Author: Ashwini Anburajan

Bio: Ashwini Anburajan is Founder and CEO of a Social Data Collective, a private data marketplace that allows consumers to access, control and monetize their data. Social Data Collective allows consumers to trade data from a variety of sources for high quality products and services offered by brand partners. She was previously Director of Partner Development at Buzzfeed, and at Outcast prior to that. She has created cutting edge thought leadership and has advised some of the largest names in media on their social publishing strategy, including USA Today, New York Times, Hearst and CondeNast.

Contributions:

McCain Links Obama to Castro in Web Ad

Posted on: 23 Jul 2008

A new “click here” web ad circulating in South Florida shows Sen. Barack Obama and Fidel Castro pictured together and quotes Castro praising Obama as “the most advanced candidate.” There’s a tag at the bottom of the ad that reads, “Paid for by John McCain 2008.” It begs the question: Does the McCain campaign fear […]

How can communities manage undocumented immigrants? Keep an eye on Connecticut.

Posted on: 22 Jul 2008

This Thursday, New Haven, Connecticut will mark its one-year anniversary as the first city in the nation to provide identification cards to undocumented immigrants which allow them access to local government services. Despite harsh criticism and legal challenges the city has issued more than 6,000 Elm City Resident Cards since the program began last summer. […]

Two Standards of Justice: Are Employers Paying a Price for Illegal Immigration?

Posted on: 21 Jul 2008

In a rural Iowa town that was once a bustling model of small-town resurgence, scores of families are left to rely on local food pantries and churches for their meals. Parents have been left to  watch over their children while wearing ankle bracelets but are unable to seek work to provide for them.  The school’s […]

FI2W Weekend Reads: Links to Ethnic Media and Beyond

Posted on: 19 Jul 2008

Court Interpreter, Erik Camayd-Freixas breaks his code of silence to report on how undocumented workers were abused and terrorized by the justice system in the wake of the largest immigration raid in history.  Read his essay, which made national headlines here. The New York Times had a powerful editorial on Camayd-Freixas’ essay, also a must […]

"Liberal Snobs" and the Rest of Us: Arab American Reaction to the New Yorker

Posted on: 15 Jul 2008

This week’s New Yorker cover showing Barack Obama in Muslim garb and his wife, Michelle, dressed as a Black militant has shown that even in a political campaign where race, gender and age barriers have tumbled, there are still some segments of American society that the media must handle with the utmost delicacy. The cover, […]

La Raza Protests Shows Immigration Reform Could Still Be Used As a Political Wedge

Posted on: 14 Jul 2008

Sen. Barack Obama’s speech at today’s National Council of La Raza (NCLR) conference introduced little new in terms of policy or rhetoric, but it served as a reminder that immigration reform could still be used as a wedge issue in the presidential election. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7dE1L8QAxY] As he did in his speeches to the National Associate of […]

What’s Lost in Translation? Asian Americans Fight for Bilingual Ballots in Boston

Posted on: 10 Jul 2008

“Sticky rice” is no longer an option at the polls in this year’s presidential election, but that hasn’t changed Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin’s opposition to transliterating English names into Chinese characters on the November ballot. A battle has raged for the past year between Asian American activists and Galvin over the extension of […]

Is There Really a Latino Swing Vote?

Posted on: 09 Jul 2008

In this year’s historic elections Latinos are poised to play a historic role. If Latinos vote in the precedent-setting numbers that marked their participation in the presidential primaries, they could be responsible for putting a candidate in office. When Sen. Hillary Clinton exited the race in June, the support that she had among this voting […]

McCain Attacks First and in Spanish

Posted on: 07 Jul 2008

The battle for the Latino vote has returned to American soil after Sen. John McCain’s three day trip to Colombia and Mexico. The campaigns engaged in their own Independence Day back and forth on who would best represent Latinos. Nothing that would resemble fireworks, but remarkable because the first attack ad the McCain campaign has […]

Indian Media, Politicians Beguiled by Obama’s Charms

Posted on: 04 Jul 2008

In a recent Feet in 2 Worlds post, writer Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, wrote that ethnic minorities pay attention and cast a favorable eye on a political candidate when he takes the time to acknowledge their communities. Nothing provides a better object lesson for that sentiment than the contents of Sen. Barack Obama’s pockets. Obama, asked by […]