most profound American demographic shift, said Rosenberg, since successive waves of European immigrants overwhelmed native Americans in the 16th and 17th centuries.

There are 45.5 million people of Hispanic origin in this country, according to 2007 U.S. Census Bureau data. Hispanic-Americans now make up 15 percent of the population – eclipsing African-Americans, at 13 percent, as the largest U.S. minority – and are on track to hit 29 percent of the population by the year 2050.

Of those, 29 million are adults, roughly 13 million of whom are registered to vote. Unprecedented voter registration efforts within the Hispanic community, however, are likely to drive up that number to 14 million by November, said Rosenberg. Combining that number with recent voter participation levels, he said, means that 11.9 million Hispanics will likely vote in the general elections, up from 7.5 million in 2004.

Source: Marshall News Messenger

May 29, 2008
by Ina Jaffe

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has struggled to win over Hispanic voters who know and like his opponent Hillary Clinton. Now, as Obama looks forward to Sunday’s Puerto Rico primary, and possibly the general election, his campaign is redoubling its efforts to connect with the Hispanic community.

Listen Now.

Source: NPR

May 30, 2008
Source: Los Angeles Times

Top of the Ticket notes that Hillary Clinton has won the endorsement of U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and Menudo alum Ricky Martin, just days before the Puerto Rico primary. Martin is a Puerto Rico native who has evidently changed his political preferences since he shimmied with George W. Bush in 2001. (He said Bush’s going to war made him switch; guess he didn’t mind Clinton’s vote on that matter.)

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has launched a campaign ad that’s winning him praise (some of it faint) for his Spanish-speaking skills. It’s not the first Spanish-language ad by either of the Democratic candidates (who also have Spanish-language pages), but it is the first time we’ve heard Obama speak the language at length. Clinton has attempted snippets of Spanish in the past, without much success. That puts her in line with many candidates past, but it probably won’t hurt her — it’s usually (mis)translations that raise controversy, not simple statements, however flubbed.

So a shout-out from a native son might be what Clinton needs, as long as Obama doesn’t convince Daddy Yankee to end mounting speculation on his political preferences.

May 30, 2008
Source: KMBC-TV

Black drivers are more likely to be stopped in Missouri than white and Hispanic motorists, but minorities are twice as likely to be searched and arrested than whites.

An annual state report released Friday by the attorney general’s office shows that in 2007, black drivers were 66 percent more likely to be pulled over than white motorists. A Hispanic driver was slightly more likely to be pulled over than a white one.

White drivers accounted for nearly 80 percent of the more than 1.5 million stops in 2007. But based on their share in the state’s driving-age population, white motorists were stopped less frequently and black drivers more often than would have been expected, the report said. Hispanics were pulled over in line with their share of the driving-age population.

For all races the number of stopped motorists declined slightly from the 1.6 million in 2006. Of those total stops, about 8 percent of the vehicles were searched and 6 percent resulted in an arrest.

The report is based on data from the state’s more than 700 law enforcement agencies. Police report a driver’s race, age and gender; the reason for the stop; and if a ticket was issued. Data was collected from all but 22 police forces. Police departments that do not report their statistics on time can have state funding withheld by the governor’s office.

The first racial-profiling report covered traffic stops in 2000.

The annual reports show that black drivers were pulled over more disproportionately in 2007 than in 2006, but they were less likely to be searched or arrested this past year. Hispanic motorists were more likely to be searched and arrested in 2007, but in 2006 they were pulled over with greater frequency than would be expected based on their share of the population. Data for whites remained largely unchanged between the two years.

Hispanic drivers in 2007 were searched more often than anyone else, nearly 15 percent of the times they were pulled over. That compares with 12 percent of stopped black motorists and 7 percent of white drivers.

Even though searched the least, white drivers were the most likely to be found with contraband in their vehicles — almost one time for every four vehicle searches.

Minority motorists also were far more likely to be arrested. About 11 percent of Hispanic drivers pulled over were arrested — compared with 9 percent for blacks and 5 percent for whites.