Spanish-language media giant Univisión announced last week that its local evening newscasts in Los Angeles and New York were the first- and second most-watched local broadcasts nationwide among all viewers in any language in the coveted 18-to-49 age bracket (otherwise known as the media’s Holy Grail).

The announcement is especially striking given the continued shrinking viewership of traditional English-language nightly newscasts produced by local affiliates of ABC, CBS, and NBC.

On any given night, KMEX, the Los Angeles Univision affiliate, dwarfs its English- language competitors with evening newscasts that draw 331,000 viewers. The closest English-language newscast in the same area lags KMEX by more than 70,000 viewers.

In recent years, Spanish-language stations (including Telemundo, owned by NBC-Universal) have consistently had the most viewers in cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles and New York.
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Senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain is betting he can win the election using what he believes is his strongest suit: national security and foreign policy. It’s probably his best bet, but a risky one. (more…)

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 launched was aimed at a Hispanic audience. (more…)

John McCain will meet with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico today and hot button issues like immigration and trade will top the agenda.

McCain has dismissed suggestions that his three-day trip to Colombia and Mexico are a way to woo Latinos.

However, his campaign has aggressively sought these voters, releasing ads on both radio and television that talk of support for free trade agreements and job creation in Mexico and the United States.

But the political notes that play well in Mexico City may ring sour in Michigan, and that raises the political question of the day.

Will reaching out to minority voting groups be enough to tip the scales in favor of one candidate over another, especially in battleground states? If the answer is yes, it could signal a seismic shift in electoral politics.

Over the course of the primaries much attention was given to white, working class voters. These are the voters who bore the brunt of job losses from NAFTA, who fear an influx of immigrants because they could lower wages, and who strayed from the Democratic Party as it embraced social service programs and policies targeted towards minorities that left many Whites feeling that the party had forgotten their concerns. Re-labeled Reagan Democrats, they were the key to victory for Republicans and the one Democrat, Bill Clinton, who successful courted them.

When Sen. Barack Obama couldn’t win this group during the Democratic primaries, many analysts questioned his ability to forge a winning coalition in November. But Obama had a new demographic formula: young voters, African Americans voting in record numbers and affluent, liberal Whites.

As the first African American to be a presumptive party nominee, Obama faces greater scrutiny about his ability to win over Whites, and is spending time and resources in cultivating favor with this group. McCain, on the other hand, doesn’t have to worry about that kind of political symbolism.

It frees him to conduct one of the most novel exercises in this already unique campaign cycle – campaigning for American votes outside of America. It’s a recognition that despite resistance in some parts of the American electorate, the dam has burst on globalization and the effects of this flood has blurred borders, mixed identities and is making the U.S. more politically accountable to her immediate neighbors than ever before.

Aligning with Latinos on trade and immigration, McCain may be the first candidate, if he’s successful, to prioritize the concerns of a minority group over the wishes and priorities of a large part of the country’s majority demographic group. His move reflects the shift occurring in the U.S. population, but campaigning in this way also invests power in Latino voters and provides them the platform to push their issue agenda forward, and by extension the agendas of the countries many in this group are tied to.

As the much publicized NALEO report showed, Latinos could be the swing block in the swing states. They have already provided McCain with one victory – in Florida. Winning the Sunshine state with the Latino vote allowed him to clinch the Republican nomination. Now will it allow him to clinch the presidency?

New York may be the iconic immigrant city, but for newcomers it’s not exactly a model of simplicity, at least when it comes to government services, says a new report by the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).

The report, “Breaking Down Barriers: Immigrant Families and Early Childhood Education in New York City” underlines just how hard it is for immigrant parents to navigate an often bewildering early childhood education and childcare system.

Mirroring national trends, more than half of New Yorkers under the age of six live in immigrant families, including many (one in four, according to the Urban Institute) under the poverty line who are technically eligible for child care subsidies. Yet few immigrant families know the options for free or low-cost early child education programs such as Head Start available to their children, according to the report’s authors.

In a city where many parents enroll their newborn children in coveted preschool waiting lists, the CACF report (based on a survey of Bangladeshi, Chinese, Dominican, Haitian, Korean, and Russian parents and the social services providers who work with them) found poor translation services, concerns about immigration status, and lack of affordable programs were all effective roadblocks to immigrant parents hoping to enroll their children in preschool and other child care programs.

“A large portion of the immigrant community is being left out of essential systems of child care due to the inability of service providers to connect effectively with these children and families,” reads the report. “Language barriers, immigrant status, general distrust of the government, and cultural stigma further undermine efficient delivery of services.”

New York City and State have policies that support free or low-cost child care for low income families and preschool for all four-year-olds, regardless of their immigration status. But there have never been enough resources to live up to these lofty goals, despite large increases since the late 1990s in the federal child care block grant and growing state and city funding for Universal Pre-Kindergarten.

Today, many immigrant parents still aren’t enrolling their children in critical early childhood education programs, despite decades of research documenting the connection between early-education programs such as pre-kindergarten and Head Start and fewer numbers of children from poor families who need special education services or are left back in school.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has spoken out repeatedly on the need for greater access to quality early education, most recently in his Flint, Michigan speech on economic reform. His Republican opponent John McCain has not addressed the topic.

But neither candidate has touched the potentially incendiary topic of language accessibility of government services—which, according to the CACF report, may well be the single greatest barrier for immigrant families seeking early childhood services in New York City.

Since 2003, following passage of the “Equal Access to Human Services” local law, New York public assistance workers and other city employees are supposed to be able to communicate with the city’s 8 million immigrants when they seek assistance. Yet advocates say much is still lost in translation for newcomer parents.

A 2007 report issued by several immigrant grassroots and advocacy groups and Advocates for Children reported that two-thirds of immigrant parents didn’t even receive their child’s public school report cards translated into the language they spoke at home.

This is not just a New York City problem. As reporter Margaret Farley Steele of The New York Times reported last week, even Norwalk, Connecticut’s relatively small school system is working hard to involve immigrant parents in the local public schools.

The courting of Latino voters by Senators John McCain and Barack Obama has been highly publicized because of the potential power of this group in the general election. Both candidates appeared at the National Association of Latino Elected Officials conference last week and will appear before another major Latino group, the National Council of La Raza, in the second week of July.

Smaller ethnic communities in the US rarely get that kind of attention from a presidential candidate. But when they do, it helps them feel appreciated and more involved in the electoral process.

Obama has won admirers in the Polish community for doing just that.
“Obama has said that he is in favor of including Poland in the Visa Waiver program and McCain has not,” said Polish American journalist and author Alex Storozynski, in a recent survey on presidential candidates by Nowy Dziennik/the Polish Daily News among members of the Polish community living in the New York metropolitan area.

Including Poland in the Visa Waiver Program would allow Polish citizens to enter the US for tourism or business purposes for up to 90 days without having to obtain a visa. The issue has been a long time goal of the Polish government and Polish American organizations such as the Polish American Congress. They insist that Poland, a member of the European Union and NATO which has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, should also be able to participate because it has shown loyalty to America.

Obama addressed this issue in an interview with Nowy Dziennik that ran on January 26-27, 2008. “We should aim at eliminating visas for countries like Poland, which are members of both the EU and NATO. Current visa regulations are outdated and do not reflect strategic relationship between our countries nor historically close ties between our nations.”

Obama was the only presidential candidate who gave an interview to Nowy Dziennik. Obama also talked about another issue important from Poles’ perspective: the Bush’s administration plans to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland as part of the missile defense system (MDS). In exchange Poland wants to cover part of the cost of modernizing the Polish army and its defense system. Otherwise it may not agree to install interceptors; especially since the Polish public is unenthusiastic about this idea. Moreover, the Russian government warns that the plan could hurt the Polish-Russian relationship, if Moscow’s concerns are not addressed.

In the interview with Nowy Dziennik, Senator Obama questioned the logic of installing the missile defense system in Poland before its technology is fully tested. He also said the Bush administration did a poor job in terms of consulting on the plan and the location of MDS with other NATO allies. Obama stressed that even though this initiative posed no threat to Russia, Moscow should be fully informed about the plan.

On the other hand “McCain was an early and strong supporter of anti-missile defense and his website highlights “Effective Missile Defense,” says Professor John Micgiel, Director of Columbia University’s East Central European Center. “But as far I know, Senator McCain has not spoken about placing interceptors in Poland. Nor has he spoken about any other aspects of US-Polish relations, as far as I know.”

Another aspect of Obama’s popularity among Poles has to do with the fact that he got the support of Zbigniew Brzezinski, currently a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, which makes him the highest ranking Polish American in a US administration in American history.

As early as August 2007 Brzezinski said: “Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand. He has a sense of what is historically relevant and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world.”

For Poles, Brzezinski’s support sends a clear signal that Obama will be friendly toward issues important to their community. This opinion was also expressed by representatives of the Polish entrepreneurial world, many of whom support McCain’s approach to economic issues.

Bozena Kaminski, Director of the Polish & Slavic Center and one of those interviewed in Nowy Dziennik‘s survey, identifies as a Republican and says she will vote for her party’s candidate.

Nevertheless, she stressed that “from the point of view of Polish immigrants, Obama’s program is currently friendlier. His approach to undocumented immigrants is considerably more lenient than McCain’s, who is rather conservative. Even though McCain supports legalizing their status in an attempt to win more support among the conservative electorate, he has recently been very tight-lipped on the immigration issue.”

Talking about issues important to ethnic communities may turn out to be a good strategy for Obama. Many immigrants are often more interested in the politics of their home countries. Bringing up issues vital to them is a way to get them involved in American political scene. It could possibly translate into higher turnout among naturalized citizens of various origin.

Unity was the political headline coming out of Friday’s news cycle, after Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared side by side, in color-coordinated outfits, to put aside their 16-month internecine battle for the Democratic party’s nomination and show (dare we say) a united front at a 3,000 person rally in the aptly named town of Unity, New Hampshire

Press reports gushed over how Obama’s tie matched Clinton’s pantsuit, pondered their lack of a full hug, and pounced on the chance to show discord through a group of Clinton supporters, one of whom stuffed tissues in her ears as Obama spoke.

But the attempts to show solidarity went far past Clinton’s and Obama’s carefully choreographed display in the Granite State.

Preceding the Unity rally on Friday, Clinton spoke to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Washington, DC on Thursday and asked some of her most enthusiastic supporters to back Obama in the general election. She told the crowd that if Sen. John McCain won the presidency little would be done to advance the Latino agenda on immigration reform and the country would see, “four more years of the same.”

Clinton was greeted with a standing ovation. NALEO’s president Adolfo Carrión, the Bronx Borough President, referred to her as “nuestra hermana” – our sister. Hispanic supporters of Clinton say that her backing of Obama will be instrumental in winning the group’s support in November. During the primaries, Latinos backed Clinton 2 to 1 over Obama.

Obama also tried to show that unity was a natural next step for Latinos who had supported Clinton. In his speech at the NALEO convention on Saturday, he stressed that Blacks and Latinos have a shared history in the struggle for equal rights. “We marched together in the streets of Chicago to fix our broken immigration system,” he said to the applauding crowd.  “And it’s because of that 20-year record of partnership with your communities that you can trust me when I say that I’ll be your partner in the White House and I will be your champion in the White House. And that’s what you need now more than ever,” Obama continued. “Because for eight long years, Washington hasn’t been working for ordinary Americans. And few have been hit harder than Latinos and African Americans.”

Democrats aren’t the only ones trying to build bridges after messy political battles. Sen. John McCain spoke to the NALEO convention on Saturday, promising to pursue comprehensive immigration reform within his first 100 days in office and to reach out to a community that became alienated from the Republican party after Congress’ failed attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform last year.

McCain was on of the chief authors of the failed bill. He now must fend off attacks from Obama, that attempt to stoke doubts that McCain and the Republican Party cannot be trusted to follow through on the immigration issue.

Obama, who took the stage after McCain at Saturday’s convention told the crowd: “[McCain] deserves great credit as a champion of comprehensive reform. I admire him for it, I know that he talked about that when he just spoke before you, but what he didn’t mention is that when he was running for his party’s nomination, he walked away from that commitment.  He said that he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote.  If we are going to solve the challenges we face, we can’t vacillate, we can’t shift depending on our politics. You need a president who will pursue genuine solutions day in and day out in a consistent way, and that is my commitment to you.”

The attacks come at a time when Latino support for McCain is sagging. A recent AP-Yahoo poll showed that Obama’s lead among Latinos was 47 to 22 over McCain, with 26 percent undecided.

McCain’s attempts to regain ground on the immigration issue and rebuild ties with the Hispanic community has not gone unnoticed A headline in the Los Angeles Spanish-language daily La Opinion from early last week put it this way “McCain regresa al centro en inmigración.” – McCain returns to the center on immigration.

Saturday’s speech was just the beginning of an intensified effort by McCain to regain ground with Latino voters.. From July 1^st to the 3^rd, McCain will visit Colombia and Mexico to stress the ties the United States has with Latin America and focus on the shared security and economic concerns.

Unity – or unidad- it seems, might just rival ‘Change’ as a theme in this year’s election.

At least 9.2 million Latinos are expected to vote in November’s presidential election according to a report released Thursday by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. If the estimate is correct, it would represent an increase of more than one million Latino voters compared to the 2004 election.

The number is considered “merely a floor” rather than a ceiling by NALEO, which issued the 64-page report on the potential impact of Latinos in this election cycle. If Latino voter turnout in this year’s primaries is an indicator, the report says the Latino vote could spike even higher in the general election and represent a record percentage of the overall vote in key battleground states. “Changing demographics and rising political participation in the Latino community are redefining the American political landscape,” Senators Ken Salazar and Robert Menendez wrote in the report. “More than any time in the history of our great country, Latino voices and Latino voters will be at the center of the 2008 election, helping to determine the direction our country takes at this critical juncture.”

Primaries Demonstrated Power of Latino Vote
Latinos have already proved they are a formidable voting block, providing the margin of victory for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Texas and Ohio Democratic primaries and for Sen. John McCain in his decisive win in the Florida GOP primary, according to the NALEO report. The modified primary calendar provided ethnic minorities with more of a say in the presidential nominating process. Seventy-nine percent of the nation’s Latinos live in states that held primaries or caucuses on or before March 4^th.

Democrats appeared to benefit the most from the turnout. “Latino Democratic turnout in some major states with large Latino populations doubled, tripled and even quintupled between 2004 and 2008,” the NALEO report found. Latino turnout may be a key to victory for Democrats in the general election, since at least five of the fourteen swing states that the Party hopes to turn blue have sizeable Latino populations.

Florida Remains the State to Watch
Not surprisingly, NALEO points to Florida as the state to watch in the 2008 election. Though Florida’s Latino population has historically trended Republican, an influx of Latinos from South and Central America, as well as Puerto Ricans in Central Florida, have created a sizeable electorate that could vote Democratic. Latinos who are registered Democratic in the state outnumber Latino registered Republicans by 35.3 percent to 33.5 percent. A third of registered of Latinos are unaffiliated and may be up for grabs by both parties. NALEO projects that more than one million Latino voters in Florida will cast their ballot in November’s presidential election.

Latino Turnout Could Be Even Higher
Nationwide more than 17 million Latinos are eligible to vote. One factor that could push the number higher is the swelling ranks of Latinos naturalized as US citizens. The overall number of naturalization applications doubled from 2006 to 2007 to 1.4 million applicants according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Due to a backlog in processing applications, however, the government agency estimates that will finish processing only 80 percent of the applications filed in 2007 in time for the election. Historically, turnout by naturalized Latinos is higher than those who are native born, according to the Census Bureau.

The immigration debate has also galvanized the Latino electorate, according to the NALEO report. “The last two years have seen the mass mobilization of Latinos in reaction to our nation’s widely publicized immigration debate,” the report says. “The intense current debate has already affected Latino naturalizations, and many Latino applicants for citizenship are motivated in part by the desire to make their voices heard.” However, the report concluded that it is unclear how much of the political reaction to the debate would translate into Latino turnout in the election.

“Our job as journalists is to continue to write about the immigration crisis so it will earn the place it should have among the priorities of the new president.”