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Reaching out to a fast-growing population of young Latinos is key to the country’s economic future, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said Friday in Des Moines.

A conversation with more than three dozen people from area Latino communities focused on jobs, a topic of intense interest among Hispanics across the country, Solis said.

To reach the next generation of Americans entering the workforce, Solis said her department has launched a social media campaign to connect people with job search resources such as MySkillsMyFuture.org and MyNextMove.org.

Jose Robles, 21, a student at Des Moines Area Community College, said he’s enrolled in a GED and welding program through a federal Department of Labor grant. Robles said the program drew a lot of interest: He was one of a dozen young people chosen out of about 40 applicants. READ MORE

Although 20% of the US Population is Latino, only 2% of all healthcare executives are prepared to address Latino healthcare challenges. The Association of Hispanics Healthcare Executives (AHHE), together with politicians, policy makers, and healthcare leaders, is providing a unique healthcare dialogue and solutions for the Latino community at its 2012 Annual Healthcare Diversity Awards Gala. Keynote Speaker, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Thomas Farley, MD, MPH, will be promoting health in Latinos at this Awards Event, to be held at the New York Academy of Medicine on June 20, 2012 from 6:00pm to 10:30pm.

The Latino community is the largest and youngest minority group in the US, yet it is one of the minority groups that faces the biggest challenges in the healthcare area:

highest rates of preventable diseases

a high percentage of Latinos are uninsured. READ MORE

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NEWS

MEDIA CONTACT: Hilary Hurd Anyaso at (847) 491-4887 or h-anyaso@northwestern.edu

FOR RELEASE: June 13, 2012

TALE OF THREE SEGREGATIONS
Poor other-race neighbors contribute to poverty of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Unlike most whites, blacks and Hispanics tend to have neighbors from other racial groups who are disproportionately likely to be poor. This contributes importantly to the high poverty rates of the neighborhoods lived in by black and Hispanic families and to high poverty rates of schools attended by black and Hispanic children.

Lincoln Quillian, professor of sociology and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, analyzed data from the 2000 census and found that the disproportionate poverty of blacks’ and Hispanics’ other-race neighbors plays an important role in creating racial disparities in neighborhood poverty. The other-race neighbors of black and Hispanic families are disproportionately likely to be poor regardless for black and Hispanic families of all income levels.

Concentrated poverty in minority communities results from three segregations: racial segregation, poverty-status segregation within race and segregation from high- and middle-income members of other racial groups, according to the study. Past work has emphasized racial segregation and poverty-status segregation within race, but has missed the important role played by the disproportionately low-income levels of other-race neighbors of blacks and Hispanics.

Quillian hopes his study continues to shed light on the phenomenon of concentrated poverty in neighborhoods and racial inequalities in neighborhood environments.

“Nationally there is evidence that as racial segregation has been slowly going down that income segregation has been going up,” Quillian said. “Blacks and Hispanics often are co-residing with poorer members of their racial groups.”

White middle-class families overwhelmingly live in middle-class neighborhoods and send their children to middle-class schools. But many black and Hispanic middle-class families live in working-class or poor neighborhoods and send their children to high-poverty schools.

Less appreciated is the influence of other-race neighbors of blacks and Hispanics on the high poverty rates of neighborhoods blacks and Hispanics reside in.

“So much emphasis in sociology has been on the role of racial segregation and how that contributes to poverty concentration by separating high-income race and ethnic groups from low-income groups,” Quillian said. “But that only is part of the story.”  

Decreasing racial segregation through aggressive enforcement of anti-discrimination policies in housing would significantly reduce poverty concentration, Quillian concluded. But attention must be paid to income segregation taking its place in a complicated way, he said.  

“Policies that aim to provide broader housing choices may not deconcentrate poverty if blacks and Hispanics can only find places in the most disadvantaged desegregated neighborhood,” Quillian concluded.

“Segregation and Poverty Concentration: The Role of Three Segregations” will be published in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, a journal of the American Sociological Association.

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/

Nova Southeastern University (NSU) was recently ranked as the number one institution in the nation for the number of doctoral degrees awarded to Hispanic students. The ranking was published in the Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine's 2012 "Top 100 Colleges for Hispanics" edition.

For the fourth consecutive year, NSU earned the top spot on the list for doctoral degrees awarded in such high-demand fields as education, business, psychology, dental medicine, law, osteopathic medicine and others, with 279 degrees conferred on Hispanic students out of the 1,699 total conferred in 2011. NSU was also the highest ranking private non-profit university, coming in second overall, conferring master's degrees to Hispanic students, with 812 degrees conferred in 2011.

NSU prides itself on providing a quality education for those who want to excel in their studies and chosen field. The university had 6,492 students who identified as Hispanic as of fall 2011, which makes up 23% of the overall university population of 28,457 undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and first-professional students. Thirty-three percent of the university's undergraduate population is Hispanic.

"We are honored to be ranked number one nationally in conferring doctoral degrees to Hispanic students for the fourth year in a row," said NSU President George L. Hanbury II, Ph.D. "Diversity is one of NSU's eight core values and we pride ourselves on being as diverse as the South Florida community that we call home." READ MORE

Who is Latino? Who counts as Native American?

The debate over who is considered a minority was brought to the spotlight by the Senate race in Massachusetts. Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren claimed she had Native American heritage, but there's no records to indicate that. Still, Warren insists that she learned of her background through family stories and that she is proud of her heritage.

Today, The New York World ran a story that talks about the real-world implications of these questions. Essentially a New York City program that assists minority business owners is asking Latinos to provide proof of their ethnicity by showing a birth certificate and an affidavit confirming their ethnic identity. READ MORE

President Obama and his supporters continue to roll out efforts to woo Latino voters, but Latino and immigrant advocates say Mr. Obama's message will be hard to swallow without better attempts to reform the administration's deportation policies.

The Obama administration has pledged to focus its deportation efforts only on illegal immigrants who could be considered the "worst of the worst," as some have put it, and in November the Department of Homeland Security began reviewing about 300,000 backlogged immigration cases. However, data released by the department last week showed that few of the undocumented immigrants with pending cases -- fewer than 10 percent -- qualify for relief from the system, or "prosecutorial discretion."

"It's just outrageous [that] an administration that says, 'we're only going to after the worst of the worst' has concocted a system... that says 90 percent of the people are eligible for deportation," Frank Sharry, executive director of the group America's Voice Education Fund, told reporters on a conference call Monday.

Sharry and other immigrant advocates say the "prosecutorial discretion" efforts have fallen short because of a lack of leadership from the top -- pointing both to Napolitano and Mr. Obama. They charge the president and his cabinet members have the power to improve the program, but haven't in the face of Republican criticism. While polls show Mr. Obama still has strong support from Latino voters, those advocates say the continued high deportation rates will take their toll. READ MORE

The nation's rapidly growing Latino population is one of the most powerful forces working in President Barack Obama's favor in many of the states that will determine his contest with Mitt Romney. But Latinos are not registering or voting in numbers that fully reflect their potential strength, leaving Hispanic leaders frustrated and Democrats worried as they increase efforts to rally Latino support.

Interviews with Latino voters across the country suggested a range of reasons for what has become, over a decade, an entrenched pattern of nonparticipation, ranging from a distrust of government to a fear of what many see as an intimidating effort by law enforcement and political leaders to crack down on immigrants, legal or not.

In Denver, Ben Monterosso, the executive director of Mi Familia Vota, or My Family Votes -- a national group that helps Latinos become citizens and register to vote -- gathered organizers around a table in his office and recited census data demonstrating the lack of Latino participation.

"Our potential at the ballot box is not being maximized," Mr. Monterosso told them. "The untapped potential is there." READ MORE

The polling firm Latino Decisions has been tracking Latino voter attitudes in the run-up to the 2012 election for some time now, and the latest temperature check deals with what’s referred to as “DREAM-light,” a yet-to-be-introduced alternative to the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act that is being floated by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

The poll also checks the temperature on Latino voters’ support for President Obama vs. GOP nominee-apparent Mitt Romney, although there’s no surprise there: As several other recent polls have indicated, Latino voters continue to favor Obama, even in spite of Obama’s recent statement in support of same-sex marriage and some Latinos’ social conservatism.

But the Dream Act part is interesting, if not altogether surprising either. An overwhelming majority of the Latinos polled said they supported the most recent version of the original Dream Act, which proposes granting conditional legal status to undocumented college students and military hopefuls who arrived in the U.S. before age 16, with a path to citizenship. The forthcoming version being discussed by Rubio would also offer these young people temporary legal status, but without a clear path to citizenship, a aspect that’s faced substantial criticism.

And yet for some voters, this and other stripped-down Dream Act imitations may perhaps represent a bird in the hand, as various versions of original Dream Act have floated around Congress for a decade without success. According to the poll, Latino voters were almost evenly split on the Rubio proposal, with 49 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed. READ MORE

Verizon’s My Fabulous Quince Planning Expo Visits Chicago
and Offers Meet-And-Greet With Urban Latin Artist Daddy Yankee

WHAT: From June 1 through July 31, teens across the United States will have the chance to enter to win all-expenses-paid Quince, featuring a special performance by one of the most acclaimed award-winning Latin urban artists of all time, Daddy Yankee, as part of Verizon’s My Fabulous Quince essay contest.

 On Wednesday, June 13, 2012, Verizon will bring its My Fabulous Quince expo to Chicago.

The expos, which will take place in eight U.S. cities, are free and open to the public.  Attendees can expect to receive tips for planning the perfect Quince on any budget as well as exclusive offers from local vendors.

Daddy Yankee will offer VIP meet and greet sessions during the expos.  Attendees who donate no-longer-used wireless phones to HopeLine® from Verizon to help support victims of domestic violence and help protect the environment by disposing of wireless phones in an environmentally sound way, will receive a VIP pass for the meet-and-greet.

Daddy Yankee will answer media questions during a brief press briefing.

WHEN:                    Wednesday, June 13, 2012

                                    My Fabulous Quince Expo:  2 p.m.-6 p.m.
                                    Media Check-In:  3 p.m.

                                    Daddy Yankee Press Briefing and Q&A

                                    Fan Meet & Greet:  4-5 p.m.

WHERE:                  Verizon Wireless Communications Store

                             6451 West Diversey Avenue

                                    Chicago, IL  60707

The expos will include the following activities:

• Daddy Yankee signing autographs and interacting with fans
• Families and teens enjoying free makeover sessions, games and a Quince fashion show
• Interactive screen: Facebook and Twitter messages on a big screen
• The latest smartphones and technology from Verizon

CONTACT:                    Erica Sevilla                                         Martha Saldaña

                                    Verizon Wireless                        Multi Latino Marketing Agency,Inc.

                                    Erica.sevilla@verizonwireless.com msaldana@multilatinomarketing.com
847-727-9727                                         708-743-4144

Previous studies found that black patients fared poorly after transplants compared to whites, but less was known about how different racial groups do while they are waiting for a donor organ.

"The knowledge of disparity is usually the first step in ultimately getting rid of it," said Tajinder Singh from Boston Children's Hospital, who led the study that appeared in the journal Circulation.

Singh and his team gathered data from the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which maintains the wait list for patients needing an organ.

More than 10,000 people were added to the list to receive a heart between July 2006 and September 2010.

Singh's group found that 10.5 percent of white patients who were listed died during the study period or were taken off the list because they were too sick to receive a donor heart.

In comparison, 11.6 percent of black patients and 13.4 percent of Hispanic patients died or were removed from the list. READ MORE

Yahoo! Inc. , the premier digital media company, today unveiled Shine Latina - a home for bicultural Latina lifestyle content, within Yahoo! Shine, a top site for women's lifestyle content in the U.S. with more than 34 million unique visitors a month*.

Shine Latina takes a unique look at women's interests and approaches them with content in English, with nods to Hispanic cultural identity. The site - created by and for bicultural Latinas - brings Hispanic women together to share insights, spark conversations and build a community. From news, lifestyle, food and beauty topics to parenting, career, and relationship advice, Latinas of various ages will be able to find quality original content, videos and recommendations they can relate to at a personal level and truly relevant to their tastes, cultural background and heritage.

"Shine reaches 3.57M U.S. Hispanics every month, more than any other Hispanic site," said Javier Garcia, general manager of Yahoo!'s U.S. Hispanic business. "By offering culturally-relevant original content in Shine produced by our bicultural editorial team we aim to form deep emotional connections with bicultural Latinas at an unprecedented scale."

Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., accounting for 16% of the nation's total population with more than 50.5 million Latinos in the country.** With more than 23.77 million unique Hispanic users per a month, Yahoo! is a top digital media destination for U.S. Hispanics. READ MORE

We don't know who Mitt Romney will pick as his vice presidential nominee. But let's assume for a moment that it's U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Would having the first Hispanic on a presidential ticket be a proud historical moment for Hispanics, or would it be an insult?

David Axelrod, President Barack Obama's top campaign strategist, said to Univision that putting Rubio on the ticket would be "an insult to the Hispanic community ... if Gov. [Mitt] Romney thinks that's sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of the things and the positions that he's taken."

My first thought was, "Who made Axelrod the barometer for the entire Hispanic community?" It is disrespectful for Axelrod to tell a community, to which he doesn't belong, how we would feel. Frankly, I find that insulting. READ MORE

Latino foster families are scarce in many parts of Ohio and Michigan. Lucas County Children Services (LCCS), for example, is seeking Latino families to join its legion of host families for foster children—families like Lorenzo and Katrina Flores, now on their second round of caring for children who were abused or neglected.

“There are a lot of kids out there, they just don’t have family,” said Lorenzo, the production manager at a local company that makes fishing lures. “I think that’s terrible. Hopefully we can help them out.”

“We feel the same way about it,” said Katrina, as she gently held a two-month-old sleeping baby the couple now is fostering. “If we can make a little bit of a difference, I think that’s valuable.”

The couple also runs their own photography and portrait business out of their home, giving them added flexibility to be foster parents. The Flores family has two young boys of their own—five-year old Corvin and Lucien, age 6—but recently had as many as eight children living with them—all eight years old and younger.

“It was fun. It was chaotic. It was noisy,” said Lorenzo with a smile. “There was always something going on. Someone’s always smiling. Of course, that means someone’s also crying. It’s all part of raising children. READ MORE

As we approach the second half of 2012, we’ve been looking at how consumers are feeling about their lives. What excites them, what they’re afraid of and what they think about the whirlwind political environment that ceaselessly dominates the conversation in America – be it mainstream news media, the blogosphere or social engagement.

Against this backdrop, we asked Hispanics and non-Hispanics across a variety of geographies and segments: Republicans, Democrats and Independents; gender and age cohorts; influencers and non-influencers alike, how they felt about these and other subjects.

Some of the things we learned were surprising, such as that for all the chatter among the pundits, people across the gamut felt that things like immigration were a non-issue in their lives. Based on our findings, here are five things that every marketer who engages Hispanic audiences (which means everyone) should know – and importantly, how to act upon it to win for your business. READ MORE

When it comes to reaching the growing US Hispanic market, there's a new reality settling in. From the boardroom to the C-suite, companies are starting to wake up to the notion that Latinos are here to stay, that we're big in numbers, that we're brand loyal, and that we have mucho dinero to spend.

Hispanic buying power will reach $1.5 trillion by 2015. This number is thrilling. Think of this: if the US Hispanic community were a world economy, we would be the 14th largest, ahead of Turkey, Australia, and Argentina, to name a few. At a time when we have surpassed the 50 million-plus mark, developing culturally relevant marketing strategies and messaging have become paramount to reaching the coveted Latino consumer.

The truth is that the younger generations of Hispanics, whether born in the US or in Latin America, are prouder than ever to celebrate their heritage. Meaning, they (or better yet, “we”) have become much more comfortable with the concept that as Hispanics we are still Americans, but with a twist, with an extra dose of sabor. An imaginary cultural boundary has been crossed, and we live as comfortably in the general market world as we do in that of our parents and grandparents. This is the new cross-cultural reality. READ MORE

In advance of California’s Republican primary tomorrow, here are 10 important facts about immigrants and people of color in the state that display their significant economic, cultural, and electoral power.

1. Communities of color are driving California’s population growth. The Hispanic share of California’s population grew from just over 25 percent in 1990 to almost 38 percent in 2010, while the Asian* share of the population grew from 9.2 percent to 13.1 percent. While the United States will no longer have a clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050, California reached this milestone more than a decade ago, in 2000.

2. Voters of color make up a large share of California’s electorate. In 2008 Hispanic voters in California comprised over 21.4 percent of all California voters. The Asian voters in the state made up nearly 9.7 percent of state voters and the African American vote comprised nearly 7.7 percent in that year.

3. Close to half of immigrants in California are naturalized citizens—meaning that they are eligible to vote. In 2010 46 percent of California’s immigrants (4.6 million people) were naturalized U.S. citizens, up from 31.2 percent in 1990. And California has millions of potential voters that could play a decisive role in the upcoming election. There are over 2 million eligible but unregistered Latino voters in the state, and almost 2.4 million legal permanent residents who are eligible to become citizens and vote, a substantial number of potential new voters. READ MORE

The growing influence of Hispanics in Nevada’s business community is clear.

Since 1990, the state’s Latino population has more than doubled, from 10.4 percent to 26.6 percent. More than three-quarters of a million Latinos now live in Nevada.

The growth of the demographic has translated into more Latino business ownership. Hispanics own 8 percent of the state’s companies, and their 18,000 businesses generate $3.2 billion in sales and receipts. They employ tens of thousands of workers.

VEGAS INC sat down to speak with 10 of the most influential Latinos in Las Vegas’ business community. Influence comes in a lot of forms, and the people on our list have demonstrated it in various ways. Whether it is advancing an industry, training business leaders of the future or sponsoring community events, these 10 individuals affect how Nevadans live. READ MORE

The wave is young, eligible Hispanic voters--more than 50,000 Latinos turn 18 years old each month in the United States, according to Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, a Democrat from Texas and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. And 47 percent of the under-18 U.S. population is Latino, so that's a trend that will only continue, he said during a recent Capitol Hill press conference kicking off a voter registration effort, Voto Latino, aimed at young Hispanics.

Actress America Ferrera, of television's Ugly Betty and star of the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, is partnering with the group and others for the America4America campaign. On Thursday, she detailed how the new voters would change the status quo.

"I've been on the ground in Alabama and in Arizona where laws are pushing our communities into the shadows. Campaigns are marginalizing us, leading many Americans feeling demoralized and defeated," she said. "[This] is a campaign to empower every single American voter with a truth about their own goal in our democracy. That's a role that is a right that is invaluable and it is a right that I'm fighting to protect and to promote."

As a 9-year-old growing up in Los Angeles, Ferrera said she has a distinct memory of her mother pulling her aside before she went to school one day. READ MORE

Buying a home has long been a way for immigrant groups to signal that they have “made it.”
For Hispanic Americans, a mega-boom in homeownership is revving up.

With U.S. Census data reporting that more than half of all infants born in the United States last year were minorities or multiracial, with whites having 1.1 births for every death and Hispanics counting 8.9 births for every death, it stands to reason that the profile of home buyers is also undergoing a change that may accelerate in years to come. The folks at Movoto.com, a full service real estate brokerage based in San Mateo, CA, decided to figure out just how much.

Using data on the race/ethnicity of first time and repeat home buyers from the National Association of Realtor’s annual “Profile of Buyers and Sellers,” on its blog Movoto.com noted that whites accounted for about 85 percent of home purchases.

Last year, the other 15 percent of buyers included six percent Black/African-Americans, six percent Hispanic/Latino home buyers and four percent Asians or Pacific Islanders, with other ethnicities/races comprising up to two percent. READ MORE

In our recent poll on what it means to be sick in America, one ethnic group stands out as having special problems – Hispanic Americans.

The national survey, conducted by NPR with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, sheds new light on Hispanics' health issues. It runs counter to the widespread impression that African-Americans are worst-off when it comes to the cost and quality of health care.

Take the pocketbook issue. When we asked about the burden of out-of-pocket costs – the medical bills not covered by insurance or any government program — 42 percent of Hispanics say this is a "very serious" problem for them.

That's more than twice the proportion of non-Hispanic whites with recent illness who say so, and 8 percentage points higher than African-Americans.

Robert Blendon of Harvard, who helped design the poll, says Hispanics "are more likely to be uninsured or have insurance with big holes in it than African-Americans."

That may be, he says, because Hispanics are more likely to live in rural areas or in cities where fewer supports are available for uninsured or poorly insured people. "A lot of Hispanics work for small businesses with terrible insurance or none at all," Blendon notes. READ MORE