This weekend, Kurt Andersen’s nationally-syndicated public radio show Studio 360 featured a piece by La Opinión and Feet In 2 Worlds reporter Pilar Marrero on Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor who will take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic this fall.

Marrero, who is also from Venezuela, went to see “the Dude” in action with some L.A. youngsters.

You can see more at Studio 360‘s website or you can listen to the piece here.

[audio:http://audio.wnyc.org/studio/studio022009d.mp3]

“If you don’t speak English, you’re missing out at work, at home,” Luciene Campos said in Portuguese. “When you do, you’re more respected.”

She was one of some 600 immigrants, many of them Brazilian, who recently jammed the auditorium of a Framingham, Mass. middle school waiting for a lottery that would assign 185 slots in English as a Second Language classes.

The classes, Feet In 2 Worlds reporter Eduardo A. de Oliveira wrote on EthnicNEWz.org, are “an obligatory stop for immigrants eager to learn the language of their future — but not all of them would get enrolled.”

Monday,PRI’s nationally-syndicated radio show The World ran a radio piece by Eduardo about the ESL lottery. This is from the show’s website:

Brazilian immigrants make up about a third of the population of Framingham, Massaschusetts. Many newspapers, radio stations and businesses cater to the immigrant’s needs. But the Brazilians still want desperately to learn English. Eduardo de Oliveira reports that the town’s English classes are so popular that you need to win a lottery to get in.

You can listen to Eduardo’s report here:

[audio:http://64.71.145.108/audio/0216096.mp3]

Here are a couple of extra interviews:

– Christine Tibor is the director of Framingham’s ESL program. Twenty–five years ago, Tibor was the program’s first teacher. In this interview she told Eduardo de Oliveira she knows how it feels to live in a foreign country and not be able to speak the language. During a trip to Venezuela, she survived on a diet of ham-and-cheese, the only two words she knew in Spanish.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_christine_tibur.mp3]

– Fernando Castro is the owner of five tax preparation stores in Massachusetts. He was a student in thel ESL program 19 years ago. Now, he’s an occasional sponsor of the program.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_fernando_castro.mp3]

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Nationally-syndicated radio show Latino USA featured one of FI2W reporter Martina Guzmán’s recent pieces this weekend.

You can listen to it here:
[audio:http://www.utexas.edu/coc/kut/latinousa/stationservices/podcast/2009/02/0206_01_lusa_podcast.mp3]

From Latino USA‘s website:

“The numbers are bad, and they just keep coming. Home Depot reports 7,000 jobs lost, and as Circuit City closes its doors, 4,000 more disappear. Car sales haven’t been this low in 27 years, and everywhere we look there are more signs of the times. In south Boston, Esther’s Country Kitchen leaves a note on the door reading, ‘Due to budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel is being turned off.’ Still, Americans continue to look for a bright spot. Some are finding a glimmer in what might seem to be a surprising place: immigrant neighborhoods.

“As part of Latino USA’s ongoing series focused on immigrants, New American Voices, we take a look at Detroit, and the dynamics of immigrant businesses inside their communities and beyond. Though Michigan’s unemployment rate is hovering at 10%, and people are leaving the state in droves, there is also an influx of immigrants. Martina Guzman reports on one community in Detroit that is holding the torch for Michigan with energy and undeniable growth.”

You can also listen to a conversation between Latino USA anchor María Hinojosa and John Austin of the New Economy Initiative For South East Michigan about how immigrant businesses help the city’s economy.

The interview is on this page, where you can also listen to the whole show.

Detroit public radio WDET today aired a piece by Feet In 2 Worlds reporter Martina Guzmán on the plight of Hispanic autoworkers and business owners who are suffering the crisis in the auto industry.

From the webpage of Detroit Today, hosted by Craig Fahle:

For decades Latino immigrants have achieved the American dream through the U.S. Auto Industry. At roughly 12 percent of the total U.S. manufacturing work force, Latinos acquired wealth and stability through good salaries, health benefits, union membership and a way to send the next generation to college. Now, all of that is in jeopardy with the Big 3 near collapse. As part of our occasional series, Feet in Two Worlds, WDET’s Martina Guzman reports on what Hispanic autoworkers are experiencing in the wake of the automotive crisis.

You can hear the story by pressing Play below:

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/090114_martina_auto.mp3]

And you can read Martina’s post on the same subject from earlier this week here.

Poles going back to Poland, a trend that was first noticed two years ago, may be getting a boost from the economic crisis in the U.S. Speaking recently on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, FI2W journalist Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska talked about the growing number of Poles who are returning to their home country for economic reasons.

A variety of factors have encouraged reverse migration, chief among them is Poland’s admission into the European Union four years ago. EU membership has opened up work opportunities for Polish citizens in a number of European countries. Ewa, who reports for Nowy Dziennik/The Polish Daily News, also noted that some younger Poles have moved to Poland in the belief that their American education gives them a competitive advantage in Poland’s economy. But she also said that like the U.S., Poland is experiencing an economic slowdown, so the benefits of moving to the Eastern European country may not be as great today as they have been in recent years.

Press play below to listen to Ewa on WNYC or click here to visit the show’s page.

[audio:http://audio.wnyc.org/bl/bl112608epod.mp3]

Ewa was recently honored by New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. at a Polish-American Heritage Celebration. Thompson hailed Ewa’s “truly impressive record of achievement that augurs a great body of work still to come.”

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Three weeks ago, as a senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, Cecilia Muñoz was part of the Hispanic lobby pressing the incoming Obama administration for significant Latino representation in the new cabinet.

A few days after the presidential election, in a story by Politico, Muñoz said Latinos expected to be prominent in the Obama administration. “It’s a foregone conclusion that we should be at the table for policy debates and in a position of authority,” she said.

Wednesday, Muñoz was given a seat at that table, when the Obama transition team announced she will join the White House staff as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Muñoz was born in Detroit in 1962 to immigrant parents from La Paz, Bolivia. According to The Detroit Free Press, her father was an automotive engineer who moved there to attend the University of Michigan.

Muñoz obtained degrees from the University of Michigan and Berkeley. “While studying at the University of Michigan, she tutored Hispanic Americans incarcerated at the state prison in Jackson,” the Free Press reported.

Muñoz started her pro-immigrant activism in California after college. She later joined NCLR, where she has worked for over twenty years. In 2000, she received a MacArthur Foundation $500,000 “genius grant” for her work on immigration and civil rights, The Washington Post said.

In a 2005 essay for NPR‘s Morning Edition, Muñoz said her activism was born of the outrage she felt at injustice leveled at Hispanics. She remembered a conversation with a friend of her family:

He told me that he thought the U.S. might someday go to war somewhere in Latin America. He looked me in the eye and told me that if it happens, he believes my parents belong in an internment camp just like the Japanese-Americans during World War II.

(more…)

The crisis in the U.S. auto industry is among the many serious challenges facing Michigan’s economy. People are moving out of Michigan at a higher rate than any state in the nation, and at 8.5 percent Michigan has the highest average annual unemployment rate in the U.S.  Despite these trends, business in the state’s Hispanic community is flourishing.

Feet In Two Worlds‘ Martina Guzman reported on Detroit’s thriving Latino businesses in a piece that aired on WDET, Detroit Public Radio.

Guzman compared some Motown neighborhoods where “buildings designed by world famous architects” are “now abandoned” to the city’s Mexicantown where “historic buildings have been renovated. There are ethnic grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, shops and a bustling main street.”

She added,

As the national economic crisis deepens and the state faces the loss of thousands more manufacturing jobs, Metro Detroit’s Latino business community may be a ray of hope on Michigan’s bleak economic landscape.

You can hear Martina’s piece by pressing play or you can visit WDET’s page here.

[audio:http://wdet.org/audio/articles/HispanicBiz.mp3]