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February 2011 posts

A multiracial, multicultural America: Get used to it

February 27, 2011
By JOEL CONNELLY

Resentment of immigrants is the darker side of the American dream. The ugliness reared its head with “Irish Need Not Apply” signs of the 1840’s, and today with Sheriff Joe’s raids for illegals in greater Phoenix.

The country was a magnet, however, then and now. King Canute could no more roll back waves than nativists can prevent the United States’ evolution into a multi-racial, multi-cultural nation.

Not that some would not try, blinded by reality. Some of TVW’s most riveting daytime programs have been throw-out-the-illegals floor debates on platform resolutions at Republican state conventions. The Chicago Sun-Times was deluged with hate mail after it ran a news series on the Windy City’s expanding Hispanic populations.


“They’re inundating us!” missives arrive not infrequently in my e-mail box from a once-sensible Seattle friend resettled in Arizona.

But I’m drawn to a recent study, “A Tipping Point Among America’s Three-Year-Olds” from William Frey of The Brookings Institution.

Its title finding: White kids are now a minority, 49.9 percent, of Americans aged 3 and younger. In the District of Columbia and eight states, the pre-K and kindergarten populations are already minority majority.

Whites are still a 58.8 percent majority of all school enrollment (pre-K through grad school) but the percentage has taken a sharp dip from 64.6 percent just 10 years ago.

Throw them out? ‘Won’t make much difference.

“These dramatic shifts in the child population result from the aging and low fertility rates of whites, coupled with immigration and often higher fertility rates of younger Hispanics and other minority groups,” Frey writes. “Today, most Hispanic growth is due to births to U.S. families rather than immigration.”

An eye-popping example of the trend: Only 42 percent of Arizona residents under the age of 18 are whilte, while 83 percent of Grand Canyon State folk over 65 are white. Or as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., once said in a joke he regretted, “Leisure World? You mean ‘Seizure World’.”

California, our most populous state (37.5 million) is now majority-minority. Texas is moving in that direction. Far from the border, in suburban New Jersey, the 2010 Census shows more than three in ten young people are either Hispanic or Asian.

The trend is apparent on both sides of Washington’s “Cascade Curtain.” The state’s Latino community grew rapidly in the last decade, to more than 750,000 people or 11 percent of the Evergreen State’s populations. The Asian-American population in Washington grew by 50 percent to nearly half-a-million.

Two-counties in Eastern Washington — Franklin and Adams — are now majority Hispanic.

Immediate questions are political:

How will the State Redistricting Commission treat the rising Hispanic population? Will Hispanics FINALLY register to vote in such numbers as to displace the Cro-Magnon local burgers who run things in Eastern Washington? Will the Republican Party try to keep our land as white as it can, or court a Hispanic population with strong families ties and traditional values.

“Even if immigration stopped tomorrow, we will achieve a national minority majority child population by 2050 (by around 2023 if current immigration trends continue),” Frey writes.

The country, and Washington and Seattle, is at a fork in the road. We have a challenge of figuring out — fast — how to improve education for minority and English-as-second language kids who traditionally lag in our schools.

Congress needs to enact the DREAM Act as a path to citizenship for children of illegals who achieve in our education system and serve their country in the military. By their lives they are proving exemplars of the American dream.

This is not something to dread so much as an opportunity, the same as it was when the Irish and Italians and Slavs reached our shores.

“In a world where other developed countries are struggling with aging populations and shrinking workforces (think Japan) we can be grateful for the contributions that waves of first, second and third generations of Americans from Latin America, Africa and Asia are poised to make,” Frey writes.

“Their youth, vitality and new ideas will serve to reinvigorate our workforce and communities in ways akin to the positive influences of earlier immigrants and their descendants.”

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer

Posted by on February 28, 2011 in Hispanic Culture, Hispanic Market Size | | Comments (0)

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Concurso de deletreo’ draws record participants

02/26/2011
By Ryan Boetel

Instructions, programs and informational pamphlets were all in Spanish at Bluffview Elementary School’s “concurso de deletreo.”

That’s Spanish for spelling bee.

The Spanish-language bee is an annual event across New Mexico. The bees operate similar to English-language spelling bees, save for the different alphabet and dictionary.

Bluffview hosted a Spanish-language spelling bee Friday afternoon, which pitted 66 third- through fifth-graders against each other.


Bluffview has one of the highest percentages of students who are bilingual or classified as English Language Learners in the Farmington school district.

The school has a Spanish and Navajo bilingual program that has more than doubled in the last three years. And Anglo children represent a growing number of the influx of students, said Jennifer Martinez-Padilla, the bilingual coordinator at the school.

Slightly more than 50 percent of Bluffview students are English language learners and 60 percent of students are in the bilingual program, she said.

The bilingual program is 45 minutes of instruction per day. Students whose first language isn’t English have priority, and remaining seats in the classes can be taken by English-speaking students, Martinez-Padilla said.

“We do the same thing as language arts does, we do grammar, we do comprehension skills,” she said. “But we use the Hispanic culture to get the point across.” There is also a Navajo-language bilingual program at the school that had a spelling bee this year, she said.

The top three spellers in each school’s bee will compete in the district meet March 11 at the Office of Indian Education in Farmington. Two winners from that will go to state, where the top-finishers earn scholarships.

The number of students in Martinez-Padilla’s Spanish bilingual program went from around 60 students three years ago to 140 students this year.

The number of children saying “hola” and “buenos dias” in the hallways also increased during that time, she said.

“It brings down the cultural barriers,” she said. “It allows the children to be tri-cultural. They learn a respect for all cultures.”

Other teachers have noticed an increase in the number of mixed-race groups of friends at the school since the bilingual program’s popularity increased, Martinez-Padilla said.

“The environment of the school is definitely changing. Teachers are seeing the effects in their classrooms,” she said. “There aren’t as many cliques, students are intermixing.”

Daniel Contreras, a bilingual fifth-grader at Bluffview, said he’s noticed an increase in the number of Anglo and American Indian students who are starting to learn Spanish at the school.

“There’s any kind, we have Mexicans, Americans, Native Americans,” he said of his Spanish class. “I got a friend that talks English and she didn’t know Spanish but now she knows because she took the class.”

The students in bilingual Spanish programs are at varying levels of Spanish proficiency. Contreras said Hispanic students like having Anglo students take the class with them, and they think it’s funny when they mess up the words.

“You laugh,” he said. “You have a good time with them.”

Source: Daily Times

Posted by on February 28, 2011 in Language | | Comments (0)

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Latinos vote for self-interest, not color of skin

February 26, 2011
By Esther Cepeda

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it: Latinos don’t vote based on ethnicity or on the immigration stance of any given candidate. Like all informed voters, they cast ballots based on self-interest. Nowhere was this played out more clearly than in last Tuesday’s Chicago mayoral race.

The contest was supposedly a litmus test for racial and ethnic power in this historically segregated town once called “Beirut by the Lake” after political battles between machine aldermen and a liberal coalition of mostly black and Hispanic aldermen following the 1983 election of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor.


Into the ring stepped Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff, who stood to become the city’s first Jewish mayor.

He was joined by no less than three African-American candidates who began their campaigns at the last possible minute after a failed attempt to have black leaders nominate a “consensus candidate” to rally behind. Two of them aspired to become the city’s first African-American female mayor.

And then there were the two Latino candidates. Both of whom, yes, wanted to become Chicago’s first Hispanic mayor.

One was a soft-spoken Puerto Rico native with a long history of serving diverse constituents while championing Latino issues. The other, a longtime machine politician with strong ties to outgoing Mayor Richard Daley, was dubbed the de facto white candidate by one local commentator because in all his time in city politics, the son of a Mexican-American father and a Greek-Lithuanian mother had not identified himself with the city’s Latino community.

Even before this playing field was set, the local and national media were writing and talking about the possibility of citywide racial and ethnic animosity. To read some of these reports, you might have wondered whether race riots between the city’s 32 percent white, 32 percent black and 29 percent Latino residents would break out in the streets.

In the final weeks of the race, the air was thick with talk about which candidate was more immigrant-friendly, as if it weren’t a documented fact that nationally, Latinos are more concerned about education, jobs, health care, and the federal deficit than immigration. In Chicago, crime ranks high as well.

Well, by now we know that Emanuel won a sweeping victory, with 55 percent of the electorate, getting 325,413 votes. More to my point, he garnered nearly 130,000 more votes than both Latino candidates.

Sure, Latino voters want to make history by electing the “First Latino”-fill-in-the-blank. And immigration is an important issue to this minority group. But the “Latino vote” will settle for no less than a candidate they feel is qualified to tackle all the issues that loom large in their lives despite his or her immigration views.

That’s the lesson as we gear up for the 2012 elections. It’s crucial for political parties and candidates to re-evaluate Latino voter stereotypes and understand that Hispanics are not driven solely by ethnic solidarity or immigration concerns. They’re no less interested in the economy, health and education systems, and global competitiveness than other voting blocs.

Any candidate who wants to engage a Latino voter had better concentrate on being the best qualified and most competent to tackle the nation’s challenges before trying to appeal to a presumed cultural identity.

Source: Lubbock Online

Posted by on February 28, 2011 in Current Affairs, Hispanic Culture | | Comments (0)

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We need 14 million more Hispanic degrees

February 23, 2011
by Frank Alvarez

As Hispanic Americans watch the batches of data flow out from the U.S. Census Bureau we have both a sense of pride and anxiety. Pride in our contributions to American society and anxiety about the corresponding challenges we face, especially in the area of higher education.

The 2010 census is showing that Hispanics are playing an increasingly important role in communities all over the U.S. The Hispanic population in Arkansas increased by 114 percent in the last 10 years and now stands at 186,050. In Mississippi, our numbers since 2000 have increased 106 percent to 81,481.

Our historically large population in Texas is now at 9 million, or 38 percent of the state’s entire population. Hispanics comprise 48 percent of Texans under the age of 18 and they all hope to play an important role in America’s future in some way or another.

The path to a successful future has often included a college education. The reality is the U.S. Latino degree attainment rate stands at 19 percent — much lower than it should be. Our goal is to move this to 60 percent by 2025 in order to meet the college attainment goals set forth for all Americans by President Obama and supporters like Lumina Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That means 14 million more Hispanic two- and four-year degree holders in the next 14 years.


Together with our partners, we aim to create the movement that can help meet this goal. We know Hispanic culture revolves around the family and we know the decisions made by an older brother or sister have an impact on the younger ones. If we can influence, urge and aid that older sibling to go on the college path, he or she will be a springboard to help the younger ones take the same journey.

We’re calling this idea Generation 1st Degree because it’s focused on getting Latinos and Latinas to earn the family’s first college degree.

Here is some research we conducted about the difference this effort can make:

· An increase in Latinos with college degrees to 60 percent will lead to a significant increase in Latino lifetime earnings–from the current $24 trillion to $47 trillion (in today’s dollars) by 2025.

· These increased earnings will result in an estimated $2.2 trillion increase in federal tax revenue that will help all Americans

We know our Generation 1st Degree idea can work because we already see it in action every day.

Let me share with you the story of Lisa Pino. She comes from an immigrant family that had limited means. Paying for college and law school was a continual struggle and she often had to sell clothes and furniture just to make ends meet during her studies. Sometimes she skipped meals.

We helped Lisa with financial aid — sometimes as little as $1,000 a year — but it made a difference. Lisa graduated and advanced in her career. She now serves as the Deputy Administrator of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Food and Nutrition Service for U.S. Department of Agriculture in D.C.

Even more importantly, Lisa is giving back by mentoring Hispanic students and working on civil rights priorities as well as addressing obesity in the Hispanic community. For instance, she created a national roundtable tour that dealt with nutrition access among communities of color.

Lisa is the type of person behind these Census numbers. There are millions more like her. The choice is ours as to how to meet the challenge as a country and as individuals.

Source: Washington Post

Posted by on February 24, 2011 in Hispanic Education | | Comments (0)

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Latinos call for time-out on immigration bills

Feb 23 2011
By Lee Davidson

Latino leaders and lawmakers called Wednesday on the Legislature to stop pushing bills for two years that target illegal immigration and give Congress a chance to adopt national solutions.

“No matter what we do in this state, it’s not going to change the dynamic of immigration nationally,” said Senate Minority Leader Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City. He introduced SJR18 to formally call for a time-out on immigration-related bills. It is scheduled for a hearing Thursday morning.


“It is not a fix to have a patchwork of state involvement in this issue,” he said.

He was supported at a Capitol news conference by former U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman. “Congress needs to take this issue as its No. 1 priority and recognize the impact that its failure to act is having on each individual state,” Tolman said.

Several Latino leaders also joined in support. Archie Archuleta, president of the Utah Coalition of La Raza, said Romero’s resolution is needed “to brook this huge tsunami-like wave of anti-immigration” efforts in the Legislature.

He added, “This is a federal issue. … It is time to put immigration law where it rightfully belongs: in the hand of Congress and the president. Stop the waste of resources and brain power on rat-hole legislation.”

Romero’s resolution faces long odds of passing, considering it criticizes a variety of legislation that is progressing toward passage.

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

Posted by on February 24, 2011 in Immigration | | Comments (0)

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Business leaders, Latino advocates speak out against immigration bills

February 23, 2011
By Melissa Weinman

A Senate committee on immigration heard hours of impassioned testimony Tuesday about how proposed immigration legislation would adversely affect the business community.

A room mostly filled with opponents of the immigration bills in the Georgia House and Senate spoke to the five senators on the committee about how immigration legislation would worsen the economy and create difficulties for Latinos.

The Georgia General Assembly is looking at legislation similar to the controversial Arizona immigration law.

The bills propose strengthening the enforcement of federal immigration programs; giving incentives to state and local police to participate in federal immigration enforcement programs such as 287(g), which allows local officials to check the immigration status of those arrested for other crimes; and punishing people who encourage illegal immigrants to enter Georgia and then transport or conceal them when they arrive.

The hearing was a regional one that drew people from throughout the metro Atlanta area and North Georgia.

Tom Hensley, president of poultry company Fieldale Farms Corp. that has locations in North Georgia, told the Senate Special Committee on Immigration and Georgia's Economy that 287(g) already had a detrimental effect on the poultry industry in Hall County that would only be worsened by statewide legislation.

Hensley said despite using measures to ensure the company hired documented workers, the anti-immigrant climate in the state has driven the Latino workers he depended on away from his business.

"We were 67 percent Hispanic in 2004. Our turnover was 25 percent. Our workers (compensation) cost was $50,000 a month. Our health care cost for the whole year was $8 million. It was about that time that the federal, state and local governments let it be known that these folks are not welcome," Hensley said.

"Fast forward to 2010, we're about 33 percent Hispanic now. Our turnover is 75 percent. Workers comp costs are $150,000 a month. Our health care last year was $20 million. Those are staggering numbers, but that's the economic reality.

"We need comprehensive immigration reform in this country. It has to be a federal program, not the state … you can't have 50 different laws in 50 different states. I implore you, don't pass any more laws."

Many people shared their stories of how recent discussions on immigration have created a hostile environment for Latinos.

Laura Murvartian of Sandy Springs said she came to the U.S. illegally with her parents from Mexico when she was age 8. She grew up working in chicken plants before she was able to get a bachelor's degree and become a citizen.

She said immigration rhetoric has made her feel uncomfortable, even though she is a citizen.

"My 9-year old son is asthmatic. When I take him to emergency room at 3 in the morning, I feel judged," she said, referring to the stares from people who is assume she is in the country illegally.

Murvartian said despite owning several businesses in Georgia, she and her family will move away if the proposed legislation becomes law.

"I feel it is a personal attack on people like me," she said. "I feel it is my duty to stand up and speak for those who are currently in an illegal situation today as I was 30 years ago."

Gainesville attorney Arturo Corso said undocumented immigrants are a pillar of the Hall County economy.

"There have been frequent calls to my law office. Once, every two weeks, a well-known, Anglo-American business owner of significant wealth calls me and asks me how they can go about legalizing their employees," Corso said.

"The truth is, they really can't. There is a great myth that there is a legal path to come to the U.S. There is no lawful path to come to the U.S. if you are a Mexican."

Corso told senators there is a 15-year backlog for Mexicans hoping to get enter the U.S. legally.

Others came out to show their support of tougher enforcement of immigration laws.

Lennie Baker, who moved to the U.S. from the Netherlands, spoke in favor of local immigration laws.

"I think it starts on the local level. The feds? We've seen what a mess they've made of everything. So I don't think they're going to do any better," she said. "I have not heard one person mention the taxpayers' cost for all these illegal immigrants. There's only so much money to go around. To hit the taxpayers up for all these illegal expenses is wrong."

The senators on the committee said they were impressed by the turnout of nearly 300 and heard valuable information from those spoke at the hearing.

"I was impressed we had actual members of the business community show up. So often you just get activists," said Sen. Curt Thompson, chairman of the committee.

Source: Gainesville Times

Posted by on February 23, 2011 in Immigration | | Comments (0)

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Blacks, Hispanics hold few investments, poll shows

February 21, 2011
By Michael A. Fletcher

As the economy emerges from the recession and the national debate turns to limiting the cost of the social safety net, only one in four African Americans and one in six Hispanics reported owning stocks, bonds or mutual funds, a new poll shows.

In addition, only 46 percent of blacks and 32 percent of Hispanics said they had an individual retirement account or any similar retirement arrangement, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard University poll. Half of whites said they had stocks, bonds or mutual funds, and two in three said they had IRAs, 401(k)s or similar holdings.


The relative paucity of investments held by blacks and Hispanics tracks with previous studies, something that experts call an outgrowth of the gaping wealth disparities separating the races.

Not only are African Americans and Hispanics less likely than whites to own retirement accounts or investment securities, they also are far less likely to own homes, which remains the largest engine of wealth creation for most Americans. And when they do own homes, they tend to have less equity in them, in large part because they live in communities where prices appreciate more slowly, many analysts say.

Now, with the big increase in foreclosures and large drops in housing prices that came with the recession, those disparities have grown. “I’m sure I’m like most average Americans in that our only asset is our residence,” said Jonathan Williams, an African American who lives in Cranston, R.I. “And that value is way down.”

Although the recession hurt all Americans, its toll was especially severe among African Americans and Hispanics, who were most likely to lose jobs, face foreclosures and lose health insurance coverage, the poll found.

The previous economic expansion was marked by weak job growth and income gains only for the very best-paid workers. A series of studies have found that the lack of wealth and the smaller incomes typically earned by African Americans and Hispanics – whose median incomes, respectively, are only 82 and 73 percent that of whites – limits how much they save for retirement.

Studies have found that although blacks and whites have roughly equal access to retirement plans at work, Hispanics trail far behind. And even when they do have access, African Americans and Hispanics are less likely than white and Asian workers to participate in them, according to a 2009 report by Ariel Education Initiative and Hewitt Associates.

When blacks and Hispanics participate in retirement plans at work, the study found, they save less. In addition, both African Americans and Hispanics were far more apt than whites to tap their retirement money to deal with financial emergencies, further eroding their retirement security, the Ariel-Hewitt study found. Minorities also are more likely to stick to conservative investments, which historically pay far less over the long haul.

For workers of all races, the most conservative investments seem to make the most sense, particularly given the market volatility that came before and during the downturn. Dawn Marie Castillo, a federal employee in San Diego, said her Thrift Savings Plan retirement account “took a humongous hit” during the recession.

“The more I put in, the more it kept going down and I had less than I started with,” she said. “So I moved all of it into government securities.”

A 2009 study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College called those disparities an outgrowth of the wealth gap separating the races. Blacks have only 15 cents of wealth for every dollar of wealth held by whites, while Hispanics have 27 cents for every dollar of white wealth, according to Federal Reserve statistics.

With the nation facing a huge long-term budget deficit, some political leaders, including a bipartisan deficit panel formed by President Obama, have called for increasing the retirement age.

The effect of that proposal, which is being resisted by many liberal groups, would be to lower benefits for those who retire at 62, the earliest age people can begin drawing Social Security retirement benefits. A disproportionate number of early retirees are low-skill workers who tend to perform manual labor, and are disproportionately black or Hispanic.

“People need more than just Social Security to survive,” said Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research. “The fact that black and Hispanic workers are less likely to have meaningful [retirement account] balances is a worrisome development. If the retirement age goes from 67 to 69, the practical effect will be bigger reductions for people who claim it at 62. Low-skill workers, who are already paid less, would just get less from the program.”

Further increases in the retirement age “would exacerbate the problem of growing retirement insecurity. This is especially true of low-income workers who have seen only modest gains in life expectancy yet are the hardest hit by Social Security cuts,” wrote Monique Morrissey, an economist who specializes in retirement security at the Economic Policy Institute.

The poll found that blacks and Hispanics also tend to use other financial instruments less than whites. For example, 18 percent of blacks and 30 percent of Hispanics said they had no checking or savings account, often leaving them to use costly check-cashing stores and other outlets to handle their financial transactions. Only 5 percent of whites reported having no checking or savings account.

Source: The Washington Post

Posted by on February 23, 2011 in Hispanic Business, Hispanic Facts and Figures | | Comments (0)

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Dictionary.com Launches Spanish Language Channel

February 22, 2011
by Sarah Kessler

Dictionary.com announced Tuesday that it is launching a Spanish language channel.

The channel will exist as a tab within the main English site, but will have similar functionality to its English counterpart — including full-text translation, synonyms in both Spanish and English, a Word of the Day feature, audio pronunciation and spelling suggestions.

“We’ve been focused on transitioning from a pure play word defining site to a full-fledged destination for anything linguistic,” explained Dictionary.com President Shravan Goli.


The company is hoping that its new Spanish content will help accelerate this transition. Educational features like a Grammar Tip of the Day, weekly vocabulary lists, and a “travel narrative,” textbook-like dialog from a Spanish student written by a Spanish language teacher, depart from most other Spanish-English dictionary sites.

Dictionary.com chose to begin its foreign language efforts with Spanish because about 30% of translations made with it’s Google-powered translation feature involve that language. Plans to add other languages in the future are in the pipeline.

In the English language reference realm, Dictionary.com currently dominates with 50 million unique users a month. Other translation and foreign language dictionary sites like Babylon and FreeTranslation.com will surely be affected by the company’s new initiative.

Most of these sites, however, earn revenue by offering premium professional translation options or software. Goli says that Dicitionary.com has no desire to do the same.

“We are focused on content expansion,” he says.

Source: Mashable

Posted by on February 23, 2011 in Hispanic Websites, Language | | Comments (0)

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Media ‘brownout’ as U.S. Latino numbers grow

February 23, 2011
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.,

Americans count on the media to tell us – as Walter Cronkite used to say – "the way it is." But how can media companies do that effectively when their staffs look more like the way it used to be?

The shortage of nonwhite journalists was a hot topic at the 29th annual conference of the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, one of the most influential Latino organizations in the country. The Chicago institute has made its name in developing leaders, registering voters and expanding opportunities in 40 states.

This year, I was invited to participate as part of a panel on entertainment and media. I submitted that one of the major reasons the media images of Latinos are still dogged by offensive and inaccurate stereotypes is because there aren't enough Latinos at keyboards, behind the cameras or in front of microphones. And, I said, even for those who do break through, it's often still no picnic.

The pioneers are likely to be weighed down by the pressure to succeed and frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of respect for them, their ideas and their community. It's not that the individuals who run media companies are anti-Latino; they simply tend to have a gigantic blind spot when it comes to Latinos – or, for that matter, any ethnic group that doesn't fit in the traditional paradigm of black and white.

It's no wonder that the percentage of Latinos in journalism is falling. In 2000, Latinos accounted for about 4.5 percent of print journalists. In radio and television, the numbers were smaller.

Today, according to the American Society of News Editors, Latinos make up about 3.5 percent of print journalists. When you look at management, the figure drops to about 1 percent.

Here's more bad news: What some critics call the media "brownout" is happening at a most inconvenient time. The big story outside the newsroom is the phenomenal growth of the Latino population in the United States over the last 10 years.

As the Census Bureau can tell you, this set of numbers is not going down. In Texas, Latinos now make up nearly 38 percent of the state's population. In Illinois, they've surpassed African Americans and now make up 15.8 percent of the population.

It adds up to a national picture in which Latinos are more than 15 percent of the U.S. population and on their way to an estimated 30 percent by 2050.

Yet, it is not unusual – in fact, it's quite common – to find newspapers in major U.S. cities that don't have a single Latino member on their editorial board and few to none on their opinion pages. You have to wonder how much analysis and commentary these papers are missing.

In a conversation about the state of the news business on the public-radio program "Latino USA," host Maria Hinojosa asked why some of the largest media companies – the New York Times, ABC News, NPR, etc. – have such an abysmal record of hiring and retaining minorities in general but Latinos in particular. Columbia University journalism professor June Cross, an African American, zeroed in on the problem.

"When news managers say they want more black journalists or Latino journalists, they don't really mean that," she said. "They want people who look like you and me but who think like them. They want to do the right thing, they just don't know how to cross that divide."

It's fine not to know how to do something. But, when you're in an industry this important, what is not fine is to not care enough to learn – and do better.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Posted by on February 23, 2011 in Hispanic Market Size, Hispanic Media | | Comments (0)

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Telemundo releases GenYLA Study

Feb-16-2011
Source: HispanicAd.com     
 
The “GenYLA” study is a new research study conducted by the Telemundo Communications Group, a proven leader in Hispanic research, on the current state of Young Latino Americans (YLAS), ages 18-34, one of the fastest growing and increasingly important segments of the population, especially for marketers. The Telemundo Communications Group provides clients with insight into their target consumers through custom proprietary research solutions that are instrumental in analyzing and shaping their marketing and advertising initiatives. Past studies have included, What Latinas Want, Beyond Demographics: Latino Identity Study, Connexion Cultural and The me 2 Study.

“It is said that in every decade a new generation brings forth a big change. In the next 40 years the U.S. population will expand by one hundred million people fueled primarily by US Hispanics,” said Jacqueline Hernandez, Chief Operating Officer, Telemundo, Communications Group, Inc. “As a proven leader in Hispanic research, Telemundo and mun2 are at the forefront of consumer insights with marketplace studies like Gen YLA.”

The dynamic set of key findings from the “GenYLA” study include:

YLAS are highly maintaining their culture and heritage while still embracing their American Lifestyle.

YLAS love being bi-cultural. More than one third (37%) of YLAS self-identified themselves as both Hispanic and American, identifying with both cultures equally the same. At the other end of the spectrum, only 2% felt more American than Hispanic. YLAS are in the midst of a retro-acculturation explosion. Because of the YLAS strong pride in their homeland and country of origin, this generation is re-discovering their heritage and is experiencing a Latino re-awakening. YLAS are going from George…to Jorge.

For YLAS it is easy to toggle in and out of both the Hispanic and American cultures.

YLAS live in a cultural fluid environment. YLAS best describe their closest group of friends an EQUAL mix of Latino and American, in fact, 48% 'hung out' with this group of people. In this continuum, YLAS were least likely to have only non-Latino friends, representing only 2% of those surveyed.

YLAS have no language boundaries or barriers.

YLAS language mobility greatly depends on the place or situation they are in – they are chameleons in their space – they control it and they like it! At home, where the TVs are on, and with family – a larger percent choose to speak Spanish (39% at home, 55% with family); while at work (74%) and school (79%) the preference was English. Last but not least, among their friends, YLAs practice a mix of Spanglish.

YLAS are the always-connected generation.

YLAS are multi-taskers. YLAS are always consuming high levels of anything technological: 94% have access to the Internet at home; 84% Have high-speed internet; and 87% stream video content, with another 73% that listen to music on the internet. Laptop ownership has taken precedence over desktop, with 73% that own a PC or a Mac.

With a huge strength in mobile usage, a high percent (87%) of YLAS cannot live without it. YLAS are great multi-taskers as many of the activities they focus on are also centered among an online environment. While a majority they told us they eat while watching television (80%), they also text (61%), talk on the phone (60%) and surf the web (50%).

Methodology
mun2 started to explore these concepts back in 2009 and recently re-visited them in December 2010, solidifying and further confirming these findings. The studies were conducted via an online nationally representative sample of over 400 Young Hispanics, between the ages of 18-34. With language as base, it focused across culture, identity, retro-acculturation, social interaction, and media. This was coupled with in-home ethnography groups, or 'friends sessions', in LA, NY and MIA, which verbally captured the survey findings and thoughts of the YLA.

Posted by on February 23, 2011 in Hispanic Facts and Figures, Hispanic Marketing & Advertising | | Comments (1)

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