What Latinos Want?

400,000 Latinos become eligible to vote each year, and as we have heard many times before will be the swing vote for the upcoming elections. So this means that the candidates will need to address the issues that Latino's feel are important. However, figuring out exactly what this large group feels is the most important is a difficult task.

This video goes out and talks to a variety of Latino's on the streets of New York City to try and figure out what the important issues are and who they think would be the best President. Of course, one of the most important issues is immigration. Either these people or people they know have all gone through the process of immigration, whether it is legal or not. It is always going to be a huge deal in this community. The war in Iraq also was a large concern for many of the people they talked to. One man said that they next President must be a Democrat, because the Republicans haven't done anything in the 8 years that they have been in office. I am not saying whether I agree or not, but this is what some people feel has happened.

One woman felt that Obama would not win the Presidency because she felt that America is more ready for a woman President than an African American President. She also said, even though she is a Democrat, if it was between McCain and Obama, she would vote for McCain because she feels that Obama would not be able to get us out of Iraq and we might as well just continue with a Republican. Many people felt they would vote for Clinton because she has been working to help out the Latino community for a long time.

In New York's Cultural Mix, Black Latinos Carve Out Niche

I read an article from the New York Times that is about black Latinos and their struggle to identify with the Latino community, the African American community, or sometimes both. This struggle was brought to life because Dominicans in New York planned to open a museum and cultural center, surprisingly called, "Afro-Quisqueya." Only 2% of Latinos counted in the 2000 Census considered themselves as black, with a much higher density claiming to be black Latino within New York.

Many black Latinos have trouble identifying with only one of these communities. There were a couple people in this article whose mothers were black Dominican and fathers were white Puerto Rican. One of the people said that even though they were light-skinned, they needed to identify with the African American community to honor his or her mother. As we talked about in the first week of class, people identify themselves with different groups based on how connected they feel.

Hip-hop is often thought as something created by solely African Americans, but it has also been very important for the Latino community. Will Jones, a 26-year-old black Latino of Panamanian descent, said that hip-hop has become the middle ground that both African Americans and Latinos can be a part of.



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