Citizenship

This Week in the 21st Century America Project

Inspired by “Ya es hora” campaign, Asian-Americans in California begin a major citizenship push

Joseph Berger at The New York Times has a great article about ethnic job niches.  In his piece, Berger suggests that as Koreans and Italians move out, Latinos are moving up:

The Koreans who streamed to the United States in the 1970s were often middle-class professionals who might have needed years to learn English and obtain their American credentials in engineering or chemistry. But a small nest egg might buy a store in a ragged neighborhood, and there were plenty of fruit markets and delis being forsaken by aging Italians and Jews. These older immigrants sold out to Koreans partly because the children they had sent to college did not want to inherit a business where they would have to lift fruit cartons. “The niche is not disappearing, but the previous occupants are,” Professor Kasinitz said.

A perfect illustration is what’s happening now: Since fewer South Koreans are leaving their now-prosperous homeland, and college-educated Korean offspring here want less grueling work, Latinos who once worked for the Koreans are taking over their stores. Similarly, Italian landscapers in the suburbs are slowly giving way to companies started by the Latino laborers the Italians once hired to cut grass.

So here’s my question:  once Latinos take over Korean delis, do we start calling them bodegas?  And in gentrifying neighborhoods, who is going to run those bodegas when the Latinos move out?  The hipsters?

And, Latino Decisions has a new tracking poll out showing that while Latino support for the Affordable Care Act remains high, it has decreased over time.  From today’s release:

Latino support for maintaining the law remains higher than the general public, as 49% of the sample report that the Affordable Care Act “should be left as law” compared to 31% who believe that the “bill should be repealed”.  Thus, compared to the general public at large, Latinos demonstrate a much lower preference for repeal (31% compared to 46% in Gallup).  However Latino support for Obama’s health care plan has dipped over time.

Matt Barreto, LD’s lead pollster suggests that perhaps the dip can be attributed to a lack of White House outreach.  What do you think? Was this a missed opportunity?

NDN Releases Major Findings on Immigration

Today, NDN released polls conducted among all voters in four key battleground states - Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada - that show strong support for comprehensive immigration reform. As Simon and Courtney mentioned, the poll was conducted in key swing states that also have a large Hispanic Population. Additionally, the states in question are reflective of the cross-section of Hispanics in the United States, with Florida's Hispanic population consisting mainly of foreign-born Hispanics from the Caribbean and South America, Nevada with mostly foreign-born Hispanics from Mexico, and New Mexico and Colorado with largely native-born Hispanics.

For an in-depth look at how the public views the immigration debate in these four states, please view our full Immigration Survey Report here.

As stated in the Executive Summary, our findings indicate that in each of these four states, voters:

  • Overwhelmingly support Comprehensive Immigration Reform as:
    1. Strengthening border security
    2. Strengthening interior enforcement through an employer verification plan
    3. New visa program for 200,000 workers annually
    4. Increasing the number of family visas available
    5. Path to earned citizenship for the undocumented once they meet certain requirements.
  • Have a positive view of undocumented immigrants, believing that they have come here to work and seek a better life, are not taking jobs from American citizens and are not interested in receiving public handouts.
  • Blame the federal government and businesses - not immigrants - for the broken immigration system. This tells us that the anti-immigrant message of the Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaughs of the world actually doesn't resonate with the large majority of voters.

The data also shows:

  • The issue of immigration remains an important issue to voters, particularly Hispanics, and Democrats and Barack Obama are more trusted to handle the immigration issue than U.S. Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party.
  • The dramatic swing of Hispanic voters to Senator Obama in Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada - with a total of 46 electoral votes - has helped turn these previously red states, which were critical to Bush's narrow victory in 2004, into competitive swing states this year.
  • But in each state, 14 percent to 20 percent of the Hispanic electorate remains undecided, which translates into a two percent to six percent of the statewide vote in each state - a percentage significant enough to tip dead-even states into one camp or the other.
  • The Hispanic vote may very well determine the Presidential winner in these four states. Given how close the election is, this may determine the outcome of the Presidential race itself.

Therefore, the data proves that the paranoia over the prospect of dealing with the broken immigration system due to the emotional nature of the debate as framed by anti-immigrant activists is unfounded. An overhaul of our current immigration system is not only the right thing to do, there is an urgent need for it and the data demonstrates that there is overwhelming support to enact it. Enforcement-only is not an immigration policy. We need to fix the entire broken system. Just this morning, USA TODAY's Emily Bazar wrote a story reporting how the higher application fees at ICE are actually discouraging immigrants from seeking citizenship. Even Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the research center for a series of anti-immigrant hate groups, CIS, which calls for reduced immigration agrees fees are, "probably too high" and should reflect only processing costs.

When it comes to immigration reform, our data matches the data from the many polls conducted on this issue for the last three years: politically, immigration is actually a positive and not a negative because voters want action, and from a policy standpoint there is a consensus to enact it.

 

 

 

A Patriot With a Microphone

Following on Sarah's post, the two celebrities most recently added as U.S. citizens highlight an important point we should not forget: the United States is a nation of immigrants. The best way to attack existing negative advertising campaigns designed to perpetuate stereotypes and demonize immigrants is by introducing the public to who immigrants really are.

In addition to the beloved "Big Papi," a national sports figure, a celebrity of the Radio industry also recently obtained citizenship. Eddie "Piolin" Cuauhtémoc Sotelo, known by his listeners as "Piolin" (translation of "Tweety bird" in Spanish) due to this small frame, energy and comedic disposition, called becoming a citizen a "dream come true" during a ceremony in Los Angeles held two weeks ago today. He became a citizen next to 18,000 other people from 100 different countries.

His Spanish-language show is the radio show with the largest audience in the country, and as a citizen, Piolin reiterates his desire to use his microphone and celebrity to help immigrants adjust as they live in the United States. A native of Jalisco, Mexico, he has a strong religious faith and faith in the "power given to me to help my people." In an interview with Univision, he also highlighted the important contributions of immigrants to the United States, and the importance of having immigrants become citizens so that they may demonstrate their love for this country and prosper. Piolin himself has spearheaded citizenship drives, voter registration drives, get out the vote campaigns, and he has lobbied Congress for comprehensive immigration reform. Eddie is an immigrant who, like so many others, came to this country to be better. He is hard working and he attributes his success to "hard work and group effort." Eddie is also a friend of NDN, here he is with Simon Rosenberg and Joe Garcia:

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