Recently in Latino Blog Series Category

More written about this at my other blog.

As I steep more into social media, I am blogging more and more about it.  Here are some highlights from my other blog:

• The Want Of Latinos In Social Media
• Social Media Update Methods
• Social Media Solves Latino Assimilation Problem  (follow up to this post on this blog)
• 'Getting Facebook'
• And a couple of ReTweet posts

Obviously, I think social media is important.  It puts the gauntlet in the average person's hand.  However, at a higher level there are better practices.  That's part of the aim over at the other blog.  Hope to see you there.
 

Parents influence (Hispanic Teens) sex Decisions.  I guess being Hispanic makes a difference?

Hispanics/Blacks need banks; bank less.  My friend Megan said "...bank of bustelo..." 

Thanks Mi Apogeo!

I've been on Twitter more than I've been blogging.  I am not sure if that's a bad thing or not, but I am getting comfortable with the subtleties and feel it's a push in the right direction.  Twitter plays as a huge compliment to blogging and anyone who is not on it should get there ASAP.

I've a number of sites: LatinoPundit.com, LouisPagan.com as well as a private one or two, not to mention some upcoming ones. Each site serves a specific goal. Twitter however...ah Twitter, will server as a conglomerate of everything. Tweet along, my friends. Tweeeeeeet!

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

That seems to be the only rational conclusion I can derive from these conflicting - or seemingly conflicting - news items.  First, via NYTimes.

Latinos, who make up 9 percent of the national electorate, lent their support overwhelmingly to President-elect Barack Obama, voting for him at a rate of 2 to 1 over his Republican rival, Senator John McCain. The votes were roughly equivalent to Mr. Obama’s margin of victory in the popular vote and in key swing states such as Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, which flipped from red to blue.

On Monday, a group of Latino advocates convened at a hotel on Capitol Hill to find out what it is that they should ask for first from the new administration — and, as expected, immigration reform figured at the top of the list.

Now, compare that with the findings from the Pew Hispanic Center:

A year and a half after a lengthy, often rancorous debate over immigration reform filled the chambers of a stalemated Congress, the issue appears to have receded in importance among one of the groups most affected by it--Latinos. Only three-in-ten (31%) Latinos rate immigration as an "extremely important" issue facing the incoming Obama administration, placing it sixth on a list of seven policy priorities that respondents were asked to assess in a nationwide survey of 1,007 Latino adults conducted from December 3 through December 10, 2008, by the Pew Hispanic Center. The top-rated issue among Latinos is the economy; 57% of Hispanics say it is an "extremely important" one for the new president to address.

Emphasis added.  More revealing, from the report itself and not the summary,

[I]n an open-ended question on this latest survey, just 6% of Latino respondents who voted in the 2008 election cited immigration as the issue that mattered most to them as they went to the polls. Five times as many named the economy (31%). . .

The immigration issue has fallen in importance since 2007 among the general population as well. While 56% of all registered voters cited immigration as a very important issue in 2007 (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, October 2007), this share fell to 49% in late 2008 (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, October 2008).

So it seems that while immigration and all other related issues are of particular importance to Latinos, we're just like every other  American: bread and butter issues are the number one concern.  Either that or there is a "consensus" that with a new administration more receptive to the immigration problems faced by Latinos, there doesn't appear to be the urgency to push this issue to the forefront.  At least not for now.

Which goes to show that you have to make sure that your so-called "leaders" are leading you in the direction you want them to go, and not the other way around.

The Wall Street Journal, covers a slew of Latino bloggers and their electoral commentary.  This is a fantastic piece, and does a great job introducing and covering the varied Latino Blogosphere.

From California to New York, Hispanic bloggers are speaking up in ways that could influence Latino voters’ decisions just as their votes are becoming more relevant in the presidential race.

The bloggers’ politics vary widely. But with Super Tuesday right around the corner, their writings share a common tone: the urgency of an election year that is, as Latinopundit put it, “upon us like salsa on a taco.”

This is another installment of the Latino Bloggers Series (formally known as "What Latino Bloggers Need To Do".

The Latino Blogosphere is now becoming more authoritative:  There are gossip sites, blog-journalists, witty-opinions, book reviews, independent voices, news sites, Venezuelan sites, activism, politics, marketers, authors. 

Note I said in the title that the Latino-blogosphere is maturing - not matured yet.  We can consider this the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of Latino Blogs maturing.  Just a few short years ago, Latino bloggers looked and felt like a faint aspiration of their author's intentions.  Those fledgling days are being outpaced by some of the strides made by Latino bloggers on a daily basis.  And now with election year upon us like salsa on a taco, we will see more establishments, organizations, reporters, shows, average Jose's look up Latino blogs than before.