This is an excerpt from a story on New America Media. Reproduced with permission.

By New America Now TV. Anchor & Producer: Odette Keeley. Videographer & Master Editor: Mike Siv. Editor: Jeremiah Ysip.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Many jazz artists and aficionados consider jazz as the immigrant’s music — embracing and absorbing into a big pot, the many styles, elements and talents coming from musicians from all over the globe.

Charmaine Clamor, recently hailed as America’s leading Filipina jazz and world music vocalist, believes the “Filipino spice” may have found its renaissance in this pot in recent years, through the hybrid genre she created, “Jazzipino”. It’s a blend of the soul and swing of American jazz with Filipino music, languages and instruments. It’s the perfect pairing of her two great loves, Clamor says – of jazz and her Filipino soul, and it has catapulted her into the American jazz stratosphere.

Multi-Awarded Filipina Artist Breaks New Ground With “Jazzipino’ from New America Media on Vimeo.

Now living in Los Angeles, Clamor was born in the Philippine town of Subic-Zambales, and her mother, a soprano singer inculcated in her a deep love for the Great American Songbook and Filipino music. Clamor relates that growing up, their home was filled with jazz and opera, alongside Philippine kundimans (torch songs), harana songs (serenades) and folk music.

In 2007, Clamor’s second album, “Flippin’ Out,” made the Top 5 on both JazzWeek’s World and Traditional Jazz radio charts simultaneously. And in 2008, her third album, “My Harana: A Filipino Serenade” made the Top 10 in the world music charts, making her the first Filipino to place two consecutive albums in the Top 10 world music radio charts.

She has been featured in several Filipino-American and mainstream media, including ABS-CBN International – The Filipino Channel, Asian Journal, NPR, BBC, the Los Angeles Times, L.A. 18, and has become one of the Philippines’ newest singing icons.

Clamor has also received numerous prestigious awards here and in the Philippines including as the “Philippines Pride – Best Jazz Singer” from FAMAS – the Philippine equivalent to the Oscars, as well as a 2009 Asian Heritage Award in the Performing Arts, organized by ASIA Magazine.

Visit New America Media to read the complete story.

Unlike in the past, when most immigrants coming to the U.S. were men, the majority of newcomers are now women, according to a recent poll. A panel of high-profile immigration experts and advocates met Wednesday in New York to discuss the policy implications of this change in immigration patterns. (FI2W reported on the poll findings when NAM released them in May.)

The discussion at the auditorium of the Ford Foundation was part of a series of events held by immigrant advocacy groups to bring the face of immigrant women to center-stage before the debate on immigration reform begins in Congress later this year.

Changing the story seems to be the name of the game at this moment. Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress, cast it this way:

Americans are told that immigrants are different, that they come here to get benefits, that they don’t want to learn English or become Americans. But this poll tells us that the story is different. Most immigrants are hard-working women, wives and mothers, who shared American values. They come here to work and get a better future for their children, they want to learn English and become citizens.

According to the poll, contrary to the notion that immigrants come from broken families, 90 percent of immigrant women manage to raise their children in intact marriages. The same is true for about 65 percent of American women with children.
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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Pro-immigration activists want the Obama Administration to approach immigration reform with a much stronger sense of urgency than it has shown so far, as Feet in 2 Worlds reported yesterday. As Thursday’s much-awaited –and twice-cancelled— White House meeting with lawmakers on the issue approaches, some activists are trying to ramp up the pressure.

News and advocacy organization New America Media is asking ethnic media nationwide to simultaneously publish the same editorial “calling for urgent immigration reform.”

The editorial asks the White House and Congress to “move quickly” to pass reform that will “remove the term ‘illegal or undocumented immigrants’ from the dialogue in this country,” according to a copy provided by NAM. It calls the current immigration system “inefficient, inhumane and economically debilitating” and “broken” for both undocumented and specialized workers, as well as for families trying to reunite.

The text also urges ethnic media readers and viewers to contact their representatives in Congress “and let them know that immigration reform must be a national priority.” [ You can read the full text below. ]

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Immigrant women in the U.S. “face formidable barriers” –lack of language skills, discrimination, low wages, lack of health care–, but still their numbers continue to grow and they are “now on the move as much as men,” a poll released Thursday said.

As they settle in America, traveling great distances and adapting to a new culture, women’s roles in the family have changed too: many assume the role of head of household or start sharing responsibilities and power with their husbands, said the study, commissioned by New America Media (NAM), a group that fosters cooperation between ethnic news organizations.

According to the poll of 1,102 people, Women Immigrants: Stewards of the 21st Century (click for pdf), many female immigrants “acknowledge speaking little or no English, while confronting anti-immigrant discrimination, lack of healthcare and low-paying employment well below the status of the professional work most did in their home countries.”

This problem was reported by large majorities of the women polled –79% percent of Latin American women, 73% of Vietnamese women, 70% of Korean women, and 63% of Chinese women.

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