Hispanics Are Going Nowhere in this Election
The development of Hispanic or Latino Spanish language media in the United States has allowed our culture to flourish in a multi-cultural society. Without this development, no doubt, Latino culture in the United States would have been stymied and suppressed in trying to compete with interests from the larger overall community. But at the same time it is necessary to look what impact are Latinos having on the larger community to which they ultimately belong.
Now with less than 100 days before the Presidential elections all the English media is buzzing with commentary and discussion. If you watch national television on any channel you will see the usual Anglo-American reporters or commentators male and female about 66% of the time and African American reporters or commentators about 33% of the time based upon my own informal stats done this week. Neither the Obama or McCain campaigns ever seems to put forward a Hispanic surrogate to speak for their campaigns. National recognized elected Hispanic leaders of which there are really very few have been conspicuously absent from the media except for the brief appearance of Governor Richardson when he switched loyalty from Clinton to Obama weeks ago. The only Hispanic reporters regularly seen now are Rick Sanchez on CNN on late weekend nights who usually talks incoherently about non issues and Geraldo Rivera who talks about crime and sensational issues. According to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Latino’s make up only 4% of reporters of newsroom personnel at daily English language newspapers and only 6% of personnel at TV news stations. They have launched a parity project with leading nationwide corporate owners to improve this disparity. Freedom Communications, Inc. which has a monopoly on all the print newspapers in South Texas with a 90% Hispanic population does not participate in this program.
So-called Hispanic issues have been pigeon-holed into really just immigration. The English media today whether its conservative Fox News or liberal MSNBC both portray this in an “us against them” theme. A recent GAO study falsely reported that Hispanics were under represented in government because they were usually not citizens and not educated. Today Hispanics are more often on the defensive when in the news than being seen as innovative or contributory.
The most prominent Hispanic leaders in government on the national scene have all been demoted, criticized, or at least stopped from further progress up the ladder. An Attorney General and a General in the Army who grew up in Laredo have been tarred and feathered without any support from the Latino community. No discussion is being held at all by either Republicans or Democrats of considering any Hispanics for candidates for Vice-President or even for a position on the United States Supreme Court. Hispanics do not hold any significant leadership positions in the Congress such as Speaker or Majority leader. No Hispanic holds Chairmanship of any significant Congressional committee. The Hispanic Caucus of Congress gets no serious attention from the media or the major parties.
Certainly we are are appropriately a diverse group but at the same time within our diversity we seem to giving blind loyalty to either Republican or Democratic concerns without demanding any return on our investment. We are the largest minority group in the country but somehow we now have the smallest voice. We have greatly improved our communication amongst ourselves but in doing so may have isolated ourselves from the larger community.
There needs to be greater participation in English language media by Hispanics. There is no reason for us to be in Spanish language media alone. We have to communicate better with larger society or the trends to isolation and misunderstanding will only continue to propagate. We need to demand more places in the seats of leadership in government and English language media. Separate but equal did not work for the African-American community and it will not work for us.
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