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The self-described American patriot leaps into the ring amid blaring music and loud boos from an overwhelmingly Latino audience, who hold aloft signs in Spanish supporting his masked Mexican opponents.

"My name is RJ Brewer and I'm from Phoenix, Arizona," the wrestler proclaims, in a video of a recent match provided by the promoter. Taunts inside the arena get louder.

The wrestler proceeds to rail against Mexican beer and to demand that people speak English. Then he points to the message painted on the backside of his red trunks: "SB1070" — a reference to Arizona's controversial immigration law. The crowd, some wearing masks of their favorite Mexican wrestlers, shrieks even louder.

When his masked opponent in a red cape appears, the crowd erupts into cheers.

Lucha libre — or "free wrestling" in Spanish — is a brand of Mexican wrestling that dates to the 1930s. The sport came north to the United States along with Mexican immigrants, and over the years it has spawned clubs in U.S. cities with large Latino communities.

As promoters target growing Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American markets, they and their wrestlers' fictional personas have begun to adopt a more overtly political storyline revolving around immigration. It's akin to what U.S. wrestling promoters did in the 1980s and 1990s, when they took on race and the Cold War, but with one key twist — now the American is the bad guy.

"It's something that we've been building in our TV shows and we've gotten a lot of positive reaction to it," said Steve Ship, CEO of Lucha Libre USA, which this week is launching a "Masked Warriors" tour. "So we are bringing it right to our audience."

Arizona's immigration law requires all immigrants in the state to obtain or carry immigration registration papers and requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question people's immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally. The law is being challenged by the federal government and has sparked protests by Latino advocates around the country. READ MORE

Businesses take notice; Hispanics are taking their growing $1 trillion buying power online.

According to Boostability, an online marketing company based in American Fork, Utah, there are more than 30 million Hispanics actively online, and businesses across the country are now catering to this growing online segment. The Internet has rapidly become an integral part of daily life. Hispanics are using the Internet to shop for large retail items, find local businesses and to look up entertainment information such as movies, concerts and places to eat. Today, social media sites like Facebook and YouTube are the second and fourth most popular websites among Hispanics according to Captura Group.

A powerful study by OTX, a global consumer research firm, found noteworthy facts about Hispanic Internet use. They found that 78 percent of Hispanics use the Internet as a primary source of information with 84 percent of Hispanics using search engines to find that information. They also found that 54 percent of these searches led to purchases online while 43 percent led to in-store purchases.

The data showed that the Hispanic market is more receptive to online advertising than non-Hispanics. Small businesses need to move beyond their perceived language barrier and commit to reaching this growing online market. READ MORE

As a Republican primary race increasingly defined by demographics and math drags into April, a daunting demographic mountain looms on the horizon for Mitt Romney if he becomes the GOP presidential nominee: winning over Latino voters who could prove to be pivotal in November.

For Republicans, the math is simple -- and harsh. There are 38.7 million Latinos in the United States, making them the country's largest minority group, according to the most recent Census data. And a recent poll shows if the election were held today, Latino voters would break decisively in President Obama's favor over Romney, to the tune of a 70% to 14% drubbing.
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That's worse than John McCain's performance in the 2008 election, when exit polls showed him winning just 31% of the Latino vote. In 2004, George W. Bush won re-election -- narrowly -- after getting some 40% of the Latino vote. READ MORE

The statistics are remarkable and defy stereotypical notions about who Latinas are and the role we play in current U.S. society. Regardless of outdated and distorted perceptions about us as a group, the facts are incontrovertible.

For example:
788,000 Latinas now run their own businesses, according to the most recent Survey of Business Owners (last conducted in 2007). This represents a 46% increase against a 20% found across all female business owners over a five-year period. Their national background is Mexican (44%), Cuban (9%), and Puerto Rican (8%), also complemented by a myriad of Central and South American nationalities. In addition, the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce points out that:

Hispanic women-owned firms employ 18.5% of the workers in all Hispanic-owned firms and generate 16.3% of the sales Latinas control 39 percent of the 1.4 million companies owned by minority women in the United States, which generate nearly 147 billion in sales

Four in ten minority women-owned firms are owned by Latinas.

While these numbers tell part of the story, they do not explain what is behind these phenomenal growth rates. Equally compelling is the fact that Latinas are leaving corporate America in record numbers as well. What are the underlying dynamics that are impacting these patterns that can serve as lessons for organizations and for Latinas ourselves? READ MORE

In a historic partnership between two visionary travel industry organizations, the NTA-ASTA Hispanic Business Development Task Force met for the first time in conjunction with Tianguis Turistico Mexico and developed a strategic plan to capture the undertapped US Hispanic travel market.

“Because tourism creates jobs and the Hispanic market represents 16 percent of the US population, there is an unprecedented opportunity for growth,” said Olga Ramudo, a member of both NTA and ASTA. “We want to ensure this market is serviced, captured, and has a voice in our industry.

“NTA and ASTA are creating a home for travel professionals specializing in Hispanic travel with a ‘Mi casa es su casa’ approach,” said Ramudo, who chairs the task force.

“We are honored and excited to have hosted the first meeting of this task force in Puerto Vallarta-Riviera Nayarit, Mexico,” said Jose Barquin, Director, Mexico Tourism Board, Miami office, and a member of the task force, “We are convinced this market can create new opportunities to bring more visitors to Mexico.”

The Mexico Tourism Board and Aeromexico collaborated to bring the task force meeting to Tianguis.

Ramudo, President and CEO of Express Travel, one of the largest Hispanic-owned travel companies, is a member of US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. The task force comprises a diverse number of travel professionals including Barquin; Nina Meyer, ASTA president; Maria Gross, MarkeTravel International; Angel Alvarez, Rail Europe; Kirk Whisler, Latino Print Network; Jorge Cazenave, Cazenave Argentina; Guisselle Nunez, Mundi Travel/American Express; Gloria Stock Mickelson, Travel Leaders Franchise Group; Jorge Sanchez, Mena Tours and Travel; and Laura C. Rodriguez, Marina Tours and Travel. READ MORE

In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, many Hispanics are talking about voting for the lesser of two evils. The hard part is figuring out the lesser evil.

African-Americans aren’t facing the same dilemma, and yet many of those on the far left are also disappointed in President Obama. While most black voters approve of his job performance, there is also frustration that he hasn’t been more attentive to issues such as the lack of economic development in African-American communities, high unemployment among black youth, and a school system that fails children right from the start.

Having already been criticized by prominent figures such as PBS host Tavis Smiley and Princeton University professor Cornel West, Obama has now earned the scorn of the progressive website Black Agenda Report. Executive Editor Glen Ford recently said this at a public forum:

“Let me say from the very beginning that we at Black Agenda Report do not think that Barack Obama is the Lesser Evil. He is the more Effective Evil. He has been more effective in Evil-Doing than Bush in terms of protecting the citadels of corporate power, and advancing the imperial agenda. He has put both Wall Street and U.S. imperial power on new and more aggressive tracks – just as he hired himself out to do. … READ MORE

The National Association of Hispanic Nurses launched a Mentorship Academy in July 2011 to maintain a formal peer-driven process to help advance Hispanic nurses' educations and careers.

The academy pairs novice nurses with experienced mentors, said Vivian Torres-Suarez, RN, BSN, MBA, director and founder of the Mentorship Academy. "They work together for a year on goals and objectives set by the novice and on achieving tasks related to advancing their career and/or their education," she said.

Torres-Suarez said the Institute of Medicine's report, "The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health," and findings from the 2008 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses by the Health Resources and Services Administration were motivators in creating the academy and added her participation in the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellowship program made the academy possible.

"The NSSRN states that Hispanics comprise 15.4% of our society while Hispanic nurses represent only 3.6% of the 3 million nurses in the United States, remaining underrepresented in the RN population compared to their profile in the general population," she said. "In addition, Hispanic nurses along with Asian nurses are more likely to have pursued a bachelor's degree for initial RN education but less likely to have pursued graduate degrees than were white, non-Hispanic RNs. Not only are more Hispanic nurses needed, but more Hispanic nurses are needed in education and administration, as well." READ MORE

Finding "almost laughable" Republican claims that newly drawn electoral districts were not influenced by partisan factors, a panel of three federal judges unanimously ruled that new maps for two districts on Milwaukee's south side violate the Voting Rights Act and dilute Latinos' voting power.

The judges enjoined the state's Government Accountability Board from implementing Act 43 as it stands, but Wisconsin's 130 other newly drawn districts are expected to stay the same.
Act 43 concerned redistricting of state legislative districts.

Wisconsin Act 44 affected congressional redistricting, and Act 39 permitted the Legislature to draw new districts before Wisconsin's municipalities drew or redrew their ward lines based on the 2010 Census.
Voces de la Frontera and Latino community members filed a federal complaint that was consolidated with an earlier lawsuit filed by other Wisconsin voters. Both groups claimed the Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act by dividing Latinos into two Assembly districts.

They said the split would dilute the power of Latino voters in the two districts and force them to wait 6 years to vote in state Senate elections, instead of the usual 4.

The three-judge panel agreed, finding that "representative democracy cannot be achieved merely by assuring population equality across districts." They judges called the Republican drafters' testimony that they were not influenced by partisan factors "almost laughable." READ MORE

The closest those attending the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s (USHCC) Legislative Summit will get to the cherry blossoms now in season is a meeting room, make that many meeting rooms. Entrepreneurs have signed up for a crash course in Washington, D.C., to learn how to influence the players in government who can help Hispanic-owned businesses grow. This includes a new alliance between the USHCC and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced at this conference with the aim to grow the number of Hispanic-owned small businesses participating in SBA programs.

This measure intends to streamline access to funds such as loans and create trade opportunities or secure government contracts.

USHCC President and CEO Javier Palomarez calls this partnerships an investment in Latino-owned businesses that will help the economic recovery. READ MORE

The Friends of the American Latino Museum (Friends), a 501(c)(3) created to support the American Latino Museum initiative, surpassed 100,000 followers on Twitter and has accumulated 70,000 fans on Facebook and 67,000 supporters through its website, bringing its total reach to over 237,000 supporters. A renewed energy and hope for the museum is increasing rapidly since the introduction of the Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act earlier this year in the House and Senate. The Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act would designate and hold the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building as the official site for the museum.

"The history of Latinos is woven into American history going back to a time before the first pilgrim ever set foot on this land," said Emilio Estefan, Commissioner, National Museum of the American Latino Commission and President of Estefan Enterprises. "This is the story we want to tell. These are the gaps in American history that we are trying to fill, so that all Americans have a better understanding of our shared history and legacy. It is wonderful to know, through our social media efforts, that there are thousands that support our telling this story."

The museum would be devoted to the preservation, presentation, and interpretation of American Latino art, cultural expressions, and experiences. It would take its place among the treasury of museums within the Smithsonian Institution and would establish a new model in its integration of programs, training, research and personnel within the family of Smithsonian museums. The goal of Friends is to create a museum truly national in operational scope as well as prominent in Washington to educate the public and support the Latino community.

"It is amazing and heartening how much support this museum is getting from across the country. It shows how important it is for us to share all of the important and, many times, untold stories of the history of Latinos in building this great nation," said Maria Cardona, Friends Board Member and CNN Political Contributor. "The public is excited about the progress of the American Latino Museum initiative, and now that support can be seen in our 100,000 followers on Twitter and over 70,000 on Facebook. All supporters of the museum should join with us in asking Congress to pass the Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act now." READ MORE

SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles. READ MORE

Employment among Hispanics and Asians in the U.S. has climbed back to levels seen prior to the last recession, while hiring of whites and blacks has lagged behind, a study found.

The number of Hispanic workers reached 20.7 million in the last three months of 2011, up from 19.9 million in the final quarter of 2007 when the economic slump began, according to a report by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center, a non- partisan research group. Employment among Asians climbed by about 263,000 during the period, while it was 4.9 million lower for whites and 763,000 for blacks.

While all categories have shown gains since the recovery began in 2009, the speed of the improvement has tracked the rate of growth in each group’s working-age population, leaving the share of those employed little changed. The economic rebound has also been less kind to women than men, even as the opposite was the case during the contraction, the report showed.

“Two years after the U.S. labor market hit bottom, the economic recovery has yielded slow but steady gains in employment for all groups of workers,” according to the paper, written by Rakesh Kochhar, the group’s associate director of research. “The gains, however, have varied across demographic groups.”

Using the employment rate, or the share of the working-age population with the job, as a gauge, reveals a different story. The rate for Hispanics and blacks was at least 5 percentage points lower at the end of 2011 than when the recession began. The deficit was about 4 percentage points for whites and Asians. READ MORE

For years, America’s growing and mobile Latino population helped transform cities such as Atlanta and Las Vegas as well as many smaller communities. But the deep recession slowed this great dispersion, a new analysis shows, raising economic and political implications.

Between 2000 and 2010, the nation’s Latino population jumped 43 percent to 50.5 million, growing especially fast throughout the South and in smaller metropolitan areas in the Midwest and Northeast. The Latino populations more than tripled in such places as Palm Coast, Fla.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Wausau, Wis. Job opportunities and an influx of new immigrants from Mexico and Latin America helped drive the boom.

But with the economic downturn that began in 2007, the meltdown of the housing market and a slowdown of new foreign arrivals, many of these same communities have seen the Latino growth rates flatten out. READ MORE

Mitt Romney won a landslide victory over Rick Santorum in Puerto Rico last weekend and Santorum is not taking his 75-point defeat lightly.

Santorum, who spent two full days campaigning in the Caribbean island, congratulated Romney on his victory in a press release late Sunday night, but in the same breath accused the former governor of pandering to Puerto Rico's Latino voters by switching his position on making English the official language of every U.S. state.

"Their decision to put political expedience and political deception ahead of previously held policy positions further erodes their candidate's credibility and trust," Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said of the Romney campaign in the statement. "We all know Mitt Romney will do and say anything to get votes, and this is just another example of that."

But just how much of a conservative two-step did Romney dance while courting Puerto Ricans? Here's a look at some of the positions Romney softened, and those he stood by while attempting to woo Latino voters. READ MORE

While more than half of California's public school children are Latino, they are underrepresented on college campuses, particularly in four-year schools, according to a new statewide study.

The Campaign for College Opportunity's "Latinos and Higher Education" report finds that Latinos are not going directly to college after high school graduation in as many numbers as youth from other groups. It also found these students are not accessing high school college preparation courses as much as students in other age groups.

In addition, Latino students attending community colleges are less likely to obtain a degree or transfer after six years, Campaign for College Opportunity Executive Director Michele Siqueiros said.

At Napa Valley College, Latinos accounted for nearly 2,000, or 31.6 percent, of the students enrolled in credit courses in the fall 2011 semester, according to college statistics.

But, just 27 percent of the full-time Latino students who attended Napa College for the first time in fall of 2007 had graduated with a degree or certificate in three years.

The new report showed poorer overall results. It found that while large numbers of Latinos attend classes at community colleges, only 22 percent earn a degree or transfer, Siqueiros said.

"That's really disturbing," Siqueiros said. "It doesn't bode well for the future." READ MORE

NALEO researchers are redirecting their aim to improve Hispanic voter turnout, pointing efforts at the most influential target inside Latino households: the women.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials is using new findings from recently gathered focus groups to retool its campaign for the Hispanic vote, after participants in Houston revealed that a nudge from wives and mothers could be the key.

“We will develop a strategy where we speak to Latinas,” said Arturo Vargas, longtime executive director for NALEO. “There's something there that we need to tap into to get our Hispanic mother and wife and sister to get their husbands and brothers and sons to vote.”

The groups — eligible-but-nonregistered and registered-but-not-voting Hispanics — were assembled in December to determine if they were tuned in to the political issues and candidates of the day, Vargas explained.

Participants showed that they closely follow platform issues, and demonstrated awareness but no engagement.

Asked who among them planned to vote in the 2012 elections, none raised a hand. Who might influence them to vote? Participants said they would listen to their wives and mothers. READ MORE

Cosmopolitan, the iconic women’s lifestyle magazine, is launching a Hispanic-focused, English-language version, Cosmo Latina, in May, per Adweek, which reported the news earlier this week. Cosmo Latina aims to attract beauty and fashion advertisers looking for a platform to reach young, bilingual and bicultural Latinas.

Self-identifying bicultural Latinos (of both genders) make up 39% of the total U.S. Hispanic population, according to the 2011 edition of Horowitz Associates’ annual Focus: Latino report. That works out to about 19.5 million people, or 6.3% of the total U.S. population.

Overall, the U.S. Hispanic population, which is estimated at 50 million by the U.S. Census Bureau, wielded $1.1 trillion in spending power in 2011. This is expected to increase to $1.6 trillion by 2016. Bilingual and bicultural Latinos, who tend to be better-educated on average, likely account for a disproportionate amount of this spending power.

This growing population is critical to future profitability for big advertisers, according to a recent study commissioned by the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies and performed by Santiago Solutions Group. The study found that marketing efforts targeting Hispanics are correlated with overall revenue growth for consumer packaged-goods companies and CPG-based retail companies.

Cosmopolitan is enjoying success on a number of fronts. Long one of the bestselling magazines at print newsstands, over the last year the magazine became the first Hearst Corp. title to attract over 100,000 digital subscribers. READ MORE

The glass ceiling still keeps many women from reaching the top echelons of business or government. But it's something that Labor Secretary Hilda Solis hasn't experienced herself. The 54-year-old former lawmaker, the first Latina to become a Cabinet secretary, knows firsthand that women can overcome barriers. She was born into a large family of limited means in Southern California, the daughter of a Mexican father and a Nicaraguan mother with less than sixth-grade educations. She was expected to seek a secretarial or clerical job, but, encouraged by a high school counselor, became the first in her family to attend college. After graduating from California State Polytechnic University, she earned a master's degree in public administration from the University of Southern California.

Solis arrived in Washington in 1980, as the federal government was seeking to hire more women. She reached out to Hispanics on behalf of President Carter and worked as a policy analyst in the Office of Management and Budget. Then she returned to California and launched a political career, climbing from a community college's board of trustees to a state Assembly seat before becoming the first Hispanic woman elected to the state Senate in 1994.

Outspoken on labor and environmental issues, she ran for Congress in 2000 as an unwavering liberal and trounced the incumbent, Matthew Martinez, in a Democratic primary. As Solis learned the ropes in what she recalls as "a very male-oriented" Congress, her affability masked her toughness. She drew close to Nancy Pelosi, a sister Californian who became the first female House speaker. Labor unions have approved of her Cabinet performance, though their leaders grumble privately about her lack of influence on President Obama's economic policies. Edited excerpts from an interview follow. READ MORE

The era of the Hispanic homebuyer is upon us, according to the 2011 State of Hispanic Homeownership Report released by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). The 36-page document offers an analysis of data on the Hispanic homebuyer market and points to youth, birth rates, household formation, rising purchasing power, labor trends, educational achievements and desire as key indicators that will make Latinos a major purchase force in the first-time homebuyer market.

“Despite recent losses suffered by Hispanics during the housing crisis, young Latino families that were unaffected by foreclosure or lost home values are ready to enter the market,” said Carmen Mercado, president of the 20,000-member group. “When they do, they will have an exponential impact on housing sales.”

According to the report, demographic forces are aligning with Latinos poised to take center stage as a mega force in housing. Latinos filled 1.4 million or 60 percent of the 2.3 million jobs added to the economy in 2011, are expected to account for 40 percent of the estimated 12 million new households over the next 10 years, and their collective purchasing power is expected to jump 50 percent by 2016 – just four short years from now. READ MORE

It's not obvious what language Will Ferrell's new film, Casa de Mi Padre, is speaking. Everyone's favourite cross-eyed man-child had last-minute cramming sessions in order to be able to drawl the Spanish-language dialogue for the comedy – a sendup of cheesy rural-Mexico telenovelas. But just as Ferrell admits he still can't really hold a conversation in Spanish, Casa looks like it could have communication issues, too. Is it a deft in-joke for the US's movie-mad Hispanic audience? Or does Ferrell's presence just crank up the irony factor for the urban-hipster crowd to indulge yet another cultural fetish?

Movie executives would, if they had to choose, plump for the former. As well as the largest ethnic minority, Hispanic-Americans are perhaps the US's keenest, most youthful and fast-growing film demographic. Forty-three million Hispanics bought 351m tickets in 2010 (out of a total 1.34bn) – up from 37m buying 300m the year before. People of that ethnicity in the key 18-34 group are 44% more likely to see a film on its opening weekend than non-Hispanics. No wonder that's beginning to get some serious attention: Casa de Mi Padre is being distributed by Pantelion Films, a partnership between Lionsgate and Mexican media giant Televisa that is hoping to make around 10 films a year, in both English and Spanish, for Latino audiences. READ MORE