Articles Tagged ‘hispanic’

Last year, two of the country’s highest artistic honors – the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony award – went to Latinos. Author Junot Diaz took a Pulitzer for his “The Long and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” and playwright Lin Manuel-Miranda won a Tony for his musical “In the Heights.”

This year, we are seeing an unprecedented amount of in-depth and thoughtful coverage of Latinos not only in print and on stage but on television.

CNN’s “Latino in America”: Soledad O’Brien Reports

On October 21st and 22nd, CNN aired the two-part television documentary “Latino in America.” It is the longest, and most in-depth, piece of non-fiction programming the network has ever produced about Latinos.

“Latino in America” is anchored by Soledad O’Brien. Born of an Afro-Cuban mother and an Irish-Australian father, this mixed-race media maverick has teamed up with producer Rose Arce to document Latino-American life from Pico Rivera, California to Park Place in New York City.

The airing of “Latino in America” has given occasion to activist groups to shine a light on the way the network portrays Latinos in their everyday programming. Some groups say that the only time Latinos are mentioned in CNN’s weekly line-up is on Lou Dobbs’s controversial talk show.

However, with the airing of “Latino in America”, viewers now have the option of hearing something other than Dobb’s often anti-immigrant voice. Night one of the documentary is titled “Meet the Garcias,” and chronicles the very different lives of eight different families with the surname Garcia. Night two is entitled “Chasing the Dream.”

The White House throws a Latino Party: “Fiesta Latina”

Just nine months after coming to D.C. to throw their Latino Inaugural Gala, cultural politicos Marc Anthony, George Lopez, and Eva Longoria Parker were back in the District last week for the “Fiesta Latina” concert the White House held to close out Hispanic Heritage Month. Hosted by President Obama and aired on both PBS and Telemundo, the sixty-minute musical program featured the music of Anthony, Gloria Estefan, Aventura, Thalía, Tito “El Bambino”, and Chicano rock stars Los Lobos.

In an interview with the New York Times, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos stated that, “It’s a political event in that we’re here,” gesturing toward the White House. “But I think it’s more just to celebrate the culture.”

In his opening remarks, President Obama stated that “…though it’s constantly evolving, Latin music speaks to us all in a language we can understand about hope and joy, sorrow and pain, friendship and love. It moves us, and it attempts to make us move a little bit ourselves.”

And at the end of the night, he did. The evening closed with President Obama dancing a little cumbia sway, on camera and on the record.

The Dancer Judge: Justice Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor is not only the first Latina to sit on the Supreme Court, but also the first Justice who loves to dance. Besides dancing mambo with Esai Morales at the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts gala, rumor has it that Sotomayor has been out and about in Washington, D.C.’s salsa circuit, rubbing shoulders with the young politicos that she has set such a stellar example for.

SRF just published its Fall 2009 Newsletter. Click on the link below to read stories about Cancer Prevention in Denver, CO;  Acceso Hispano’s new Online Community Service Directory; Media and the Politics of Culture; and 2Cooltura Gang Prevention Campaign.

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In commemoration of our 30 years of service informing, connecting and empowering communities, SRF has just published a 30^th Anniversary Annual Report.

We have come a long way since our founding in 1979; what began as a dream in New Mexico is now an international reality with headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.   We started out using radio and film to communicate social justice ideas; we now use television, the Internet, and mobile text messaging to mobilize communities.

In 2009, we will continue to act as an information broker between the government, the non-profit sector, and the communities that they serve, with a consistent focus on results and impact.  We have built a solid foundation for our next 30 years of service, and look forward to working with our many partners, donors, and community members to continue making our mission a reality.

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According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) an estimated 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year. Victims are often lured into trafficking networks through false promises of good working conditions and high pay as domestic workers, factory and farm workers, nannies, waitresses, sales clerks, or models. Once in this country, many suffer extreme physical and mental abuse, including rape, sexual exploitation, torture, beatings, starvation, death threats, and threats to family members. It is believed that most victims who are trafficked are isolated and remain undetected by the public because 1) the strategies used by the perpetrators isolate victims and prevent them from coming forward, and 2) the public and the victim service providers have only recently become aware of this issue and may not be familiar with how to recognize or respond to trafficking victims.

To help stem human trafficking in the US, the Self Reliance Foundation is working with its media partner Hispanic Communications Network to design a Spanish-language public awareness campaign with support from the US Department of Justice – Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

This high-impact multimedia campaign is launching in early November 2009. The campaign will pilot in the Washington, DC metro area. Produced in Spanish, this effort will support local human trafficking programs and services, and also help to increase detection and reporting of cases of human trafficking among the local Spanish-speaking population.

To complement the media campaign, SRF will collaborate with the Hispanic-serving community and faith-based partners to disseminate the campaign’s public education materials, and implement interpersonal grassroots outreach efforts to engage “Good Samaritan” members of the greater Hispanic community in the campaign. Our strategy two-pronged strategy is designed to increase the number of community members who understand how to identify human trafficking victims, are aware of the purpose and services of the local service providers, and ultimately are willing to work with the these groups to identify and also rescue and assist human trafficking victims.

To learn more about human trafficking please visit the US Department of Justice’s Online Description.

SciGirls Outreach is a national educational television program of DragonflyTV, produced by Minnesota Public Television and supported by a generous grant from the National Science Foundation’s Program for Gender Equity. Since 2006, SciGirls Outreach has employed and disseminated the latest research and best practices around engaging girls in science, and has empowered youth organizations, science museums, educators and parents to deliver research-based hands-on STEM encouragement programs to girls in their communities.

To meet the dramatic changes in U.S. demographics and the need for more woman scientists and engineers, the project has expanded programming into Latino communities nationwide via the SciGirls en Espanol initiative working in collaboration with the Self Reliance Foundation.  SciGirls en Espanol provides Spanish-language print and video resources, leader training, and grants to nine existing Latina-serving organizations to help encourage greater engagement in STEM.

The SciGirls project encompasses an upcoming PBS TV show, a website, and a resource provider for educators, club leaders and mentors who are working with girls doing science. SciGirls outreach energizes club meetings, science camps, classes, and other events tailored for girls with DragonflyTV videos that feature girls doing authentic inquiry, along with exciting science activities based on these videos. SRF staffer Alicia Santiago helped select segments that would resonate with young Latinas, oversaw translations for video and print and helped provide insight on how SciGirls content could best serve the Latina community.  The production staff at KLCS TV (a noncommercial educational television station licensed to the Los Angeles Unified School District and a member PBS station) was instrumental in helping repackage individual SciGirls video, collaborating to develop a format that would best serve middle school Latinas and their families.

For more information, or to request review copies of SciGirl en Español materials, send an email to scigirls@tpt.org or visit the SciGirls website.