Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT.org)

Nearly a year ago Lionel Sosa contacted me about a new non-profit organization he was putting together, from scratch. The group, which would become Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together, sought to become the first online non-profit organization to build a web portal devoted to dialogue between Mexicans and Americans.

MATT.org has grown into a tremendously successful organization in the months since it officially launched (the site launched on Cinco de Mayo - May 5th). Americans and Mexicans have visited the English and Spanish versions of the website, generating millions of clicks. Virtually all content and projects are posted to both the English and Spanish websites.

Here are a few of the terrific MATT efforts worth pointing out:

1.) MATT.org launched a micro-loan program that allows Americans to invest in Mexican small (or micro) businesses all with the goal of securing or creating jobs in Mexico. More jobs and job security in Mexico equals less desperation and hopefully less illegal immigration. Click [here] to check out a promotional video about the program and to learn more about the process and loan recipients.

In case you missed it, the Nobel Peace Prize this year was awarded the man behind the largest and most successful microloan programs in the world. MATT.org partners with Kiva and Mexico-based ADMIC for the program.

2.) MATT.org has a tremendously successful discussion board section where thousands of people from the U.S. and Mexico debate the important and sometimes less important issues facing our two countries and two peoples.

The comments are lively to say the least; they are noteworthy, sometimes controversial, and occasionally offensive depending on who's posting. Since the site is open to anyone the comments reflect that. Click [here] for the discussion section which feature 10 forums with about 35,000 posts and more than 16,000 members.

3.) MATT.org has begun to circulate a petition urging Congress to make it easier for American citizens to vote in national elections. Click [here] to review and/or sign the petition.

4.) The site features commentaries, news summaries and original reporting as well as statements from the MATT on important issues facing the two countries. I help lead the editorial team at the site and we're developing outstanding content and research projects for the coming months.

5.) And this might be the coolest development thus-far: MATT has established a new relationship with Quepasa.com a fantastic, growing online community with more than 350,000 members. The site has really taken off and is attracting a lot of national media attention and national advertisers.

Will Obama’s candidacy advance racial bridge-building?

Will Obama’s candidacy advance racial bridge-building? I am certainly excited when I think about the possibility. The New York Times has a profile which implies that Sen. Barack Obama has quite a different take on the challenges facing our country. His old mentor, the famed attorney Laurence Tribe, is quoted as saying he'll be hard to pin down on some issues because of his unique background and identity.

The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny, formerly of the Chicago Tribune - one of Obama's hometown papers, wrote for Sunday’s paper that, “As the third African-American senator since Reconstruction, Mr. Obama represents a new generation of black leaders who are connected neither by lineage nor by personal experience to the monumental struggle for racial equality.” Zeleny goes on to analyze some of Obama's writings on this subject in the article titled "Testing the Waters, Obama Tests His Own Limits."

Click [here] for the article.

First Hispanic to Chair the Republican National Committee?

Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press breaks the news that Florida Senator Mel Martinez will become chairman of the Republican National Committee. Read the story [here]. Media Matters criticizes CNN's John King who apparently broke the story [here].

An "official" announcement has not been made yet, and tomorrow's stories will likely cite AP as the source. But it appears to be certain.

A few thoughts:

Senator Martinez will be the first Hispanic to chair the Republican National Committee.

The appointment of Sen. Martinez to Chair the RNC is an important step for the Hispanic community as it intimately ties one of the nation's leading Hispanic leaders to the strategy and policies of the Republican Party. When the RNC speaks, it will now speak with a Hispanic voice. And I think this will mean much more than speaking Spanish, it will mean speaking in a way that is at least somewhat attuned to the issues and concerns in the community.

But I assume some major Hispanic organizations will oppose the appointment because of Martinez's conservative position on life and other issues. It might be accurate to say that his personal position on major contemporary political issues are both in line with, and divergent from, the Hispanic community agenda at the same time.

Given the pummeling Republicans took at the polls in the competition for the Hispanic vote during the mid-term elections, this appointment is significant because it sends a message that the Party intends to be more in-touch with the Hispanic community in the walk-up to the 2008 presidential election.

I also think this is important because it sends a clear message about the role President Bush hopes the RNC will play in helping to support efforts to pass historic, comprehensive immigration legislation and to resuscitate the Party's image in the Latino community. When Sen. Martinez speaks about immigration, he speaks about his own personal experience.

News on the Year of the Black Vote, Black Candidates

This election year has been an interesting one for those of us that track political party outreach to minority voting groups. Here's the latest news on this subject:

Today, the Associated Press reports [here] on a poll conducted by AP and AOL Black Voices
which finds "GOP Outreach to Blacks Falters."

And, also today, Reuters reports [here] that "Many conservative blacks still vote for Democrats."

Yet, as AP recently reported [here], "Black Republicans Urge New Voter Habits."

This month's edition of Ebony Magazine has a well-written, major story (teased on the front cover) titled "The New Black Power." In the article, the magazine says "From Maryland to Ohio, Pennsylvania to Tennessee, nearly a half-dozen Black political candidates are competing for some of the highest offices in the nation. If many of them win, the victories could mean a historical increase in African-American political might. If most of them lose, it could send a discouraging signal to Black America." Ebony profiles prominent African American candidates from both parties, including Democrat Deval Patrick who is running for Governor of Massachusetts and is widely expected to be elected.

Here in Maryland, Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele is running for Senate against Congressman Ben Cardin. The Washington Post recently reported that Cardin had a 10 point lead, and that's part of the reason this race has not been seen as among the most competitive in the nation and when national Republicans groups have spent so little supporting Steele.

But, the Los Angeles Times reported on this race in today's newspaper [here] and finds that "Once trailing by more than 10 points, Steele narrowed the margin to where the race is now considered by some to be nearly a tossup."

Steele, who is African American, received endorsements from a group of prominent African Americans from Prince Georges County recently. The Washington Post reports on the endorsements [here] and The Washington Times reports on it [here] and the Baltimore Sun [here].

Today, the Post also reports on the broader African American outreach efforts across Maryland this cycle, [here].

Some in the Democratic Party are warning that garnering support from Black voters will become more difficult for the Democrats in the future, but the AP poll out today appears to contradict those beliefs.

WSJ Report on Viva Piñata

Today the Wall Street Journal reports on the front of its Marketplace section about the new 4Kids™ TV show on Fox stations and the new Viva Piñata Xbox 360™ video game which Microsoft hopes will help it sell its new Xbox system.

And this is how WSJ frames it: "Microsoft Corp. said it will take a step to address a weakness of its original Xbox with a new game called "Viva Piñata" for its Xbox 360 console aimed at young gamers."

Visit http://www.vivapinata.com/

Will Michael Steele Capture the Black Vote in Maryland?

The Washington Post has a Metro section cover story on the Maryland U.S. Senate race today:
"Race vs. Party: Steele Catches the Eye of Frustrated Black Democrats In Prince George's, but Will They Cross Over?"

I think many will. But Rep. Ben Cardin has been aggressively courting Black voters, including visiting P.G. county voters with Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John Kerry and others, as the Post notes.

Click [here] to read the article.

- Adam

U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Courts Mexican Immigrants

Wall Street Journal staff writer Miriam Jordan reports today on a unique program being marketed to Mexican immigrants, many of them illegally in the United States, by the Bush Administration and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

It sounds controversial, and some critics have already raised concerns, but it could also been seen as simply another bank getting into th business of international remittances or money transfers.

From a marketing perspective (I teach ethnic marketing to Master's degree students at Johns Hopkins University), the story and the subject help provide terrific information for a case study into how banks are aggressively marketing to Hispanic consumers.

Jordan writes:

As U.S. leaders craft policies to curb illegal immigration from Mexico, the U.S. Federal Reserve is devising programs to extend banking services to undocumented immigrants. A new remittance program aims to bring Mexican migrants who send money home into the mainstream U.S. financial system, regardless of their immigration status.

Dubbed "Directo a Mexico," the remittance program enables U.S. commercial banks to make money transfers for Mexican workers through the Federal Reserve's own automated clearinghouse, which is linked to Banco de Mexico, the Mexican central bank.

She goes on to report that:

Critics, however, say the Federal Reserve Bank is coddling illegal immigrants and helping them engage in capital flight. "Anything that makes it easier for people to live in this country illegally is an inducement for illegal immigration," says Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an immigration-restrictionist group. "On top of that, it is draining money out of our economy."

I found this link to some recent public events promoting the program in Texas. And this link to one held in St. Louis. And [here] is a link to a downloadable Directo a Mexico brochure in PDF format. And finally, [here] a page with a lot more information and downloads.

Click [here] to read the full article online or read it [here] if you subscribe to wsj.com.

PBS Reports on "Vigorous political organizing inside Latino churches"

The award-winning PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly reports on "vigorous political organizing inside Latino churches."

This story, reported by Kim Lawton, is excellent and balanced. Rarely does a mainstream media organization devote so much time and thought to the issues of faith and politics in the Hispanic community and PBS should be applauded for the work on this piece. It's one of the important things I've been pushing for since I established the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University following 2000 presidential election.

She reports that, "However things shake down politically, experts agree the mobilization over immigration is creating unprecedented new alliances between various ethnic groups within the Hispanic world and between Catholics and Protestants."

Click [here] to read the transcript or watch the streaming video from the recent broadcast.

Hispanic Websites Spotlighted by Washington Post Business Section

This past Saturday, Washington Post business writer Alan Sipress wrote an interesting piece which reported that "Hispanics' Web Identity Grows As Ads Target Diverse Audience." Sipress did a nice job of reaching out to experts from around the nation to build a balanced piece, which identifies some of the biggest challenges marketers have when trying to reach Latino consumers online.

The Post story reports that, "Today, a contest over Hispanic identity is being waged on the terrain of the Internet. The proliferation of Web sites such as Batanga, which appeal to Latinos regardless of where they come from, is pulling in one direction, encouraging the emergence of a wider Hispanic identity that transcends the borders that long fragmented the group. But a countervailing trend, which taps into the endless specialization available on the Web, is pushing the opposite way, toward a narrower identity rooted in homeland and even in hometown."

Sipress goes on to quote my old friend and former EFE America correspondent Rebeca Logan:

"The Internet allows you to develop a greater identity, but you can still find out the weather in your parents' hometown," said Rebeca Logan, a former news producer at AOL Latino.

He writes that, "Motivated by commercial considerations, Web sites such as AOL Latino, Univision.com, Yahoo-Telemundo and Batanga are trying to capture as large an Hispanic audience as possible in a bid for advertisers."

Click [here] for the article.

Tavis Smiley Profiled by The New York Times

Felicia R. Lee profiles television and radio personality Tavis Smiley on the front of The Arts section in today's edition of The New York Times. The piece solidifies Smiley's standing as one of the most influential and thoughtful African Americans in the nation.

When he was with NPR I found his show to be one of the most thought-provoking on radio and he was willing to take on issues many other media organizations ignored. His book, The Covenant, is one I highly recommend to all of my students in ethnic marketing at Johns Hopkins University. It's a must-read for every single political strategist, candidate, and journalist whose work even remotely involves the African American communities.

Click [here] or [here] to read the article.

Washington Post: Blacks Increase Political Presence

The Washington Post recently reported on the growing clout of Black politicians in Montgomery County, Maryland. Please click [here] to read the article by Post staff writer Cameron W. Barr.

MTV Tries Again with Tr3s

MTV relaunched its old MTV en Espanol today as "MTV Tr3s" a souped up bilingual version of MTV geared towards the emerging acculturated American Hispanic youth. The audience share is likely to start small but New York Times reporter Mireya Navarro, whose feature on the channel ran today, interviews a bunch of people who seem to think it's the beginning of a powerful business that will benefit from the growing number of advertisers savvy enough to put their dollars into ventures aimed at bilingual or even English-dominant Latinos.

The "new" revamped cable channel, which will reach about 14 million people at launch, has partnered with Latina magazine and is co-sponsoring its national tour througbhout Hispanic heritage month. Click [here] for details.

As NYT's Navarro notes, other cable channels that have been recast successfully include Mun2 the bilingual cable channel owned by Telemundo. Both find themselves in the company of the successful cable channel SiTV.

I'm really excited about this new channel (though I'll have little if any time to actually watch it). The newly competitive environment is certainly shaping up to be a terrific case study for the Ethnic Marketing course at teach in the Master in Communication program at Johns Hopkins University.

Click [here] to read the positive spotlight piece in today's New York Times.

Click [here] to read the Billboard story on washingtonpost.com

Will Televisa Make a New Bid for Univision?

Andrew Ross Sorkin & Peter Edmonston report in the business section of today's The New York Times that, "A consortium of investors led by Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest media company, is considering a plan to make a $13 billion bid for Univision Communications after losing an auction for the company this summer, executives involved in the negotiations said yesterday."

It's surprising given that the group led by media mogul Haim Saban appeared to have won the auction and was well on its way to Univision board approval only two weeks from today.

Click [here] to read the Times article.

- Adam

Naive... What else is there to say about Survivor's producer?

Washington Post columnist, Lisa de Moraes, who writes about television has written a devastating column which exposes the sad intentions behind the Survivor program on CBS which will feature a sort of battle of the races where racial or ethnic teams face off against each other. It appears to have only been about attracting ethnic viewers (big surprise).

Survivor's producer makes terribly naive comments about race and ethnicity in society which lead me to believe that there was little deep thinking that went into developing this season's show which I had hoped might be able to contribute to a discussion about race and ethnicity in American society.

Click [here] to read the article.

- Adam

New York Advertising Agencies Adjust to Reality - They Must Hire more African American Senior Executives

In a positive turn of events, New York's major advertising agencies have acknowledged that they have kept African Americans out of their senior ranks and are taking steps to change (or will accept punishment if they don't). Both the government and the agency clients have expressed frustration over the hiring and promotion practices at Madison Avenue agencies.

The New York Times, which has reported on this issue in the past, reports today on its front page that the agencies will make changes after pressure was exerted by the City's government leaders.

Given the stereotyping of African Americans and other minorities in corporate advertising it really should come as no surprise that these groups have not been active participants in the leadership decisions made about the direction of advertising.

It depresses me that students who I help train to take junior or mid-level positions in marketing and advertising may never be able to reach the higher levels of agency leadership simply because of a broken system that is out of step with the changing society and changing demographics of our nation. I continue to hope that, sooner or later, corporate advertisers will avoid agencies that avoid diversity at all levels, including the most senior positions.

Click [here] to read the Times' story by Dianne Cardwell and Stuart Elliott.

- Adam

Is CBS's Survivor Show Going to be a Battle of the Races/Ethnicities?

Reports out this morning by the Associated Press [here] and The New York Times [here] on negative publicity CBS is receiving after it announced a change in the format of its popular show Survivor. AP says CBS has "defended the ethnic twist."

AP reports, "For the first portion of the 13th season of "Survivor," which premieres Sept. 14, the contestants competing for the $1 million prize while stranded on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific will be divided into four teams - blacks, Asians, Latinos and whites."

New York City Councilman "[John] Liu, who is Asian-American, said he was launching a campaign urging CBS to pull the show because it could encourage racial division and promote negative typecasts. He and a coalition of officials, including the council's black, Latino and Asian caucus, planned to rally at City Hall on Friday," AP reports.

My sense is that CBS, which has seen a decline in viewership of this program, one of its most successful ever, sought to develop a national debate on the issue of race and ethnicity while attracting more viewers to its program.

Bill Carter's story in the Times includes this quote from the show's long-time producer and developer:

“In America today,” Mr. Burnett said, “I really don’t believe there are many people who hate each other because of their race. But even though people may work together, they do tend in their private lives to divide along social and ethnic lines.”

The critically acclaimed film Crash is an example of an entertainment effort that was able to turn prejudice and racial or ethnic hatred on its head. And I bet the show's development team sought to benefit from the praise this film and others received for causing audiences to think about the issue in our country.

According to Carter that casting for this season required an outreach effort into minority communities:

"For the new contest, Mr. Burnett said, the show reached out to social and church groups to bring in more applicants of different backgrounds. He said the results had been gratifying."

- Adam

Juan Williams Calls for Black Leadership to Change Approach

NPR journalist and well-known African American author Juan Williams has a fairly controversial op-ed in today's Washington Post with under the title "Banish the Bling: A Culture of Failure Taints Black America."

Williams writes in his column, "Have we taken our eyes off the prize? The civil rights movement continues, but the struggle today is not so much in the streets as in the home -- and with our children. If systemic racism remains a reality, there is also a far more sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure."

Williams' column goes on to examine, and defend, Bill Cosby's criticism of Black leadership and African American culture: "Incredibly, Cosby's critics don't see the desperate need to pull a generational fire alarm to warn people about a culture of failure that is sabotaging any chance for black people in poverty to move up and help their children reach the security of economic and educational achievement. Not one mainstream civil rights group picked up on his call for marches and protests against bad parenting, drug dealers, hate-filled rap music and failing schools."

It's hard to disagree with his conclusion, "The defining challenge for this generation of Americans dealing with poverty is putting the next generation in a position to move even higher. Individuals must now use the opportunities made available to them by the sacrifices of past generations if they are to achieve victory in America's long and still unfinished civil rights movement."

Click [here] for the full article.

Minorities Become Majority in Three More U.S. Cities

Tomorrow's Washington Post reports in a piece titled "Changing Face of Western Cities," that minorities have become the majority in a number of major American cities. It's a topic we'll be addressing in my Ethnic Marketing course this fall at Johns Hopkins University.

Last week I posted a short piece to MATT.org about changing American demographics. Click [here] to review that article.

The Post's Anushka Asthana writes, "An analysis of census data released last week has shown that the white non-Hispanic population in another three of America's 50 largest cities has become a minority. In Phoenix, Tucson and Denver, the white population has recently fallen below 50 percent, according to William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. He predicts that another four cities will soon follow. Whites will become a minority in Arlington, Tex.; Charlotte; and Las Vegas within two years and in Austin within four years, he said."

Click [here] to visit the Washington Post article.

Historically Black Colleges Reach Out to Hispanic Students

Historically black colleges and universities, HBCU's, are reaching out more aggresively to Hispanic students, reports the Associated Press today. Atlanta AP reporter Dorie Turner finds that " Black colleges that want to shore up enrollment numbers are revising recruitment strategies to include more members of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group. The campuses are hiring Hispanic recruiters, distributing brochures that feature Hispanic students and establishing special scholarships for Hispanics."

This is an interesting development which could help save the financially challenged HBCU's while also calming some of the tensions between African Americans and Hispanics that even reached into the academic elites.

Just a couple years ago I participated in, and spoke at, a three day symposium at Harvard Univeristy titled the Color Lines Conference and I witnessed a thoughtful dialogue between a panelist and an audience member who spoke about their mutual distrust for one another even though both have devoted their time to building racial and ethnic understanding.

Click [here] or [here] for the article.

AP reports: "Casinos Are Aggressively Courting Asian Americans"

It's rare that mainstream media explores the ways business segments are tapping into the Asian American consumer market. They are quite helpful for building case studies for my ethnic marketing course at Johns Hopkins University and for sharing with clients of my agency, The 2050 Group.

Associated Press reporter Ling Liu has an intriguing story on the wire today about how casinos are mounting aggressive efforts to attract Asian Americans, responsible for enormous segments of casino revenues. Liu reports, "And few industries have catered to the Asian boom with as much cultural competency as the $75 billion U.S. gambling industry."

This struck me as astonishing: "Foxwoods, the biggest casino in the world, based on gambling floor space, estimates that at least one-third of its 40,000 customers per day are Asian. Mohegan Sun says Asian spending makes up a fifth of its business and has increased 12 percent during the first half of this year alone."

With detailed evidence of the outreach efforts in Asian American communities and details on the growing buying power of Asian Americans, I find Liu's piece to be one of the more thorough and helpful AP stories of its kind in a long time.

Click [here] for the full AP story.