Online Hispanic Trends

Public-Private Collaboration to Increase Latino Academic Achievement

Univision, the Department of Education and the Gates Foundation have recently teamed up on an exciting three-year, multi-platform national education initiative called "Es El Momento" (The Moment is Now) aimed at improving academic achievement of Hispanic K-12 students. The campaign is focused on improving the high school graduation rate, which is currently at 55 percent for the Hispanic population as compared to 69 percent for their non-Hispanics peers.

In addition to PSAs, TV and radio, the campaign is offering a comprehensive web presence and mobile resources, including questions and answers with the popular motivational radio personality Dr. Isabel, a school locator widget and weekly mobile text alerts with relevant educational tips. Visitors will also be able to find local resources through website feeds in the future. 

This is a terrific example of public private partnerships creatively coming together to address the pressing needs of the community. We should see more of this happening on a regular basis.

Check out the online presence here or by clicking the image below.

Source: Hispanicad.com

Latinos Changing the US Political Landscape

By now most people recognize that Latinos are changing the US political landscape. But are political parties, both Democrats and Republicans, listening to what Latinos have to say?  Probably not, or at least that is the reading of an article by Washington Post staff writer Peter Levin on how “Republicans look to gain traction with Hispanic voters.”

Levin highlights a recent NBC-Wall Street poll that shows a drop of Hispanic support for the Democratic Party, just a year after voting in record numbers for President Obama.  

The article also cites hard-liners and “tea party” activists’ posture on immigration issues as the main reason why Republicans are still struggling to engage Latinos voters.

The article provides hard data on how political parties should be paying close attention to Hispanic voting behavior and population changes. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment in the US and their voting power has increased twofold over the last two decades. The article also underscores how important is that politicians listen to Latinos to really understand their perspectives and priorities.

Social Media and Mobile Internet Use of Hispanic Teens and Young Adults

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published a report entitled Social Media & Mobile Internet Use of Teens and Young Adults. 

A few of the more interesting findings on teens and young adults in general include: 

• Blogging and commenting on blogs by teens and young adults has decreased since 2006 while it has increased among older adults (from 28% to 14%),
• Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has increased significantly, but the sites where teens and young adults maintain their profiles are different, with 66% using MySpace compared to 36% of those 30 and over, and most interesting....
• Only 8% of Internet users age 12-17 use Twitter.

With respect to Latino teens and young adults, the results of Pew's research show that:

• Although not as often as White teens and young adults, Hispanic teens and young adults report going online once a day or three to five times a week.

• Although laptops have overtaken desktops as the computer of choice, Hispanic adults are less likely than White adults to own a desktop or laptop computer.

• Along with young adults, Hispanics and African‐Americans are more likely to go online wirelessly. According to the report "Half of all African‐American adults (48%) have used their cell phone to access the internet, compared with 40% of Hispanic adults and just 31% of white adults."

Correction: Pew Research indicates that 18% of Online Hispanic Adults Use Twitter

I ran across an interesting tweet by Luis Pagan that referenced a Pew Report on Twitter and Status updates.  In addition to showing an increase in making status updates on Twitter or another service - from 11% to 19% since April 2009, the report shows that 18% of online Hispanic adults use Twitter. 

Thanks to Tomas of http://www.hispanictips.com for pointing this out.

View the full report