A lot can take place within a 15 year span. Children grow, people mature, faces age and, at times, are replaced. You may find the facades of buildings remain the same all the while the folks who dwell inside alternate. So is the case within Logan Square, a neighborhood in the Northwest side of Chicago. At one point, the population within the area was dominated by Latinos, however, nowadays it seems that Caucasians are the populous race. Neighbors I grew up with have gone and moved away, replaced by college kids and young professionals.

At this point, you could see that this piece revolves around the topic of gentrification. However, before we move on, I should state that it isn’t one in which I will condone or condemn the phenomena, but rather one in which I inform through personal experience.

I am not saying that Logan Square is the only area in Chicago, let alone, the U.S. that has undergone the gentrifying process. Several neighborhoods around Chicago have had the same experience (Lincoln Park and Pilsen are but two). However, like many individuals who are from such areas, there are personal stakes. At 8 years old, my parents, two Ecuadorian immigrants, had decided to open up a small business located within the neighborhood, El Condor. At first it was meant to be nothing more than a dollar store. Over the years it had grown to be a distributor of Latin American products. I spent my childhood hanging around their storefront, thoughtlessly watching the area change through the arrival of higher income individuals as well as through redevelopment efforts.

I’ll be quite honest I am torn between the old and the new. I remember being a child and experiencing the neighborhood during its shadiest of forms. I still remember walking down Milwaukee Avenue at the age of 12 and being held up at knife point for what little money I had in my pocket. I can’t forget the anxiety and the constant looking over my shoulder during my teen years. In fact, it had gotten to the point where I had to carry a weapon, myself, in the event anything transpired.

Above all else, I remember Logan Square for what it actually was and still is: home. I remember walking with my siblings to the park, joining neighboring families. I recall the excitement that ran through me when elote vendors honked their horns. The laughter of other children opening fire hydrants during scorching summer days still rings loud and clear. I remember the social gatherings I partook in with friends from the area (Troublesome? Perhaps. Memorable? Most definitely).

Many of those days are all but forgotten. What I see now is vibrancy. The population within the area is made up of people in their twenties and older; college kids and professionals. No one appears to have their guard up, which was not the case years ago. I figure, why should I? Not only did some of our neighbors move out, so did many of the gang members that plagued Logan Square. What used to be an area where everyone would retreat inside their homes afterhours has now become an area of constant motion.

There are still remnants of the old neighborhood. Remnants such as the abandoned parking lot right under the train tracks of the Chicago Blue Line. Through the alleys and on garage doors, graffiti stains are still quite visible. Junkies from my childhood still roam around here and there, but the funny thing is they get along quite well with the current residents. I’ve even seen them dance together.

I am glad to say that to this day, our little shop is still up and running, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The question that comes to mind is how long will this last? There have been other businesses in the area that have come and gone. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I took notice that a Cuban joint had closed permanently. This took me by surprise because it was a piece of the past, but more to the point, it had been around longer than I could remember, even longer than our business.

I leave off on this note: History unfortunately has a habit of repeating itself. Yet, it doesn’t mean that life will cease. Change is inevitable but it is adaptable. Naturally, we gravitate towards what we deem as familiar, but if we’re around something that is “new” and “different” long enough, our familiarities change too. That is precisely one of the reasons I still have a presence within Logan Square, why our family still thrives in such a community.

“”The Republicans, by electing three national Latino leaders, have really challenged the Democratic Party,” said former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, until recently one of the highest-ranking Latino Democrats in the country.

“Democrats have to recruit more Latino candidates and they have to start siding with Latinos on redistricting and other issues,” Richardson said, “because many Latinos perceive that the party doesn’t care enough about electing more Hispanic officials.”

Richardson’s concerns were echoed by Latino lawmakers, political activists and campaign strategists across the country. To them, the Democratic Party — while benefitting from a surge in Latino votes — has, in particular, not done enough to help Latino candidates move from city council, legislative and congressional seats to the party’s highest elected offices.”

While many take issue with the GOP stance on issues like immigration, defense spending, Medicare, and more, you have to admit that the Republicans do a great job of finding photogenic and compelling Latino people to run for office. But do note that Martinez and Sandoval failed to win the a majority of the Latino vote in New Mexico and in Nevada and that Marco Rubio lost the non-Cuban Latino vote in Florida.

Although the majority of Latinos do lean Democratic, the Latino vote is still up for grabs with some Latino Democrats becoming disillusioned with the party, especially those who were expecting quicker action on the immigration issue. While the GOP seems to become more extreme on immigration and other issues, it’s time to Latinos to start to think beyond partisanship. A case could be made that both parties would have to more overtly court the community if more of us were registered as “declined to state” or independent.

And finally, the Democrats would be wise to cultivate Latino candidates of a higher caliber because the GOP has already learned how to do it in three high profile states in the last election cycle. When an organization is successful in achieving something, they are better poised to improve upon that success in the future.

“The number of women sworn in to Congress this year fell for the first time in 30 years, leaving women with just 16% of congressional seats.

And the number of female lawmakers in state capitals decreased by 81 this year, the largest percentage drop in decades.”

By Milly Doolan

The United States has a poor track record of electing women to public office. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s world average of women in politics, the U.S. ranks 67th in the number of women in elected office and is tied with Turkmenistan. In fact the number of women in Congress as well as state legislatures is at its lowest point in several decades.

The problem is not that women aren’t winning elections, it’s that they aren’t running. Research has shown that women need to be asked and recruited to run for office. Moreover, women are more likely to come up with reasons why not to run – family constraints, concerns about privacy – than reasons to do so.

The 2012 Project, a national non-partisan campaign in partnership with Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics, aims to inspire record numbers of women to break barriers and run for public office in 2012. The election of 2012 presents a once-a-decade opportunity. Following the 2010 census, every congressional and state legislative district in the country is being redrawn, and new and open seats will be created. Previous elections have shown that women have more success winning open seats.

One such example is Representative Nydia Velazquez who was the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress. She was also the first to represent the newly redrawn 12th District of the state of New York.  This was in 1992 when 24 additional women were elected to Congress.

But 1992 was no accident. The so-called “Year of the Woman” was the product of a national coordinated effort by women’s groups aimed at reaching out to women to run for office. There was no similar effort in 2002 … and no gain for women.

The election of 2012 represents another year of opportunity for women, especially Hispanic women. As reapportionment maps show, states with a significant rise in the Hispanic population, such as Texas and Florida, are gaining 4 and 2 seats respectively.

The 2012 Project has assembled a faculty of former elected women legislators to share the facts about women’s under representation and the many benefits of public service. Women interested in taking the next step toward candidacy are connected to leadership institutes, think tanks, campaign training programs and fundraising networks designed to help them succeed in their own states. So far, 90 bipartisan allies, including MANA and the National Hispana Leadership Institute, and more than 50 former elected officials and consultants are helping The 2012 Project reach out to potential candidates.

Women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population yet only 16 percent of the U.S. Congress. The 2012 Project understands the urgency and the opportunity of the post-redistricting election cycle. Consider yourself invited to help find great women, or step forward yourself. It’s time. Ya es tiempo.

As of the 2000 Census, a little over three quarters of the town population was white, and there were roughly the same percentage of blacks and Latinos. And in recent years, there has been an influx of Somali immigrants, who are primarily Sunni Muslims. Shelbyville also has a Tyson Foods processing plant. For those who have followed immigration issues, you may remember that Tyson Foods was involved in an immigrant smuggling scheme years ago, but the company ended up being acquitted. The Tyson Foods aspect is important because many immigrants come to work in meat processing plants especially in the south.

I spoke with Welcoming America‘s Executive Director David Lubell about his involvement in Welcome to Shelbyville. And he said that Shelbyville was chosen because his organization had witnessed the changing demographics in the town and that they could more closely measure the impact of collaborations and the community building that his organization works on between U.S. born citizens and newly arrived immigrants in a smaller municipality. I asked if there had been any hate crimes or violent incidents that made this particular place ripe for this kind of organizing, and he did mention a mosque burning in nearby Columbia, Tennessee. Lubell explained, “Progress has been made in Shelbyville. This is not a story of complete success, but progress and community building between the ethnic groups is occurring especially when people make a concerted effort to do it. Welcome to Shelbyville is a hopeful film.”

Check out this clip, and do check your local television listings for tomorrow’s PBS premiere:

And if you can’t catch this on television, you will be able to watch the documentary in it’s entirety via this link. Welcome to Shelbyville is a recipient of a Gucci-Tribeca Documentary Fund grant and was a selection of the U.S. State Department’s 2010 American Documentary Showcase.

This past holiday season was one of great difficulty for my family. Two weeks before Christmas, our matriarch, my Abuela, fell and broke her hip, marking the second time in four years this has happened to her. Despite being in excellent physical condition for an eighty-one year old, her surgery and subsequent rehabilitation have been an arduous process. Always a trooper, her resolve and work ethic never cease to inspire me. During the physical therapy sessions that I attended to translate for her, I made several observations regarding the state of our country, which I’ve connected back to the Latino community.

Observation 1: the United States lacks bilingual medical professionals. My Abuela’s surgery, hospital stay, rehabilitation, and pending transfer home with an in-home therapist have exposed her to countless doctors, nurses, aides, surgeons, Medicare representatives, and therapists. And the lovely number of bilingual professionals who were part of that process? Three. While I know this cannot be generalized to all other geographic regions in the country, it is still disheartening considering my family lives a half hour outside New York City and considering Latinos will be one quarter of the US population in the coming years.

It was a stunning revelation to see hardly a Spanish-speaking medical worker in an urban hospital concentrated near the heart of a Latino neighborhood. We have a need for bilingualism, and the health of our community will depend on satisfying that need. Hopefully, as our community grows so too will our presence in professions as important as the medical field. Unfortunately, the state of our education system only further stacks the cards against aspiring Latino professionals who work towards those goals. As a result, we may not see an influx in that profession of qualified bilingual workers until the need (healthcare provision) forces the education system to be more clearly addressed. Consequently:

Observation 2: nothing in this country can be addressed until healthcare is fixed. Illegal immigrants and the poor flooded emergency rooms before healthcare reform because of their lack of insurance, which highlighted our joke of an immigration system. Instead of focusing on addressing healthcare, the Republican Party spent this past decade engaged in anti-Latino rhetoric that could make even a semi-intelligent observer think our healthcare system was flawed solely because of charity care to illegal immigrants and low-income Latinos on Medicaid. Although illegal immigration and Medicaid inefficiency contributed to the problem, they by no means were the only cause of the spike in health care costs that accompanied fewer services. Unfortunately, politicians seem to have failed in addressing this.

A week and a half ago, Republicans symbolically voted against providing healthcare for the poor, which overwhelmingly includes Latinos and other people of color, further stalling policy reform in other arenas. Let this serve as a stark reminder to our community with respect to which political party actually has our back, and may that reminder carry into 2012 when the Latino electorate cannot afford to reinforce its stereotype as the sleeping giant. Simply stated, Latinos need to wake up and start paying attention to what is going on in this country. We’ve got Arizona making a daily case for exile from the rest of the union, an education system that fails Latinos more than anyone else, and a welcome mat passing for an immigration system. But the only time our community is galvanized is when there is a crisis on our doorstep. Exacerbating this is Spanish-language media, which brings me to my last observation.

Observation 3: there is nothing but utter crap on Telemundo and Univision that is passing for stimulating content. While the news programming does a wonderful job of informing us about what is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean, the domestic content is egregious. Each day I walked into my Abuela’s room I was hard pressed to find something stimulating on the television. I would wager hardly anyone cares. Aside from some potential territorial tendencies readers might now be getting into about their precious telenovelas, Caso Cerrado, and Sabado Gigante, here’s why you should care.

The lack of objective, thought-provoking analysis from Spanish-language media is a disservice to Latino voters who rely on Spanish television for their news. This can easily foster voter apathy, which Latinos statistically embody in the US. This is a stark contrast for Latinos who stay tuned in with what happens in their nations of origin, with many still casting votes from abroad. If they can be informed about issues elsewhere, I find it logical to hold domestic content to a similar standard. While I don’t blame Spanish-language television for our community’s political apathy, I firmly believe Telemundo and Univision can step their game up and adequately provide Latinos with content that is actually intellectually stimulating instead of the usual mind numbing stereotypical, overly dramatic content that dominates those networks. Until such time, I hope it doesn’t take a crisis on our doorstep to galvanize the community like it always seems to. And I certainly hope that what little informative reporting that does take place domestically truly shows the obstacles we still face with healthcare.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

This piece was inspired by a comment on my last blog post about abolishing Chicano Studies departments because “they doom aspiring minorities to a lifetime of poverty.” It reminded of the time-honored American tradition of emphasizing the necessity and superiority of certain fields over others. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t slam the sciences or business while the line frowning upon ethnic studies goes down the street and around the corner. This often times is exemplified by employers who see a resume come across their desk with Women’s Studies or Latino Studies at the top, causing the following Q&A: “What exactly did this person learn? What did they do? I bet they learned to hate men (Women’s Studies) or white people (ethnic studies).”

These questions come up because a good number of people don’t know the content of these fields and subsequently disregard them. But those answers couldn’t be farther from the truth. When it comes to practical applicability, ignoring certain fields should only be acceptable when applying for a job that requires a particular specialization (such as nursing, engineering, a Master’s degree, etc). Otherwise, you can acquire the same skills in Chicano Studies that you can in almost any other field. The key is what you do out of the classroom through internships, research, and extracurricular pursuits, not one’s major. Thus, the importance of fields such as Chicano Studies lies in challenging how we think, not in being a gateway to employment.

Now, we can all agree that “minority issues,” throughout time, have been relegated to the doldrums of academia. American students get one version of history, and it’s not the one that includes the contributions of Latinos dating back to the Revolutionary War. For example, readings for a class I took this semester touched on the Bracero Program, shockingly revealing that my colleagues didn’t know about it, or its economic significance to American agriculture during and immediately after World War 2. And they certainly didn’t know its effect on US-Mexico policy to this day. Most of my colleagues taking the class were not Latino, meaning they were (on the surface) immersing themselves in a curriculum that was not personally relevant. The class shed light on issues relating to race, immigration law, labor relations, foreign policy, and employment discrimination. Broad topics, in a broad field, that got everyone to reflect on the legal and political mechanisms that promulgate Latino disempowerment.

Enter my definition of an effective field of study: one that causes people to spend time in thought, to question what they read, and ultimately be independent thinkers. In my experience, fields such as Latino Studies are among the best at creating such ability.  At their core, these departments offer exposure to areas such as law, history, policy, race relations, and politics. They’re fully capable of fostering independent analysis and are highly effective at challenging the preconceived notions of students. As our country increasingly grows fixated with taking information at face value, they’re needed now more than ever.

Let us use the death of investigative reporting to illustrate this point. The news has become stories on polls, causing a race to the bottom for some in political awareness, and necessitating the need for critical thought. This past election we saw campaign ads in New Orleans with a fence of illegal aliens crossing the border cause people to actually think New Orleans has such a fence, and subsequently feel it’s acceptable to ignore constitutional civil liberties, stop minorities in the street, and ask for identification. People don’t know how to interpret the news, specifically how to differentiate between current events, opinion, and garbage. When someone can’t take a principled stance on an issue, question different ideologies, and challenge their own belief systems, it’s a crisis. If people could do that, then they wouldn’t be surprised to learn Lou Dobbs, like countless other Americans, slammed illegal immigration while depending on it. I’m not saying ethnic studies departments solve any of this, they simply aid in fostering the ability to think critically, which this country desperately needs.

In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t include a conversation I had with my Father before attending college. It went something like this: “Matt, you can study anything you want. As long as it leads to gainful employment.” My response was choosing a field I felt could segue into multiple professions: Communication. And as I near completion of my Master’s degree in Public Administration from Cornell, I am in a cohort with students whose undergraduate backgrounds include everything from Political Science to Women’s Studies to Philosophy. Our common link is the undergraduate research we conducted, fellowships we held, and leadership roles we took that enriched our academic experience. They highlight what a college degree really is: a piece of paper on the wall. As long as one pursues courses that teach them how to think critically while pursuing opportunities that maximize professional growth, they won’t be doomed to a life of poverty. That makes Chicano Studies OK in my book.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

A friend once told me when it comes to Latinos in college, WEB DuBois’s adage of the “talented tenth” is more like the “talented tenth of the tenth”. In that light, many often wonder how educated Latinos can most effectively serve our community. As one Latino faculty member told me when I arrived to graduate school, “It’s great to be involved, but focus on getting your degree. Don’t burn out.” In order to avoid confusion or an existential debate, that is what this piece is about. It’s about not burning out. It’s about allocating our time effectively. It’s about creating and working towards a sustainable long-term vision that empowers our community for legitimate upward mobility. But more importantly, it’s about not being a disservice to our community.

Over the last few years, I’ve been asked during my free time to contribute time and resources towards the less fortunate among our community. These activities have ranged from ESL tutoring for migrant workers, speaking to high school students about staying in school, or attending meetings about the lack of Latino representation among collegiate faculty. With the exception of mentoring Latino undergraduates, ten times out of ten, I turn these opportunities down. Why? Because they entail spending the few free hours that are available in a week trying to save a lost cause that takes away from the big picture. While this may seem callous, heartless, and evil, the reality is those types of service are disservices because they are misappropriations of time and resources that should be allocated towards a greater type of Latino empowerment.

Now, the counter-argument is two-fold. 1) Any progress, no matter how small, is a net gain, especially if it can be sustained over time. 2) Our community has a significant need for any type of empowerment. Both are true, both are valid, and both are a disservice. At the end of the day, it’s a simple calculation: What impact are we having when the few that do make it spend countless hours in college planning and hosting Salsa nights, facilitating community forums, and tutoring migrant workers (who, as the term migrant indicates, are going to leave)? Are those pursuits closing the achievement gap? Are those pursuits increasing Latino representation in professional arenas? Are those pursuits effective allocations of time? Our culture should be celebrated, but it should not be celebrated at the expense of hours that can be allocated towards studying, maximizing Latino undergraduate potential, and, dare I say it, sleeping so that productivity the next day can be further maximized.

In the field of Public Administration, we are taught about effective resource allocation, efficient use of time, and cost-benefit analysis. The goal is significant, long-term gains. Subsequently, short-term gains are frowned upon unless they contribute to the greater vision of long-term success. Enter cultural events, ESL instruction, and forums such as meetings about lack of Latino faculty at universities that we (the students) will be graduating from in a short period of time. All represent short-term gains, detract from time that could be more effectively allocated elsewhere, and are a disservice to our community. So to the counterargument against me, I say let those who are not part of the struggle but want to provide ESL instruction or tutor disadvantaged youth allocate THEIR time towards those pursuits because we have bigger fish to fry. If you are committed to the struggle then your obligation is to the struggle, and by that I mean empowering ourselves to make a contribution to the struggle that goes beyond tutoring, cathartic community pow-wows, and sharing culture.

If we get caught up in such laborious, low-impact opportunities then it’s a disservice to the community. And if these pursuits are disheartening enough to push us out of the struggle, then they are criminal. So what does this mean? This means getting advanced degrees and acquiring the necessary resources to endow professorships at universities that increase the number of Latino faculty at colleges. Not wasting our time at forums about how to engage non-Latino university administrations on the matter. This means talking to the students who made it about going to graduate and professional school so they are empowered to enter arenas where our broken education, immigration, and healthcare systems can be addressed. Not spending time talking to those who have not or will not make it. This means allocating our time effectively so we don’t get burned out and end up leaving the struggle altogether. Not wasting our time away from the books and resources that as a mentor of mine says, “expand the boundaries of our intellect until sleep wins”.

In closing, it is now time to remind everyone of the following: we boast the nation’s highest high school drop out rate. We will represent one quarter of the US population before 2050. And we represent less than one percent of all graduate and professional degrees conferred. We need practical solutions, not rhetoric and fleeting symbolism. We need long-term gains, not short-term ones. We need real action, real solutions, and real change. This means our time and resources cannot be consumed with frivolous pursuits that are low-impact, because that relegates us to pleading with the decision makers when our focus should be on BECOMING the decision makers. We need to rise to provost positions, attain the wealth to endow professors at universities and shape the outcomes of elections, and ultimately become part of institutions. Then and only then should we focus on short-term and low-impact pursuits like sharing our culture. Ultimately, we cannot afford to sacrifice from our personal growth and development when small-scale opportunities arise on the side. There is a big picture we need to keep our eyes on, and in so doing that means making the painful decisions to turn down low-gain opportunities that detract from our ability to effectively serve the Latino community on a wider scale.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

Photo Credit: University of Southern California’s Raza Graduation 2009, from the collection of class speaker Wendy Carrillo, who is pictured with Billy Vela, Director of USC’s Centro Chicano

The model for the Mexican-American studies program in the Tucson schools is based on the notion of “critically compassionate intellectualism.” Students are exposed to history, concepts, and ideas in class, and in the process discover their intellectual strengths. Mexican-American history is taught within the context of the larger American and world histories, and other courses involving the arts are taught (mariachi music for instance).

The teachers indicated that 10% of the students in the Mexican American studies courses are not Latino. Furthermore, data collected by the district and state shows that for the past 6 years, students in the Mexican American studies program outperform their peers on the Arizona high school exit exam. One of the plaintiff teachers pointed out that although the Mexican American studies program does not offer math, their students increased their scores on math standardized tests. And he felt that this score increase is a testament to the courses and teachers that inspire these students to strive for excellence beyond the curricula that they teach.

Arizona’s HB 2281 is scheduled to go into effect on December 31, and if the district does not comply, sanctions and fines will be imposed. Right now the attorney representing the teachers in the case, Richard Martinez, is trying to get an injunction and plans to challenge the implementing of the law as violating the first amendment, by challenging what is the compelling state interest in banning the Mexican-American studies program, and by examining the educational equity issue.

The teachers readily admit that their program was singled out by the state superintendent of education and controversial Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, who was a leading sponsor of SB 1070. And they provided footage of Pearce and his colleagues suggesting that the ethnic studies instructors were teaching the students that they were oppressed. Opponents of the program have insisted that the teachers were informing students how to be anti-American or implying that they were teaching hate speech.

For more information, check out this video below. Precious Knowlege, the documentary, that was made about the ethnic studies struggle in Tucson Unified School District will soon air on PBS. And you can check out the Save Ethnic Studies website.

Precious Knowledge Trailer from Ari Palos on Vimeo.

My sense is that this particular ethnic studies program was and is not presenting anti-American views, but rather is presenting the side of history that is often left out or censored. When people are denied of their history, I think that there is more opportunity for radicalizing and creating a class of people who are angry than allowing alternative points of view to be explored in a classroom facilitated by trained instructors.

By Jorge Bauermeister

The political world was abuzz this week as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unequivocally stated, “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.”  Senator Reid’s comment was inarticulate at best and serves as an unfortunate reminder of the all too common practice of inserting race, gender and even fear into American politics. His quote also reminded me of a blog post I wrote in July, Free Press: Shame on You! For those not familiar with Free Press, it’s an organization dedicated to media policy and is a powerful lobbying force in Washington.

In the world of political blogs and 24/7 news coverage, I’m rarely surprised anymore, however after reading a report paid for by Free Press, yes even I was a little shaken.  This wasn’t a slip of the tongue on the campaign trail, it was a well thought out strategy to categorize and influence Americans.  While funded by Free Press the report was composed by the Harmony Institute, a non-profit research institute according to their website.  The goal of the report is to explain how to sway the public on an Internet regulation policy known as Net Neutrality.

While the lengthy report is filled with questionable logic, one section is particularly troublesome especially for those in minority communities.  The report explains that “core supporters” of their policy issues are affluent whites while the group labeled “persuadables” includes African Americans, women, the unmarried and those of a liberal persuasion.  Additional characteristics of “persuadables” include living in the southern region of the US or rural areas and having a low income.  What’s equally disturbing is the patronizing tone throughout the entire report.  I am dismayed at the sponsors of any report that can so easily talk down to others and label people as “targets” without any thought to the repercussions of lumping people together based on skin color, gender or circumstance.  Haven’t we been taught that our individuality is what makes our country unique?  Isn’t our common thread as Americans the belief that others have the right to think for themselves even if we disagree?

As a Latino American I certainly hope Free Press and Harmony Institute take stock in the thoughtful criticisms of their report.  We must ask ourselves, should race and financial status be part of our political mudslinging for the foreseeable future?  While Senator Reid is certainly taking some heat for his comments, I’ve seen little in the press or blogosphere bringing attention to the alarming Harmony Institute report.  Please tell your friends, fellow bloggers and fellow Americans, this sort of calculated exploitation of women, minorities and the disenfranchised will not stand.

Molina’s work in the rural communities is something that interested me because the media often focuses on the plight of inner city youth, while not giving much attention to those from the less populated towns. We often don’t realize that when resources are scarce in the cities that services and programs for youth in the rural communities are even more limited, especially when it comes to culturally relevant programming for Latino youth.

Molina grew up in Rawlins, Wyoming, which is a small town in the southern part of the state that as of the 2000 Census had a Latino population of 21%. Molina estimates that it is actually higher than this because of the continued population growth but also because Latinos are often undercounted.

A few months ago, Molina worked with a youth group in Trinidad, a small southern Colorado town, as part of the Department of Criminal Justice Youth Diversion Project for kids who had committed minor offenses. Along with his creative partner Aju of SOULAJU, he taught this group of youth how to express themselves through film. This particular youth group in Trinidad is led by Tony Diego, who helped bring Molina and Aju to this project. This kind of work is important because funding for the arts and creative programs has been limited in recent years. Additionally, because of testing standards and the limitations in the textbook curriculum, issues about identity and racism are not thoroughly explored.

The videos below provide a glimpse into the creative project Adrian Molina helped guide with the youth in Trinidad, Colorado:

I asked Molina if he encounters resistance to doing this kind of work in small towns, especially because his own artistry involves hip-hop. He offered this, “Sometimes there is some resistance to me working in the schools and people wonder why I’m there, but I’m trying to get them [the youth] writing and thinking about issues in their community. I think that because I have a law degree and teaching experience at the college level that I’m more legitimized in the eyes of the educational establishment.”

When asked about funding for arts programs being cut in the current budget climate that many states are embroiled in, Molina said that this situation makes his work even more poignant. He said, “In small towns, the art material is often not made relevant to young people of color. They don’t see themselves reflected in it. When I started, I began writing things that came out in rhymes. Hip hop and spoken word was easily accessible to me because it didn’t cost a lot to produce. Anyone can pick up a pen and write.”

Reading, writing, and communication skill building are important to all youth, but especially minority youth because of our educational challenges. Adrian Molina’s work supplements what is taking place in the schools but with a younger and more culturally relevant approach. If you want a glimpse of Molina’s work, I encourage you to check out the Soulaju website. And also take a look at this clip of his spoken word artistry, recorded two and a half years ago, but still very relevant today:

And to see a more recent video that Molina produced that is more relevant to Latino youth identity, check out “Being Brown”: