When the personal computer revolution began decades ago, Latinos and blacks were much less likely to use one of the marvelous new machines. Then, when the Internet began to change life as we know it, these groups had less access to the Web and slower online connections — placing them on the wrong side of the "digital divide."
Today, as mobile technology puts computers in our pockets, Latinos and blacks are more likely than the general population to access the Web by cellular phones, and they use their phones more often to do more things.

But now some see a new "digital divide" emerging — with Latinos and blacks being challenged by more, not less, access to technology. It's tough to fill out a job application on a cellphone, for example. Researchers have noticed signs of segregation online that perpetuate divisions in the physical world. And blacks and Latinos may be using their increased Web access more for entertainment than empowerment.

Fifty-one percent of Hispanics and 46% of blacks use their phones to access the Internet, compared with 33% of whites, according to a July 2010 Pew poll. Forty-seven percent of Latinos and 41% of blacks use their phones for e-mail, compared with 30% of whites. The figures for using social media like Facebook via phone were 36% for Latinos, 33% for blacks and 19% for whites.

A greater percentage of whites than blacks and Latinos still have broadband access at home, but laptop ownership is now about even for all these groups, after black laptop ownership jumped from 34% in 2009 to 51% in 2010, according to Pew. READ MORE

Telemundo Chicago, the fastest growing Spanish Language station among Adults 18-34, welcomes Meteorologist Maricela Vazquez, Reporter Yolanda Vasquez and Political Editor Alejandro Escalona as contributors to its 5pm and 10pm newscast. Telemundo Chicago is fortifying its award winning news team with individuals adding vast experience, tenure and news savvy.

Maricela Vazquez, an Emmy Ward Winner in 2005, is the first Latina Meteorologist in Chicago. Ms. Vazquez’s resume extends to general assignment reporter, covering politics, crime, education, immigration and other stories. Ms. Vazquez has covered President Bush’s visit to Chicago in 2006 and Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s visit in 2008. Ms. Vazquez has presented weekly women’s segment, “Para Ti Mujer” from 2003-2010. Presented two-part special series on tornadoes in Chicago (July, 2008). Ms. Vazquez will be the Meteorologist M-F at 5pm and 10pm news.

Yolanda Vasquez, comes to Chicago by way of New York, NY where she held the position of News Producer and reporter for Telemundo, N.Y. In her tenure Vasquez has held various international and national positions, including Press Advisor, Correspondent, News Producer and Anchor. Notable accomplishments include coverage of the death of Pope John Paul, the death Celia Cruz and The Staton Island Ferry Crash in 2010, Ms. Vazquez was a back fill for national correspondence. Yolanda will focus her reporting on M-F at 5pm and 10pm news.

Also joining Telemundo Chicago as Consulting Political Editor, is veteran Chicago journalist Alejandro Escalona. Mr. Escalona is the Latino Affairs Columnist for the Chicago Suntimes, where he writes a weekly column focused on the Latino Community in Chicago. Mr. Escalona will be providing in depth analysis in the political arena, specifically the Chicago Mayor Candidates and their election platforms. Escalona is the former editor of Hoy Chicago, the Tribune Company’s Spanish language daily. During his tenure the publication won numerous awards for coverage and design. During his distinguished career, Mr. Escalona has interviewed numerous leaders, including Mexican President Vicente Fox, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Chilean President Patricio Alwyn and Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu. His articles and interviews have been published in leading publications and has consistently appeared on Television as a political news commentator.

All members join Telemundo Chicago at a time of major accomplishments for the station. . “Noticiero Telemundo Chicago at 5pm” continued a steady growth trend in the November Sweeps 2010. The newscast achieved a +46% increase from September 2010 among Adults18-34 and +42% among Adults18-49. In addition, Telemundo Chicago increased the share of Spanish Prime time viewer ship to 25% in the November Sweeps 2010, an increase of 8% compared year over year.

###
Source: Nielsen Media Research - Chicago NSI Live +3 data

Linda Alvarado personifies the American Dream. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to a poor immigrant family, she was able to go to college and found a successful construction company that went from pouring concrete sidewalks to building multi-million dollar airports, convention centers and stadiums.

“The American dream is also the Hispanic American dream,” says Alvarado. “America is a country that has a lot of diversity and it enables people in ways that perhaps in other countries may not be as easy.”

Alvarado, who is Mexican American, calls her veer into construction “one of those great unplanned careers.” She was attending Pomona College in Claremont, California on an academic scholarship, majoring in economics, and needed a job, she says. “I didn’t want to work in the library or food service, so I got a referral to work grounds-keeping.”

Her soon-to-be-boss tried to dissuade her, telling her she’d have to do heavy lifting and wouldn’t be able to wear nice shoes. But something about the experience really spoke to Alvarado. “I said to myself, ‘Let me get this right. I don’t have to go the gym, I will get a tan and will work with all this single men—and you’ll pay me to do this,’” she jokes. That job was followed by one at a development company where, Alvarado says, “I dreamed of getting into construction and building high rises.”

“Sometimes, while people plan on what they are doing, opportunities may come our way,” she says. “We need to be careful that we don’t eliminate ourselves and run when in fact there are opportunities even in very non-traditional careers.” READ MORE

In August, 60 years after the University of Texas admitted its first black student, the school welcomed the first freshman class in which white students were in the minority.

White students, who accounted for 51 percent of U.T.’s freshman class in 2009, made up 48 percent in 2010. Black and Hispanic students represented about 5 percent and 23 percent, respectively, with Asians and other races making up the rest.

The state’s flagship university passed the demographic milestone earlier than some had anticipated, reflecting a similar shift that is rapidly taking place at other top-level educational institutions across the country.

Although the changing demographics of college campuses may be grabbing the headlines, the more compelling issue is how the growing number of minority students presents serious social and academic challenges for financially strapped universities, even as the schools are under pressure to boost graduation rates.

Nationally, 52 percent of Hispanic students and 58 percent of black students are unable to earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, compared with 40 percent of white students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. READ MORE

A coalition of New Mexico Hispanic groups is demanding Gov. Bill Richardson not speak on behalf of the Hispanic community, saying he failed to follow through on promises and was abusive toward Hispanics in his eight years in office.

The Hispano Round Table of New Mexico, which represents more than 50 groups around the state, unanimously passed a resolution saying the Democratic governor was contemptuous and deceptive toward the Hispanic community.

The resolution also says he failed to create a state Department of Hispano Affairs as promised and misled prominent Hispanic groups with that promise.

Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos says Richardson will not lower himself to respond to such a ridiculous assertion. READ MORE

The electorate that will soon choose the successor to Mayor Richard M. Daley looks a lot different than the voters who first put him in office more than two decades ago.

An analysis of recently released United States Census Bureau estimates by the Chicago News Cooperative shows how racial and ethnic communities have continued to shift dramatically during the past decade in a city long known for its kaleidoscopic population and segregated neighborhoods.

As the mayoral candidates campaign ahead of the Feb. 22 election, campaign strategists determining where they will focus their efforts will have to be mindful of three trends:

The city’s black population fell by about 11 percent between 2000 and 2009, a pattern reflected in many neighborhoods across the South and West Sides. Twenty-four of the 25 city-designated community areas with the largest black populations in 2000 saw declines, according to the analysis of the five-year population estimates for 2005-9.

There was a marked rise in the white population in some of the city’s priciest neighborhoods in and near downtown. In the Near South Side community, the number of whites more than tripled in nine years.

Estimates of the city’s overall white population increased only modestly because of large declines in their numbers on the Northwest and Southwest Sides. Meanwhile, Hispanics continued to supplant whites in the bungalow belt.

When the federal government releases its official 2010 census data in the coming months, it will confirm that every racial and ethnic group in the city is a minority –no single group will make up a majority of Chicago’s roughly 2.85 million residents.

Given Chicago’s election system, which requires the new mayor to garner an outright majority of the vote, the winner will need support from many voters of other races, forcing candidates to seek backing throughout the city. READ MORE

States where Hispanics have settled in large numbers saw some of the highest percent changes in population growth and gained congressional seats, according to the first set of Census 2010 results, released Tuesday.

Many states in the South and West that have been magnets for Latinos saw double-digit percentage growths. The growth in those areas far outpaced the nation’s, which saw a population increase of 9.7 percent over the 2000 Census count of 281 million residents.

The new national population is 308.7 million.

This first release of Census results did not include data on race or ethnicity -- reports with those details will be released early next year. But many demographic experts have been expecting the 2010 Census to show that some of the largest growth in population would occur in states that are home to Hispanics, who have a higher birthrate than most other groups and include millions of immigrants.

Nevada, where Latinos were a significant factor in the re-election of Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, saw a 35 percent population increase, the highest of any state. Nevada gained one congressional seat. READ MORE

After deserting a Spanish naval ship in the Pacific Northwest, Don Francisco de Paula Marin, a 20-year-old Spanish sailor, arrived in Honolulu in 1794. Marin was the first documented Hispanic to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands.

Marin’s arrival occurred about the same time that King Kamehameha was consolidating all of the Islands into one kingdom while he was living on Oahu. The king maintained a body of advisers who acted as a council of state to aid in his struggle for supremacy.

Don Francisco de Paula Marin, who was from an agricultural part of southern Spain, was known for his extensive knowledge of the medicinal uses of plants and herbs. According to a Hawaiian history book by Richard Wiesnewski, “The Rise and Fall of the Hawaiian Kingdom,” Marin planted the first pineapple in the kingdom of Hawaii on Jan. 2, 1813.

Marin soon became a trusted advisor and confident of the king, acting as his business advisor, bookkeeper, interpreter (he spoke fluent Hawaiian). He also served as the king’s physician and was at his bedside during his death in 1819.

As a result of his service to the king and the alii, Marin was given land on Ford Island to collect plants and provide fresh fruits and vegetables to the crews of foreign ships that arriving at Honolulu Harbor.

Today, Marin is best remembered for his green thumb. He introduced apples, apricots, asparagus, avocados, cabbage, carrots, Chile peppers, eggplant, lemons, limes, macadamia, nectarines, nuts, olives, onion, oranges, parsley, peas, peaches, pears, potatoes, rice, tea and tobacco into the Hawaian Kingdom. READ MORE

"For a long time Latinos were a fact of life in the American Southwest, and that was it," said John Weeks, a professor of geography and director of the International Population Center at San Diego State University.

"But over the last 20 years, there has been just a mushrooming of migrants into places like Charlotte (North Carolina), originally brought there to do construction."

Latinos are leading the transformation of the United States, where ethnic and racial minorities are expected to become the majority by mid-century, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections.

There are more than 45 million Hispanics in the United States, double the number 20 years ago, according to the American Community Survey released this month ahead of the 2010 Decennial Census data being released on Tuesday. The survey drew on five-year estimates from 2005 to 2009.

While long a presence in the states bordering Mexico such as Arizona, Latinos are increasingly moving to the U.S. interior to work in states like Georgia and North Carolina, where the number of Hispanics as a proportion of the population has grown by nearly 50 percent since 2000.

A sign of that growth is in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which includes the city of Charlotte -- one in five children now born there are to Hispanic mothers.

"This city is no longer thought of as being a 'Southern town,'" said Rocio Gonzalez, of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Charlotte, speaking of the city's transformation.

While it was hard to find a place to sway to a salsa beat when she moved there in 1999, Gonzalez, who is originally from Colombia, says it now has clubs open even on week nights.

'MORE DIVERSE FUTURE'

The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. Hispanic population will nearly triple to more than 130 million by 2050, when nearly one in three U.S. residents will be Latino.

The rapid growth in part is a result of increased economic immigration from Mexico and Latin America, which has helped swell the U.S. foreign-born Hispanic population to 37 million, from 31 million a decade ago. READ MORE

The last 10 years have been of considerable importance to the economy. From boom to bust and back again, the nation's wealth has expanded and contracted in unforeseeable ways. Throughout these tough economic times are stories of significant hope. Mary Kay Inc. is one of them and is proud to announce that over the last 10 years, it has increased its Latina independent sales force by 39 percent.

The increase in the Latina Mary Kay independent sales force is significant when compared to the overall economic trends, regardless of the ethnic grouping, over the last 10 years. Budget cuts and workforce downsizing occurring across the board in almost every industry over the last decade, can make starting a Mary Kay direct sales business appealing to many women.

Given the opportunity, Latina women can have financial freedom and excel to the highest levels of leadership. They are role models for others to reach their full potential as leaders. Yvette Franco, Vice President of U.S. Marketing for Mary Kay Inc. explains: "The Mary Kay business opportunity is a business model that resonates with working women who need flexible hours, a clearly defined business plan and an open-ended opportunity to achieve personal growth and financial success, for themselves and their families. A Mary Kay business is the ideal choice for every woman with an entrepreneurial soul."

Mary Kay credits this growth to values that Latinas share with the skin care and cosmetics leader. When Mary Kay Ash founded her business in 1963, she stressed to the independent sales force – made up of only 9 women at that time – the importance of faith, family and career. "Historically, Latinas follow Mary Kay's principles, balancing their work lives and caring for their family, children or parents, while still finding time to earn extra income." Franco added.

Mary Kay has been a stable career choice for thousands of Hispanic women, many of whom have found great success in the process and continue to pass it on. READ MORE

More than Eight in Ten Hispanic Adults Use a Cell Phone

Hispanics More Likely than other Cellular Users to Text Message

Hispanic Smartphone Growth Rate Outpaces that of Total Population

Consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research issued an analysis which finds that cellular usage is increasing at a faster rate among Hispanics than it is among the total population. The analysis is derived from the company's Hispanic Multi-Market Study, which compiles information on lifestyles, technology adoption, demographics and media usage among adults age 18+ in 34 of the largest Hispanic markets in the U.S. Scarborough finds that the percentage of Hispanic adults who use a cellular phone grew 26 percent since 2005, versus 18 percent for all adults. Currently, cellular usage among Hispanics is on par with that of the general population as 82 percent of Hispanic adults use a cellular phone, versus 84 percent of total adults.

Hispanics are more likely than other cellular users to text message. Sixty-four percent of Hispanics who use a wireless phone text message, versus 56 percent of all cellular users. This group is also more likely than other cellular users to use their wireless device to:

* Download music: 22 percent of Hispanic cellular users download or listen to music via their wireless device, versus 15 percent of all wireless users.
* Play games: 19 percent of Hispanic cellular users play games on their wireless device, versus 15 percent of all wireless users.
* Access social networking: 12 percent of Hispanic cellular users social network via their wireless device, versus 10 percent of all wireless users.


Additionally, the Hispanic smartphone growth rate is outpacing that of the total population. Nineteen percent of Hispanic adults currently live in a household that owns one or more smartphones – such as Blackberries or iPhones –versus five percent in 2005. Twenty-three percent of the general population currently owns these devices in their household, growing from nine percent in 2007. READ MORE

Latinos represent more than 30 percent of Arizona’s population and bring more than $31 billion to the state’s economy, according to a recent study by Arizona’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, reports Maritza Lizeth Félix for Prensa Hispana. The report, “Datos: Focus on Arizona’s Hispanic Market 2010,” finds that Latina women have become an economic engine in the state. The study does not include the economic impact of undocumented immigrants.

In Numbers
$31.3 billion – the buying power of Latinos in Arizona
$47.9 billion – the amount Latinos are expected to spend in 2013
$951 billion – Latino buying power in the U.S., not including Puerto Ricans, whose buying power is estimated at $50 billion
63% of Arizona’s Latino population lives in Maricopa County
42% of the residents of Phoenix are Latino
1 in 4 children born in the U.S. in 2008 was of Hispanic descent READ MORE

Latino business leaders recognizes a New York congressman for his work in breaking down trade barriers between the United States and Latin American countries at a dinner featuring embassy representatives from 13 countries.

Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., received an award from Hispanic entrepreneurs for supporting laws dealing with trade agreements with Latin American countries and drug policies affecting the region.

The Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce hosted a dinner Friday to honor Engel's work as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs' subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Diplomatic delegations from 13 countries, mostly from Latin America, attended the dinner held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

"We are giving this award for first time to honor people who help Latinos' businesses to grow, and we chose Congressman Engel for his work in facilitating trade between Latin American countries and United Sates," Angela Franco, president of GWHCC, said.

Engel's initiatives have been aimed at promoting trade preferences with some Andean countries, allocating funds for Haiti's reconstruction and convening an independent commission to evaluate U.S. programs and policies to reduce the drug supply and demand in the Western Hemisphere. READ MORE

Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.

This is the first-ever survey reading from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project that exclusively examines Twitter users. In previous surveys, the Pew Internet Project had asked internet users whether they "used Twitter or another service to share updates about yourself or to see updates about others?"

Here is a little background on our reasoning for focusing just on Twitter in this more recent survey. The message service Twitter launched on July 15, 2006 now claims tens of millions of users worldwide. It is one of the most popular online activities among tech enthusiasts and has become a widely used tool among analysts to study the conversations and interests of users, buzz about news, products or services, and announcements by commercial, non-profit, and government organizations. For instance, it is an important component of the analytical work by our colleagues at the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism in its New Media Index, which assesses the most prominent topics discussed in social media every week.

Since August 2008, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has been asking a question in occasional national telephone surveys about services like Twitter. In the 10-year lifespan of the Pew Internet Project, we have not usually asked about single, company-specific online applications or activities because our mission
is to look generally at online activities, rather than at specific brands. For instance, when we looked at teens and gaming, we focused on genres of computer and online games, rather than usage of particular games. READ MORE

Oh the Drama of it all. During the middle of the night a startled couple awakes to a phone call, the mother answers and it’s from the local hospital informing her that her son, Alberto, has been involved in a horrible accident. She breathes heavily, asks a furry of questions, her husband and her dash to the hospital (cue dramatic music). Husband goes into an angry monologue, family is reunited, and son is ok.

Sound like a telenovela? That’s because it is. The Texas Department of Transportation launched a series of mini telenovelas this month in an effort to educate the Hispanic Community about the consequences of drinking and driving.

The three telenovelas follow the members of a Hispanic family as they experience drinking and driving situations and they aired as thirty second and two minute spots on Univision, Estrella, and Telefutura during the evening news for two weeks in late November.

One of the telenovelas involves the aforementioned parents rushing to the hospital where their son, Alberto, is in bandages from a drunk driving accident. His parents think it was someone elses fault but to their dismay—(Dramatic Pause)—Alberto was the one drinking and driving.

While the recipe for good old fashioned telenovelas can draw some laughs, their influence and popularity amongst the Latino community is no joke and neither is the disturbing trend between latinos and Drunk Driving. READ MORE