If you have been following the news about the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, you are probably aware that AT&T will control nearly half of the cellphone market if the proposed merger goes through. And you know that less choice is just wonderful for the consumer, right? If you don’t like AT&T, you would just be left with Verizon and Sprint as alternatives.

According to Reuters:

“Now holding 27 percent market share, AT&T would gain a 44-percent foothold if the T-Mobile merger is approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

At present, only four companies control 90 percent of the U.S. cellphone market. With a takeover of T-Mobile, AT&T would face off against Verizon and Sprint for dominance, perhaps even triggering a further consolidation of the remaining two smaller players. Would this be good for cell and broadband users?

There’s no guarantee that economies of scale would trickle down to consumers. After all, T-Mobile’s aggressive pricing forced AT&T to offer better plans. Without a strong competitor, prices rarely drop, although that’s not how AT&T is pitching the deal.”

The fearless Latino organizational leaders have come out in support of the merger including the National Council of La Raza and LULAC. And this largely has to do with the amount of “support” NCLR and LULAC receive from AT&T.

However, there are some smaller organizations pushing back against this merger, and one of them includes the National Hispanic Media Coalition. You can read the NHMC’s statement on the merger here. But I just want to highlight this part about costs:

“Latinos pay more for mobile service than any other demographic group. Latinos, on average pay $102 a month on T-Mobile, compared to $120 a month on AT&T, $117 on Sprint and $115 on Verizon. 25% of T-Mobile customers are Latino, and many of them choose T-Mobile because of its affordability, flexibility and excellent customer service.”

You can contact the FCC and your congressional representative to express your support or concern about this proposed merger. But share your thoughts here as well. Do you think that Latino organizations have more to gain in telecommunications consolidation? Or do the benefits that the organizations receive outweigh the possible added costs to the individual consumer?

Yesterday in a press release, NCLR commented:

“…we hope and expect that the White House will go beyond speeches and meetings and take meaningful action. As record levels of detention and deportation continue to soar, families are torn apart, innocent youth are being deported, and children are left behind without the protection of their parents. Such policies do not reflect American values and do little to solve the problem. We can do better.”

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network added:

“Like Congressman Luis Gutierrez though, we all want to feel the same sense of hope and optimism we felt in 2008. However, words alone will no longer be enough. The President must earn Latinos’ support through actions that move the country toward a policy granting us political equality, through the regularization of our immigrant families’ status. The goal contained in Arizona’s SB1070, the criminalization of immigrants, is mutually exclusive with the goal of legalization. While Republicans have coelesced on a nativist position that will be shamed by history, it is not sufficient for the President to simply blame Congress for inaction. The President must lead by example, and we will measure his commitment to immigration reform by taking stock of his actions.If the President seriously wants to move the debate forward, he can start by answering the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s call to freeze the misguided Secure Communities as a first step.”

“Administration officials expected to attend the meeting include:

Attorney General Eric Holder

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano

Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President & Senior Advisor

Nancy Ann DeParle, Assistant to the President & Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy

Melody Barnes, Assistant to the President & Director of Domestic Policy Council

Gene Sperling, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy & Director of National Economic Council

Austan Goolsbee, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers

Cecilia Munoz, Deputy Assistant to the President & Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

Heidi Avery, Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security

Stakeholders expected to attend the meeting include:

Leith Anderson, President, National Association of Evangelicals

Hon. Michael Bloomberg, City of New York

Bill Bratton, Former Police Chief, City of Los Angeles and City of New York

Hon. Julian Castro, Mayor, City of San Antonio

Secretary Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary Homeland Security

Governor John Engler, President and CEO, Business Roundtable

Hon. Eric Garcetti, City Council, President City of Los Angeles

Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Former Secretary of Commerce

Raymond Kelly, Commissioner, New York City Police Department

Senator Mel Martinez, Former United States Senator/Chairman, Florida, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean JP Morgan Chase

Greg Page, Chairman & CEO, Cargill

Secretary Federico Pena, Former Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Energy

John Podesta, CEO, Center for American Progress

Charles Ramsey, Chief of Police, City of Philadelphia/President, Major City Chiefs

Al  Sharpton, President, National Action Network

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Former California Governor

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO

John C. Wester, Bishop, Archdiocese of Salt Lake City”

Notice the absence of NCLR, LULAC and even some of the local immigrant rights organizations like CHIRLA or even CASA de Maryland, which is actually in closer proximity to DC.

The President asked these leaders and stakeholders to help him “change the debate” on immigration, but it seems that the biggest change can come from the President in terms of offering administrative relief to DREAMers who have been requesting it.

United We DREAM, a group of activist undocumented young adults, sent out a press release today titled “President Obama: Yes, you can!” asking the President to exercise his discretion in providing relief to DREAM eligible young people, who would have been legalized had the DREAM Act passed. President George W. Bush actually did defer the departure of a class of people back in 2007. So it seems that President Obama does have the power to act.

I’m not so convinced that much will come from this meeting, as no Congressional members were present either. Congress is actually on recess this week.

Frankly, I think that this campaign launch would have had a bigger impact if all members of the CHC had signed on before issuing a press release. Also, I wonder how much Ozomotli resonates with people. Many reliable Latino voters (meaning those who are older) probably don’t listen to Ozomotli, and even among the younger crowd, I don’t think that the group is as popular as say Pitbull or even Shakira, but I guess there is hipness factor in having a band ask for respect instead of La gran jefa Janet Murguia.

Here’s the youtube announcement. Check it out and let us know what you think:

In some ways, I think that this campaign is too little too late. Why are we only asking for respect now? This could have easily been launched when Arizona Governor Brewer was talking about beheadings last year. But I think that this effort is better than nothing, and I do hope that the campaign has a positive impact. You can ask your member of Congress to sign on here.

“This weekend’s vote on the DREAM Act was a disappointment. Republicans voted against a measure to give folks who are American in everything but their legal status an opportunity through military service or education.

I’ll be blunt: this vote failed because a group of Republicans stood with their party, instead of their principles.

Senator John McCain cosponsored the DREAM Act in 2003, 2005, and 2007. But this weekend, he voted against it.

Senator Chuck Grassley cosponsored the DREAM Act in 2003 — and voted against it this weekend.

Neither of them were alone — there are five Republican senators who have voted for the DREAM Act in the past decade, but failed to support it on Saturday.

We need to send a clear message to the Republicans that none of us are going away — that we will continue to fight. That’s why we’re asking people who support the DREAM Act to call the GOP leaders and express their disappointment — and to tell them to stop playing politics with immigration reform.

Call Representative Boehner at (202) 225-6205 and Senator McConnell at (202) 224-2541 today.

When President Obama was in the Senate, he was a cosponsor of the DREAM Act. It remains a major priority for him today.

And OFA supporters like you — along with advocates across the country — have done the important organizing work in our communities to build support for this crucial measure.

But the fight ahead of us will be difficult.

Prominent Republicans have come out against birthright citizenship, fought for English-only laws, and generally moved their party toward greater levels of extremism.

With the House under Republican control in the next Congress, we need to make it clear that we will stand strong for an America built on hard work, fairness, and equality — not one ruled by xenophobia and fear.

This fight isn’t over — and when it comes up in the next Congress, we need to be on the record saying that Republicans can’t hold reform hostage to political games.

Let’s start by telling that to the Republican leaders today. Will you call Representative Boehner at (202) 225-6205 and Senator McConnell at (202) 224-2541?

Thanks for fighting,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America”

Obviously, these paid hacks are pointing fingers directly at the GOP Senators, but let’s remember that three Republicans voted in favor of DREAM, while five Democrats voted against it. Those five Democratic senators, had they voted in the affirmative, would have given the DREAM Act the 60 votes needed to proceed to debate. So the blame can go to both parties, but it is especially stinging for the Democrats since so much has been made about the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform happening in the current administration.

I sense that beyond sending e-mails to the Democratic Party faithful that the Democrats start doing some soul searching. It’s one thing to call Representative Boehner and Senator McConnell and beg that they keep immigration reform on the radar in the next congress, but it’s another matter entirely to take stock of the Democratic Party and identify where some of its members have acted in an obstructionist fashion as well.

And beyond the two party system, Latinos need to start examining their issue organization leadership. Are we best represented by NCLR or LULAC and its leaders? Could they have been more vocal in speaking out about the immigration conundrum and/or could they have offered more support to the DREAMers? Unless strategies change or evolve, it is going to look like these organizations are disconnected from the masses they purport to represent, especially if they don’t deliver a victory at some point on the immigration issue.

So while Democratic establishment and many beltway organizations will point fingers at the Republicans, DREAM Activists will keep it real. Check out this audio from NPR’s Talk of the Nation from Today with Flavia de la Fuente. Hat tip to Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly.

With a new holiday season kicking in and facing a last push to get a vote on the DREAM Act, the November 2^nd midterm elections seems like a distant memory. The results show the growing influence of Latino voters in swing states like Florida and New Mexico. They also secured key races for governor and the U.S. Senate in California for the Democratic Party by repelling GOP advances in the state with most Latinos in the nation. Most notably, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) retained his seat by winning over Tea Party favorite Sharon Angle thanks to  “her inability to stop saying crazy things” like advising young rape victims to make “lemons into lemonade.”

Despite these important milestones, campaigns from grassroots organizations like the National Association of Latino elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) among others, left the aftertaste of being too little too late. They were effective, no doubt about it; however, they failed to motivate Latinos voters to achieve their true electoral potential. According with the Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos represented the same eight percent of all voters in 2010 as they did in 2006. However, the number of eligible Latinos to vote this year grew to approximately 19.2 million voters from an estimated 18 million in 2006.

As the national Spanish-speaking media started to turn up the volume and “banging the drum of [the] ‘you have to go vote, you have to go vote,’” the enthusiasm among voters picked up traction starting only until the first week of October, Latino Decisions reported. Once the campaigns were in full swing, social media also played a key role on reaching wider audiences. On November 28, Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) invited Univision’s Martin Berlanga to participate in a Twitter party on the importance of voting for Latinos. The tweetchat achieved an impressive 8.1 million impressions in one night, according to LATISM’s Vice-Chair Elianne Ramos.

(For the not social media savvy, impressions means how many times people saw tweets about the party’s hashtag.)

They all seem like successfully calculated efforts given the positive election results against the most radical anti-immigrant candidates. However, imagine what they could have accomplished if the media heavyweights had devoted their full resources to these campaigns way earlier in the game. This fast-and-furious approach didn’t spark enough interest among many freshmen citizens who may suffer psychological roadblocks thanks to years of discrimination and disenfranchisement. Let’s not forget that the naturalization process is long, hard, and expensive plus many have to deal with their own negative preconceptions on civic participation. Also, the high educational gap between Latinos and Whites remains disadvantageous against the former.

For the 2012 presidential elections, we should expect that the traditional political parties will diligently work to enfranchise Latinos. However, neither party seems to have even a remote idea on how to tally our votes. Right now, they are busy putting down their own fires rather than making a sincere effort to reach out. Democrats have lost their luster with the electorate and face an uphill battle to reelect President Barack Obama on 2012. On the flip side, Republicans remain overconfident between their trepid loses and surprising gains thanks to a new lot of conservative Latino politicians. For illustration, read the opinion from Representative (TX-R) Lamar Smith and a counter argument from columnist Edward Schumacher-Matos on the Washingtonpost.com.

So what to do next? As NCLR’s Director for Immigration Clarissa Martinez-De-Castro writes, a “meaningful outreach is essential.” For sure, both parties will make their best effort to win the Latino vote; at the same time, grassroots leadership must capitalize on their media partners’ increasing clout. Univision is already the number five national network in the nation and seem poised to “surpass the Anglo networks in seven years, even without the boost provided by growth in the Hispanic population,” AdWeek reports. What a better opportunity to rev up their campaigns starting today and entice every able Latino to go out and vote.

Carlos Macías is a writer for Being Latino.

“The idea, born of frustration over the party’s inaction on immigration reform and fears that as a voting bloc they’re a political afterthought, Latino leaders have discussed the idea among themselves locally and in conference calls with colleagues across the country.

The unlikely model for the movement they would like to launch is the Tea Party — not in substance, of course, but in its grass-roots organizational style. Acknowledging the source of their inspiration, Latino leaders have dubbed the proposed movement the “Tequila Party.”

These Hispanic leaders have noticed that while the Tea Party has had spotty electoral success, it has called attention to its concerns and values and put the establishment on notice.”

The idea of a third party to help push issues beyond where the Democratic and Republican Parties stand, especially in regards to immigration, is a valid one. However, I’m not so keen on the “tequila party” label, which carries with it many of the existing stereotypes and feelings about our community and its relationship to the alcohol industry. So I would consider another name for this movement.

The notion that the current two party system isn’t working well for Latinos has been explored before on this blog. Most recently, Pablo Manriquez covered it in his piece, Latinos Vilified by Republicans and Ignored by Democrats. And of course, in some states like California, nearly two-thirds of Latino likely registered voters identify as Democrats, but they are pretty evenly split in terms of identifying themselves as liberals, middle of the road, or conservatives. So even in Nevada’s neighboring state, there might be some room on the political landscape for such a third party to better represent our community’s needs.

My inclination is to make the grassroots third party group more of a competitor with the traditional issue organizations such as the National Council of La Raza and LULAC. This could be a starting point to really challenge the existing groups and leadership that we have. The Latino issue organizations are largely funded by corporate monies, and recent studies show that many in the community don’t even know who leads them. Furthermore, this could allow the independent grassroots group to play both parties in more local races, meaning if there is a GOPer who is more moderate or amenable to the community’s needs, the grassroots group could funnel resources there. I sense that right now the third party group would more likely be pushing Democrats though given that so many in the GOP have switched to more hard-line positions on immigration (see Senator McCain for example).

What are your thoughts on the “tequila party” idea?

As 2011 approaches, let us take a moment to review 2000-2010 through a lens of Latino disempowerment. During this decade, our community has weathered firestorms ranging from anti-immigrant rhetoric, to financial extortion, to exclusion from the American educational system. Make no mistake, when politicians refuse to provide access to higher education for our community’s children, refuse to prevent mortgage lender usury, and refuse to fix a broken immigration system, they are disempowering Latinos. Through these instances, we have seen some leaders and politicians stand up on our behalf to advocate for reform. But as this Pew Hispanic Center study states we can’t even name them. This begs the questions: Who is our Cesar Chavez? Who is our Dolores Huerta?

At the height of the civil rights movement, Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez banded together to do the unthinkable. Protesting on behalf of migrant workers who contended with workplace conditions we cannot begin to fathom, they caused a national boycott of grapes and threatened the entire California agricultural industry. Risking their lives and abilities to provide for their families, they made sacrifices that caused actual change. These civil rights icons embraced the role of David and crushed Goliath in a way our community has not seen since. And as we move forward, they are the type of leaders we desperately need but do not have.

Simply stated, our community lacks national figureheads to spearhead reform efforts. While we rely on leaders such as NCLR’s Janet Murguía to beat the drums of change, she is restricted by the 501(c)(3) status of the National Council of La Raza. Murguía has been fighting for Latino rights for years and has done remarkable work. But she can only do so much when only bipartisan or even nonpartisan stances are requirements of her job description. Thus, all she and the NCLR can do is offer their resources and talents to policy discussions and court cases, and hope to empower their affiliates to create a grassroots level change like that of Chavez and Huerta.

Now, this is not to say the Latino community has no activists, because we do. One need look no further than LULAC, NCLR, and NALEO conferences to see leaders from across the country come together each year to speak on the issues we face and how we’re fighting them. But we need more than conference workshops and networking events. While noble, they are just not enough. We need a Dolores Huerta and a Cesar Chavez because they would have protested and called for wide-scale economic boycotts of Arizona that a) actually would have worked and b) forced the repeal of the racist legislation the Arizona legislature continues to promulgate. They would have challenged Goliath, and they would have won.

Unfortunately, we live in reality. And the reality is Gov. Jan Brewer was reelected. The reality is the DREAM Act remains a dream. The reality is immigration reform has not happened. And the reality is the Latino electorate, comprising the nation’s largest and fastest growing minority demographic, remains a sleeping giant. The status quo does not need to exist, but it lives on because we lack national advocates who are not afraid to, for lack of a better term, “throw down”. If this were the African-American community, leaders such as the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would inundate the airwaves with an onslaught of calls for reform that would force people to listen. Leaders in academia such as Dr. Cornell West and Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry would join in the debate, calling for change and garnering attention to their cause. While they join us in our struggle, we cannot ask them to fight this fight for us. We need our Cesar Chavez and our Dolores Huerta, and we need them now.

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: Cesar Chavez at the Delano UFW rally, June 1974 by Joel Levine.

Last week a new coalition, Latinos for Internet Freedom “LIF”, was formed to fight for internet freedom and to support the concept of net neutrality. Over 40 local and national groups comprise this coalition from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists to more local groups like the New Mexico Media Literacy Project and CARECEN. These groups realize that our livelihood depends on an open and free internet that allows us to communicate, organize, and challenge the traditional propaganda machines.

If you notice, some of our community’s most prominent or noted civil rights organizations have not joined the newly formed LIF coalition. Notably absent are NCLR, MALDEF, and LULAC. However, this should not be a big surprise since big telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon tend to be high level donors to these organizations. But since many of the grassroots organizations do work that fits in line with and supports the stated goals of the larger Latino organizations, I would hope that they (the holy trinity of NCLR, MALDEF, and LULAC) will eventually join this fight.

I was able to ask Roberto Lovato of Presente.org about the absence of some of these larger Latino civil rights organizations from the net neutrality fight, and he offered this:

“The response to our launch of the Latinos for Internet Freedom coalition has been overwhelming. Latinos and non-Latinos from across the country have stepped to say they want to keep the internet as open and free from the excessive greed and control of extremely powerful corporations. These same corporations that have, over the past 10 years, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence “opinion leaders” and “civil rights” organizations. That so many leaders and organizations have joined our fight despite the attempts to buy Latino opinion speaks well of these leaders and organizations- and of our cause. Other leaders “brillan por su ausencia”, they shine for their absence against the dark cloud of corporate control looming over the internet. The conspicuous silence of some “civil rights leaders” around network neutrality, an issue at the core of the civil and human rights struggles of the present and future, provides, I believe, an opportunity for the courage and conviction of the brave new leaders of the Latino community to shine forth. Digital age activists like LIF members  Amalia Deloney of the Center for Media Justice, Andrea Quijada of the Media Literacy Project and Steven Renderos of the Main Street Project stand to inherit and redefine what were the civil rights struggle of the industrial age civil rights organizations. They are at the heart of Latinos for Internet Freedom.

To my knowledge, Janet Murguia and the Natonal Council of La Raza have remained neutral about network neutrality.”

If you want to preserve the free and open internet that allows you to go where you want to when you get online, please take action here and consider voicing your concern to Latino oriented organizations who are not yet taking a stand in the net neutrality fight.

The real highlights of the call occurred at the end in the question and answer session. Some points to be noted are as follows:

• When asked about the latest talk to repeal the 14th amendment (birthright citizenship), Murguia did offer that this is “extremely troubling” and acknowledged that positions like this are “on the extreme.” She did reiterate that the constitution establishes that anyone born in the US is a citizen.
• I asked Murguia a question about pursuing the DREAM Act as an incremental policy separate from comprehensive immigration reform (CIR), acknowledging the work that some of the DREAM Activists are doing, and she offered this:
  • “…We have been very much in support of the DREAM Act. We have been out there to partner with them to advance reform (referring to youth advocates that I mentioned in my question). If we can see movement on the DREAM Act in the Senate, that would be important. We would want to see some sort of action in the Senate to see if we can do just that. We would still like to see CIR accomplished, but we would like to see the DREAM Act passed.”

As a follow up, I also asked the following question off the call. In seeing footage of what has been happening in Arizona, I have noticed that the public face of NCLR hasn’t been profiled or out front and center. So this question gets to that point:

“Has Ms. Murguia attended or led any of the protests that were taking place in Arizona in recent weeks? Just last week, there were caravans from around the country going to Arizona to show solidarity with the people in who were protesting SB 1070 just prior to when the law was scheduled to go into effect. We have had musicians, former Arizona state senator Alfredo Gutierrez (who was arrested), and religious leaders engage with the protesters in Arizona and receive press coverage for it. Was Janet Murguia there, and if not, does she see herself taking a more public role to express solidarity with those who are in the belly of the beast?”

And this was the provided answer via Lisa Navarette, NCLR’s VP of Communications:

“Thank you for your question.  NCLR has been a highly visible presence on the issue of SB 1070 and Arizona.  Janet Murguía led a multi-ethnic coalition of organizations in calling for a boycott of Arizona back in May.  Since then, she has also been focused on rallying national support for the boycott and other efforts to push back on SB 1070, including asking Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star game.  It was also a major theme and topic of discussion at our recent Conference in San Antonio where thousands of postcards and texts were sent in opposition to SB 1070.  NCLR staff have been a frequent and consistent presence in the media on this issue.

Most important is NCLR’s local work with our Affiliates in Arizona and our Board Chair Danny Ortega, a very prominent attorney in Phoenix, who is a key leader in anti-SB 1070 work.  He is one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Arizona and has been a top spokesperson on the issue in the state.  NCLR also has several well-known and respected Latino organizations in the state as Affiliates.  They have been key supporters of the protests, the lawsuits, and other anti-SB1070 activities and have committed themselves to engaging in extensive voter education and civic engagement efforts.  And while we applaud the tremendous court victory last week, our work in Arizona will continue until this law is repealed.”

My analysis of the answers provided:

I think that Ms. Murguia walks a fine line in publicly advocating for the DREAM Act separately from comprehensive immigration reform. The reality is that we are not likely to see passage of comprehensive immigration reform in the current session of Congress. We are coming up on the August recess when law makers give themselves a whole month off to play, engage with constituents, campaign, etc. Accomplishing CIR at this stage of the game is unlikely given the upcoming November elections. Murguia and her organization do support the DREAM Act though, and I believe at the end of the day, they see that accomplishing this incremental reform would be better than accomplishing nothing on immigration.

As for my off the call question, it appears that Ms. Murguia has not been in Arizona since SB 1070 was signed by Governor Brewer, but her organization has been coordinating a response and working with its affiliates to push back against this law. I have even blogged about Murguia’s Washington Post opinion piece on moving next year’s MLB All-Star game out of Arizona.

I think that the Latino community needs to see more of Janet Murguia, the leader of our most prominent civil rights organization, in this battle and engaging with bloggers will help get her message out. Seneca has often blogged about the issues in Latino leadership and has noted that we don’t have Latino political or national civil society leaders addressing the community on the Sunday network television shows. I think that Murguia would most likely be invited by the traditional media or more widely recognized if she did attend some of these protests and actions that the grassroots are involved in. It would be a positive show of solidarity on her part, and it would endear her to the grassroots activists. Often, I hear rumblings from community organizers and grassroots folks that there is a disconnect between the Washington, DC establishment vs. what is happening on the street or in the community outside of the beltway. Murguia could help ameliorate those sentiments. I keep thinking about the African-American community’s response to the Jena 6 case three years ago as an example.

What are your thoughts? And are you pleased with the progress NCLR is making in shaping the current immigration debate for our community? What do you like or dislike about their approach?