Immigrants and Politics Blog

[Interesting story sent by Sylvia Manzano (Texas A&M) on some of the challenges in governance that Hispanic chambers face in light of the immigrant boom in Houston]
Hispanic chamber losing sight of duty, some say
By LORI RODRIGUEZ
Houston Chronicle, Jan 29, 2007

Nearly 30 years ago, an ambitious group of prominent businessmen created an organization aimed at nurturing the Hispanic business community much as the Greater Houston Partnership fosters the mainstream.

For the times, it was a bold concept, and the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce endured and prospered.

But since August 2003, when President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Torres stepped down after nearly seven years at the helm, three successors have come and gone.
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[KR: When I saw this story, it reminded me of the challenges the GOP faces in trying to attract Latino and Asian American voters while at the same time not alienating their white bases. This quotation is particularly apt]

The station’s marketing efforts are “stealth or street-level, so as not to anger the loyal core users,” Barnett says. He is also reaching out to the Hispanic audience through music. “We’re attempting to make the music mix more Hispanic-friendly without disenfranchising the core,” he says. “It becomes a very delicate balancing act.

Country radio grapples with shifting demographics

By Ken Tucker, Reuters (more…)

[Story in the Christian Science Monitor, Friday Jan 12 2007]

In officially colorblind France, blacks have a dream - and now a lobby
Susan Sachs

Patrick Lozès has a dream: One day France’s black citizens will enjoy the equality granted them under law.

“To be black and proud - that’s not being anti-French,” says Mr. Lozès, whose vision challenges France’s colorblind model of assimilation. “It’s simply theliberation of a people who don’t see themselves reflected in their country’s public life - in its theater, television, medicine, and universities - except in negative images.”

It is not an accident that Mr. Lozès’s words often contain echoes of Martin Luther King Jr. and other luminaries of the American civil rights movement. The African- American struggle for racial equality has been his prototype for France’s first national black lobbying organization. His group, called the Representative Council of Black Organizations (Le Conseil Représentative des Associations Noires, or CRAN), was founded in late 2005, just after widespread rioting in the suburban ghettos populated largely by the families of African and Arab immigrants.

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[KR: This report by the Migration Policy Institute reminds me of Cara Wong and Grace Cho’s piece [in Transforming Politics, Transforming America] on military service as a means of securing citizenship, both today and in the past. Interesting to note that, in limited circumstances, people can be recruited abroad; presumably, expanding that clause might lead to charges of having mercenary armies.]

The Foreign Born in the Armed Services
By Laura Barker and Jeanne Batalova PhD
Migration Policy Institute

Link to report

KR - This article was sent in by Chris Zepeda-Millan (Graduate Student, Government, Cornell). Interesting to note, however, that Ellison is a native-born African American–making foreign-ness not simply a matter of where people are born, but of matters such as religious affiliation.

Congressman Wants Stiff Immigration Policies to Keep Muslims Out of Congress
Twin Cities Daily Planet, News Report, Abdi Aaynte, Posted: Jan 05, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS – Virginia Congressman, Virgil Goode, linked Rep.-elect Keith Ellison’s plan to use the Quran in his private swearing-in ceremony, to the rise of illegal immigration in the U.S. It’s the latest twist to what’s become the most intriguing political rollercoaster of the season.

In a letter to a constituent, the five-term Republican, who, like Ellison, represents the Fifth District in his state, said that he fears that “there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran,” if “American citizens don’t wake up and adopt [my] position on immigration.”

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