Aswini Anburajan on The Brian Lehrer Show at Hofstra University. (Photo: WNYC)

Feet in 2 Worlds journalist Aswini Anburajan joined WNYC‘s Brian Lehrer this morning to talk about John McCain’s waning prospects in the presidential election, the role of race in the campaign and other election-related issues. Here’s an excerpt of her analysis of tonight’s debate.

It’s on John McCain: what does he have to offer to the American public in terms of real, tangible solutions. It doesn’t matter anymore if someone knew a radical in the ’60s, when they were in Chicago, because this is about the fact that Citibank is pulling out of every university in this country; you cannot get students loans, it’s much harder. It’s about the fact that there are foreclosures. It’s about the fact that my parents, too, lost twenty to thirty percent on their 401k.

There are real economic hardships happening and I think that John McCain has a great opportunity tonight, because no one really thinks that Barack Obama has explained the situation that well.

The Brian Lehrer Show was broadcast live from Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y., site of tonight’s third and final presidential debate.

To hear the first hour of the program, featuring Aswini Anburajan, Lawrence Levy, executive director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra, and Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone political correspondent, click here.

To see more photos from Hofstra on the WNYC Flickr photostream, click here.

If the presidential primaries are any indication, voter turnout on November 4 will be very heavy. Some electoral analysts believe this will be especially true in key ethnic communities, including among Latinos, who appear set to turn out in record numbers. At a recent Feet in Two Worlds town hall forum on “Deconstructing the Immigrant Vote,” political organizers and ethnic media journalists agreed that anger is among the most important factors motivating immigrant voters this year.

Journalist Pilar Marrero speaks at the forum on Deconstructing the Immigrant Vote at the New School. Josh Hoyt, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and journalist Aswini Anburajan were also on the panel.

“When an electorate gets angry they go out and vote,” said Feet in Two Worlds journalist Aswini Anburajan. “And it’s starting to mobilize people.”

According to Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric have been “the driving force” pushing a growing number of Latino immigrants to become naturalized citizens. “It’s out of anger, it’s out of fear, and it’s out of the sense that if they become a citizen and vote it’s an act of self defense,” he said.

Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of NALEO responds to a story by Pilar Marrero on Latino ‘s who are becoming citizens so they can vote in this year’s election.

Speaking to an audience at The New School, where the forum was held, Vargas said Congress’ failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform is also motivating Latino voters. “We saw it in 2006 when millions of people took to the streets of America demanding … immigration reform.” Vargas noted that many of the protesters in ’06 were teenagers who have since reached voting age. “We have now a new generation of Latino youth who have reached the age of 18 in a very politicized environment where their consciousness has been raised,” Vargas said. “They told us two years ago, ‘Today we march, tomorrow we vote.’ Well, tomorrow has arrived.”

It’s not just Hispanics who may vote out of anger. Asian American outrage over a racially charged remark by U.S. Senator George Allen of Virginia played a key role in his razor-thin loss to Democrat Jim Webb in 2006. Webb’s victory gave the Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since 1994. (more…)

Answer: Immigrants and anyone interested in fixing the nation’s immigration system.

It’s now clear that immigration has replaced Social Security as the “third rail of American politics.” Touch it and you’re dead. The words “immigration” and “immigrants” were never mentioned in Tuesday night’s debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. The candidates and their campaigns are maintaining a perfect record of not addressing this subject during the debates. But, as we have reported elsewhere, both campaigns have been running Spanish-language TV ads aimed at Latino voters that criticize and distort each other’s record on immigration reform.

While the candidates’ silence on this subject was notable, what was truly striking was that none of the questions posed by voters and moderator Tom Brokaw dealt with immigration. NBC’s Brokaw began the town hall-style debate by saying that “tens of thousands” of questions had been submitted by people across the country. It’s hard to believe that none of those questions dealt with the candidates’ proposals for dealing with the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the US. It’s only a guess, but Brokaw and the team who culled the submitted queries, must have thought that immigration isn’t important enough for even one debate question.

So Obama and McCain got off the hook, and tens of millions of immigrants –both legal and undocumented – along with their children, neighbors and, yes, their employers and co-workers are still waiting to hear the two candidates compare and contrast their views on immigration reform. This, in an election year when immigrant and ethnic voters may prove pivotal in a number of battleground states.

During the presidential primaries former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney tried to use John McCain’s support for immigration reform as a wedge issue against the Arizona Senator. Romney’s strategy failed. But maybe he was more successful than most people believe. There is now a chill over the presidential campaign when it comes to talking openly about immigrants and immigration. Four weeks before Election Day no one – neither the candidates nor the mainstream media – seems willing to break the ice.

During the Democratic and Republican National Conventions Feet in Two Worlds worked with the New York Community Media Alliance to bring a group of ethnic media journalists to Denver and St. Paul to cover the conventions, the candidates and the parties.  The following article was written by a member of the group, Jehangir Khattak, a free lance Pakistani journalist who reports for newspapers and radio in the US and Pakistan. 

For more reports from the conventions by ethnic media journalists click here. 

America’s minority communities are the driving force behind major economic sectors such as agriculture, service, hospitality, and construction. They fill the jobs common folks are unwilling to do, as well as create job opportunities through their enterprising skills. However, major parts of these communities remain in the shadows, and their contribution to the American dream is barely mentioned in the national media.  Little wonder that mainstream media’s intentional or unintentional neglect of these fledging communities has created huge room for the ethnic press to take root and grow. According to the National Directory of Ethnic Media, there are more than 2,000 ethnic media organizations nationwide reaching out to more than 50 million Americans, or roughly one-fifth of the total population.

The demand for ethnic media is growing at such a pace that in New York alone there are nine different Urdu-language weekly newspapers. Nationwide, the number of Pakistani community weekly newspapers, radio and television channels has crossed the 20 mark. However, the strength and importance of this uncelebrated segment of the American media has rarely been recognized in the mainstream media. In fact the more the mainstream media ignores ethnic minorities, the more it strengthens media from these communities.

There has always been a need for organizations that could recognize, highlight and connect the ethnic media with the mainstream and build its capacity to market publications meeting the highest possible journalistic standards. It’s in this context that the New York Community Media Alliance and Feet in 2 Worlds sponsored journalists from the New York-based ethnic press to cover the DNC in Denver. The initiative proved to be more productive than many had thought as it exposed the ethnic media journalists, many of whom were covering a DNC for the first time, to the vast trove of information for their respective communities. For the first time ten different communities saw the convention coverage from their angle.

Not only that, the NYCMA and FI2W’s project had some impact on the mainstream media too. The New York Times “embedded” one of its reporters with our group of ethnic journalists to write about a story about ethnic media’s coverage of the convention. Thus the initiative not only generated several blogs, dozens of stories and radio interviews, but also mainstream media recognition of our efforts. The New York Times story could be the beginning of a nationwide mainstream media effort to pull the ethnic media out of the shadows and into the limelight, recognize its strength and utility, and enter into partnership to dig deep inside America’s immigrant population. NYCMA and the FI2W deserve full credit and accolades for the thoughtful intiative to empower a forgotten side of the larger American information sector.

Jehangir Khattak is a US-based Pakistani journalist, and can be reached at mjehangir@aol.com

There are many points where Senator John McCain’s career and life story intersect with immigrant communities across the US. He was one of the principal sponsors in the US Senate of comprehensive immigration reform, legislation that he subsequently repudiated during the presidential primary campaign. He and his wife Cindy have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. He comes from a state with a large Latino population. During the Vietnam War he was held prisoner by the North Vietnamese government, and later became a strong advocate for normalizing relations between the US and Vietnam.

Despite these points of contact, ethnic media journalists say McCain has a long way to go in cementing support among immigrant voters.

“The McCain campaign is using double-speak,” said Pilar Marrero, a reporter with the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion in Los Angeles. “To the mainstream they are going to the base with a lot of red meat. To Latinos and to the Latino media they are talking a different talk. What they are saying to them is ‘don’t pay attention to the party and the platform.’ The platform that has English-only and, let’s build a wall on the southern border, and lets just kick out all the undocumented workers. ‘Pay attention to the man, the man who pushed immigration reform. Pay attention to him because in his heart he still believes in immigration reform and he’ll still support it. He loves Latinos, he is from Arizona.’”

Marrero spoke at a panel discussion in Minneapolis sponsored by Feet in Two Worlds and the New York Community Media Alliance. The panel was held at the Weisman Art Museum as part of the American Politics Sideshow on the final day of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Marrero said the McCain campaign’s tactics with Latinos did not appear to be working. “There always (are) some Latinos that vote Republican,” she said. “As far as getting to that 35 or 40 per cent that (the Republicans) know they need to win certain states, that’s yet to be seen.”

Wameng Moua, the editor of Hmong Today , a newspaper that serves Minnesota’s large Hmong community, said McCain had made a connection with older Hmong voters. “John McCain has an historical tie to the Hmong community in the sense that the Americans in the Vietnam War recruited the Hmong to save fighter pilots who were shot down in Laos. Unfortunately John McCain was shot down in Vietnam, so he wasn’t able to be saved by Hmong people. But nonetheless there still is that historical connection.”

Moua noted that even younger Hmong voters were taking a look at McCain after the Democratic National Convention in Denver. “There was a lot of excitement about the Obama campaign at first. But now, talking to a lot of my friends, they seem to have a second thought on the premise that they really weren’t riveted by Obama’s speech (at the convention).” But Moua also said there are two Hmong members of the Minnesota state legislature from St. Paul. Both are Democrats, and both are expected to support Barack Obama.

Obama and McCain were faulted for their lack of outreach to immigrant communities by Ka Chan, communications director of the New York Community Media Alliance. Chan said that the candidate who had done the most to connect with immigrants was Hillary Clinton. “It’s not surprising,” Chan said, “because Hillary has so many ties with so many ethnic community groups.”

As to McCain, Chan added, “(he) could have been a front runner or the maverick, as he calls himself, in immigration reform, but he did not. There is speculation that he needed to win the primary, that’s why he distanced himself from what he stands for in immigration reform. Just like his war hero image, he could have been an immigration reform hero for all these immigrant voters. But these days we don’t really hear that rhetoric anymore, ever since he entered the direct race with Obama. The effort still needs to be seen.”

Asian voters have been called the, “new sleeping giant,” of American politics. Asians make up about 5 per cent of the US population, and their numbers are growing rapidly. But according to a recent study by researchers at UCLA, political participation by Asian Americans is significantly lower than the national average. Even so, both the Obama and McCain campaigns are reaching out to Asian voters. Lotus Chau, Chief Reporter at Sing Tao Daily in New York recently wrote brief profiles of two Asian American Democrats who have come to very different conclusions about Barack Obama’s candidacy.

For Brian Wang, a first-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention there is, “important symbolic meaning for the Asian community,” if Barack Obama becomes the first black president of United States. Wang, a lawyer from San Francisco, recalled the 1988 primary when his mother voted for Jessie Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination. Holding a Martin Luther King-style poster which said “Change and Progress” in Chinese, Wang recalled that his mother’s Chinese friends were upset by her support of Jackson. But, he said his mother responded to her friends, “If Jessie can be the president of this country, my son also can be the president one day. Voting minority gave me hope.” Brian said he followed the same path as his mother, supporting Obama and at the same time fulfilling his own dream.

Po-Ling Ng, the director of the Open Door Senior Center, was a Democratic delegate in 2004. She is a long-time supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and in 2000 supported Al Gore for president. This year she was invited to be a Democratic delegate form New York, but she refused the invitation. “Deep in my heart, I am not prepared for a black candidate as president of the country. I don’t want to spend my money and time to support someone not from the bottom of my heart. I prefer to step back and stay in New York,” she said.

A record 270 Asian American delegates attended this year’s Democratic National Convention. There appeared to be only a handful of Asian delegates at the Republican National Convention, although an exact count is not available. However, Asians are organizing on behalf of John McCain. James S. Cheng is a businessman from Virginia who is involved in efforts to build support for McCain among Asian Americans. I spoke with him about campaign strategy and the challenges facing the campaign.

Listen to an interview with James S. Cheng a strategy adviser to the Asian Americans for McCain Coalition.

In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Senator John McCain promised that if he’s elected, “we’re going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again, and get this country back on the road to prosperity and peace.” During the fall campaign the outreach may not be quite as sweeping, especially when it comes to African-American voters. In an interview with Feet in Two Worlds, Michael Steele, the Chairman of GOPAC and one of the few African Americans to address the GOP convention, said as far as he knows “there is no effort” by the McCain campaign to counterbalance the surge of support for Barack Obama in the black community.

“The reality of it is, you take ten African Americans, nine and a half of them are going to vote for Barack,” said Steele, the former Lt. Governor of Maryland. “That still doesn’t mean you don’t compete for the vote. You still lay out the cause for looking at John McCain. Because as John McCain himself has said, before the NAACP and the Urban League, ‘When I’m your president you will have a seat at my table.’ Not even Barack is saying that.”

GOPAC is a political action committee created in 1979 whose purpose, according to a statement by Steele on the GOPAC web site, is, “recruiting, training, and equipping candidates across the country to establish and maintain a Republican majority.”

According to Steele, when it comes to cultivating African-American voters and candidates, the Republican Party has, “literally dropped the ball.”

“We need to pick it up and move forward with it,” he said.

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported there were just 36 black delegates among the 2,380 at the Republican convention, the lowest number in at least four decades.

Steele’s assessment comes in an election year when black voters, energized by Obama’s candidacy, have already demonstrated their clout at the polls. Heavy turnout by black voters in the South Carolina Democratic primary gave Obama the edge he needed to beat Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

In July, Mike Baker of the Associated Press wrote, “If Barack Obama’s historic campaign to become the first black president boosts black turnout as drastically as he predicts, he could crack decades of Republican dominance across the South.” Obama has pledged to increase black voter participation by 30 percent this year. If that happens, Baker cites four states that could shift from red to blue in the November election. They include Florida, the mother of all battleground states, Virginia (another important battleground state), Arkansas and Louisiana. In addition, Baker reports that the Obama campaign is focusing on boosting African American voter turnout in six other states -North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Michael Steele maintains that the McCain Campaign is pursuing a “fifty-state strategy” to elect their candidate. But with no pages in the playbook specifically aimed at African-American voters, Republicans may discover they have ceded a critical group of voters to the Democrats in a what many believe will be a very tight election.

As Republicans get ready to wrap up their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota on Thursday, across the river in Minneapolis Feet in Two Worlds and the New York Community Media Alliance will host a discussion about immigrant and ethnic voters in this year’s election. “Deconstructing the Ethnic Vote,” a conversation with ethnic media reporters from New York, Los Angeles and the Twin Cities, will be held in the Shepherd Room at the Weisman Art Museum, as part of the American Politics Sideshow on Thursday, September 4th starting at 1 PM.

Journalists will discuss how and if ethnic voters connect to John McCain, and analyze the messages that immigrant and ethnic communities are hearing from candidates of both parties.

Participants include:

Pilar Marrero – reporter and columnist, La Opinión, Los Angeles
Wameng Moua – Editor, Hmong Today, St. Paul, MN
Tomasz Deptula – columnist/editor, Nowy Dziennik/Polish Daily News, New York
Lotus Chau – Chief Reporter, Sing Tao Daily, New York
Zyphus Lebrun – Supervising Producer, “Independent Sources” CUNY TV, New York
Ari Kagan – Senior Editor, Vecherniy New York
Sharon Toomer – Founder and Managing Editor, BlackandBrownNews.com, New York
Ka Chan – Communications Director, New York Community Media Alliance

The conversation will be moderated by John Rudolph, Executive Producer of Feet in Two Worlds.

This event is free and open to the public. For information on parking and directions visit http://www.weisman.umn.edu/visiting/map.html.