The Melting Blog

On The Road Again

TMB is gonna be real busy in the Big Apple this week. Needless to say, posting will be light. In the meantime, here's some tasty morsels to gnaw on from this past weekend:

* New York Times: Hispanics Resist Racial Grouping by Census. If you read TMB regularly, you already know.

* Time Magazine: Translating Faith Into Spanish -- in which capturing the Hispanic vote means appealing to Hispanic religious values too.

* Los Angeles Times: Vietnamese Show Clout in Funding. The OC's most visible Asian community is starting to flex it's political muscle. Too bad it's not for Kerry.

* New York Times: In Search For Black Votes. Now this one I'm seriously stumped by. The story comes on the heels of last week's announcement by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies that Bush's African American support has doubled according to study. Up is down in these weird times.

That's all I got time for, kids. Be well this week, be well.

Dating Asians

I'm flabbergasted. Is there really a market for books like these? Beyond the camp value that is? Okay, stupid question, I'm sure there are many sinophiles out there desperate for a little cross-cultural affection in the relationship arena. Which explains why the dating industry continues to produce dribble such as this latest from one Tania Wang: simply entitled Dating Asians.

The cover of this book alone is worth the price of admission (someone tell me what ducks have to do with dating or Asians). And check out this excerpt from the flap:

"Dating Asians" is the bible for dating Asians successfully.

Asians are very different from Occidentals! And there are different types of Asians based on where they were born and raised. Each Asian group will have their own cultural traits and perspective on life. However, after reading this book, you will find that most Asians can actually be quite predictable.

"Dating Asians" analyzes common misconceptions and offers various ways to impress Asian people so that they will be accepting of you right away. These valuable insights can prevent you from making a buffoon of yourself; Asians call it "saving face". "Dating Asians" provides you with shortcuts to aid your understanding of the major Asian cultures. It will help you to easily become Asian-savvy.

If you have little or no experience dating Asians, this book will show you where to find them, what to do, what not to do, and what to expect. If you already have experience dating Asians, please read this book several times, as it will help you examine what you shouldn't have done, versus what you could have done right, the first time.

Like, ouch. That's some mind numbing, excruciating language to read. Folks you know the drill. Same as last time around. Go to the book's Amazon page and show your love in their comments section. I wanna see creativity and wit folks -- humor me! The best comments will find their way back here at TMB.

Spotted at Angry Asian Man.

2nd Generation: "If You Love Me, You Won't Vote For Bush"

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In "The Parent Trap", Bernice Young writes that "generational splits in immigrant families are commonplace in America, and so are attempts by the second generation to nudge their parents in a more progressive direction." An excerpt:

Undeterred, Ming has since encouraged her parents to watch more progressive documentaries, such as "Outfoxed," though ultimately, she's betting that she'll be victorious when she calls her mother a few days before the election and says, "If you love me, you won't vote for Bush" – it worked in 2000.

Ming is tireless in her efforts because she believes that there's a chance her parents will be swayed. As socially liberal Chinese immigrants who live in a college town surrounded by aging hippies and university professors, they are not stereotypical Republicans. After all, they support gay rights, dislike the idea of war, and as a result of their youngest son's stage productions, have a rare tolerance among immigrant parents for avant-garde theater. Their deep attachment to the Republican Party, in fact, seems more deeply rooted in historical nostalgia than actual policy; they began voting for GOP candidates when Richard Nixon visited China in 1972.

The generational political split within Ming's immigrant family is not merely an isolated incident. In communities that have traditionally aligned themselves with the Republican Party – the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban and Arab – some of the younger, born-here generation seem to have developed political ideas that diverge from their more conservative parents.

James Gimpel, a University of Maryland professor who has studied voting behavior within immigrant communities, says he is not surprised. "My guess is that these second-generation types tend to be socialized by their environment," Gimpel says. "Young people tend to be more liberal than their parents, and the traditional theory is that ethnic solidarity [in voting] tends to wear thin as time goes on. There's a tendency for economic upward mobility to disrupt ethnic solidarity by the second or third generation."

Hey, it's true in my family. Except this year I haven't had to lobby that hard at my usually Republican pops -- he's come to the conclusion that Bush is toxic on his own accord. Hope springs eternal. Do read the whole thing.

Props to the Aye Train.

Monday Memorandum

* More on the up-for-grabs Hispanic vote in Florida in yesterday's New York Times article "Hispanic Vote in Florida: Neither a Bloc Nor A Lock." Kerry may have a pretty commanding lead among the Hispanic electorate nationally, but he's behind Bush in this all-too-important battleground state:

Both parties believe Mr. Bush will win the majority of Hispanic votes in Florida, if only because the Cuban population remains so large - about 450,000 registered voters, compared with about 200,000 for the second-biggest group, Puerto Ricans. But Democratic strategists say their party is pushing for Mr. Kerry to win perhaps 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, potentially a big enough increase over the roughly 34 percent that Al Gore claimed in 2000 to assure a Democratic victory here.

* Here's a report you'll probably be hearing wonky types yammer about when the horserace talk turns to Bush's economic record. The latest study released by the Pew Hispanic Center shows that minorities -- Blacks and Hispanics in particular -- have not weathered the economic recession nearly as well as their white counterparts (duh!). The study rightly points to a lack of financial assets -- considerably more so than income -- as the chief culprit for the economic disparities. Press release is here. Possibly more on this later...

* Finally, I'm a little late in commenting on this but... a few weeks back NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard's Kennedy school released the results from a fairly substantial 1,900 person poll tackling the hot potato subject of immigration. Hey, if neither Presidential candidate is going to address this issue (save for a single question from the third debate), someone should push the envelope, right? The results? Negative attitudes toward immigration persist! Non-immigrants are concerned about illegal immigration! Immigrants think conditions in U.S. are better than home country! Did they really need a study to tell us this stuff?

America The Bilingual?

Is this yet another case of discounting assimilation? In this PNS piece, Louis E.V. Nevaer -- author of "The Rise of the Hispanic Market in the United States" -- claims that the United States is now a bilingual nation. Unlike our Canadian neighbors, who institutionally mandate both English and French officially, Mr. Nevaer cites free market capitalism as the primary reason Spanish has become so deeply entrenched in the U.S., particularly as companies (like our clients) regularly tailor their advertising and communications to Latinos:

Hispanics, without apology, refuse to "assimilate," if that means giving up their culture and language. When it comes to breakfast cereal, Hispanics collectively indicated their choice would be determined by which one advertises in Spanish: Post Raisin Bran or Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Corporate America listened.

Proof? Pick up the phone and call any customer service number and you are likely to hear, "Press one to continue in English," followed by "Oprima dos para español."

Welcome to the United States de América!

This really runs counter to Gregory's piece I cited earlier this week (see "Assimilation Happens -- Deal With It" for reference). Nevaer's argument simply collapses by saying Latinos don't assimilate -- it's straight up erroneous. First off, he seemingly equates language and culture. Sure, they are intimately intertwined, but it's not inconceivable that people can both retain their cultural values yet also lose their parents' native tongue. In fact, that's what normally happens among second generation Asians and Latinos -- proficiency in the language of your parents is one of the first things that diminish with greater acculturation. This is common sense, but don't take my word for it, it's well documented by Pew Hispanic research. Secondly, Nevaer also perpetuates the notion that culture is somehow a fixed, static thing and not malleable -- already addressed in the aforementioned L.A. Times piece.

Let's also be real clear about what Nevaer means by 'bilingualism' --- he isn't really talking about people suddenly adopting two languages. He's talking about the emergence and ubiquity of Spanish here in the U.S. resulting from massive Latin American immigration. As a result, Nevaer asserts that Spanish has become a rival language:

We are, in fact, in the midst of a linguistic "crisis," as Spanish spreads and English remains in denial. (Consider this tantalizing fact: More New Yorkers get their news in Spanish from Jorge Ramos on "Noticiero Univision" than in English from Dan Rather on "The CBS Evening News.") From New York to Los Angeles, from Miami to Seattle, government is struggling to provide civil servants who speak Spanish -- from police officers to social workers, from librarians to motor vehicle department clerks.

The last time language challenged America this way was in the 18th century. At that time, the Founding Fathers debated whether to make English or German the "official" language and, unable to decide, declined to make a choice, thus passing the buck onto us.

Yet, there comes a point when politics has to ratify economics. Until then, corporate America will continue to address, and seek to profit from, the greatest domestic reality of the 21st century: America the Bilingual.

There's no question that American companies and corporations are going after the Hispanic market in a huge way. About five, six percent of total U.S. advertising spending is now going toward reaching this population -- luring folks to buy everything from soap to cars -- mostly in Spanish language media. As an ethnic marketing agency, we are one of those companies Mr. Navaen cites within this marketing and advertising apparatus, and we've benefitted. No doubt.

Yet, we've also seen many companies adopt rigid notions about Hispanic consumers. It's like once they've discovered the simple formula of Spanish-language advertising, that's all they need to know and do. With the exception of a select few, most companies have yet to truly comprehend just how dynamic and heterogeneous the Hispanic market really is. It's a continually moving target -- and gradually shifts away from Spanish as folks acculturate. Why? This population has reached a tipping point in that a greater proportion of Hispanic growth now originates from the ranks of the U.S. Born (roughly 60 percent of the Latino population now) than it does from immigration. Add it all up and it means there will be a future wave of Latinos who won't watch Sabado Gigante, dislike telenovelas, and speak only passable Spanish.

What will marketers do then?

Rest of the World: "Americans Cool, But Bush Blows"

Except in Israel and Russia that is. Here's the type of global attitudinal polling you miss by exclusively reading U.S. media:

Ten countries’ leading newspapers polled their own citizens in recent weeks to find out how they perceive America and Americans, who they support between John Kerry and George W. Bush, and their views on the war in Iraq.

The 10 newspapers are Canada’s La Presse, France’s Le Monde, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, the United Kingdom’s The Guardian, Spain’s El Pais, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age of Australia, Russia’s Moscow News, Mexico’s Reforma, Israel’s Haaretz and the JoongAng Ilbo.

The newspapers polled between 522 and 1,417 people in each country with identical questions. According to the JoongAng Ilbo’s survey, 65 percent of the 1,028 Koreans polled said they felt favorable toward Americans and 67 percent said it was important for the United States to play a leadership role on the world stage. But 72 percent of the respondents felt unfavorable toward George W. Bush.

Negative attitudes towards Mr. Bush were common in all 10 countries except Israel: A majority of those surveyed in the other nine countries said they liked Americans and disliked Mr. Bush. In Israeli, 81 percent said they like Americans and 70 percent said they are pro-Bush. Anti-Bush feeling was highest in Spain (77%), followed by France (75%) and Korea (72%). All countries except Israel and Russia said they supported Mr. Kerry as the next U.S. president.

Spotted at The Marmot's Hole. And just to balance things out, here's the parallel contrarian piece that shows up in the Jerusalem Post.

Florida's Political Orientation

As the state that pretty much determined the outcome of the 2000 elections (by only 500 some votes remember), the spotlight is once again on Florida. This time around, no potential vote is being left unturned by either party -- and this includes some key ethnic constituencies who don't normally get the kind of attention they're now getting from both Democrats or Republicans. Arab, Haitian, and Cuban-American voters may very well determine how this battleground state swings in November and which candidate will receive Florida's prized 27 electoral votes. WaPo has the details:

This is the topsy-turvy, up-is-down world of Florida presidential politics less than three weeks before the state that made 2000 the messiest presidential election in recent history returns to the polls to choose between Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Haitian Americans, once solidly Democratic, are in play for the GOP. Arab Americans, once reliably Republican, are nudging toward the Democratic ticket. Cuban Americans, a staple of the GOP, are considered gettable by Democrats. Moving even small numbers of these minority voters -- either to the polls for the first time or into a different party's vote-tally column -- could have a huge impact during this closest of battleground races in this closest of presidential elections.

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"How many of these people who registered are going to vote?" asked Taleb Salhab, president of the Arab American Community Center, based in Orlando. "At the end of the day, this election is going to be about turnout."

The excruciatingly close margins have given a sense of possibilities to tiny factions as the Oct. 18 start of the state's first foray into early voting for a presidential election approaches. Haitian Americans with an estimated 150,000 voters and Arab Americans with 100,000 are eye-drops among the state's 9 million voters. But Florida politics is as much a game of tiny gains this year as giant leaps. Countless small to medium-size tightly to loosely organized groups are wielding unprecedented influence. A state once dominated by the politics of big unions and other large stalwarts of the political landscape has given over, in part, to a kaleidoscope of thinly nonpartisan "527" groups, hip-hop crusaders and small-scale upstart activists.

The article goes on to note that while Cuban Americans used to comprise 80 percent of Florida's Hispanic electorate back in 2000, they now make up just half. This will have some significance in shaping the outcome since Cubans slant towards the GOP, while other Latinos slightly favor the Dems. Nevertheless, these are strange times we live in, and Cubans -- like Arab Americans (another group that used to be solidly in the Republican camp) -- have become increasingly disillusioned with Dubya.

Originally spoted at Negrophile.

Hip Hop: America's Status Quo

Newsday's "30 Years of Hip Hop" notes what a cultural force and commercial powerhouse hip hop has become around the globe:

However, in this small-world-after-all age of Internet downloading and non-stop cable TV programming, hip-hop can reach fans anywhere. And it does. Nearly 30 years after its birth at a Bronx house party and 25 years after it jumped into the mainstream with the release of the Sugar Hill Gang's single "Rapper's Delight," hip-hop is in its prime - an industry that generates $10 billion annually.

In 2003, nearly one out of every four CDs sold in the United States was a hip-hop or R&B CD, totaling $2.8 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The most popular CD of the year was 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," helping hip-hop become the second-biggest genre in music, behind rock. Its popularity has nearly doubled since 1995, going from 6.7 percent of the market to 13.3 percent last year.

Public Enemy's Chuck D used to say that hip-hop was "the black CNN," the way many minorities and the disenfranchised communicated with one another and the outside world. With hip-hop's continuous growth, the rapper and radio host has expanded the metaphor.

"Hip-hop is now a worldwide religion," Chuck D says. "People all over the world understand its language, its culture. Each country has its own brand, its own style."

For those who still don't believe this cultural expression possesses the commercial efficacy to cut across color, class, and cultural barriers, witness:

Hanan said that the days of marketing hip-hop-influenced clothes and shoes only to African-Americans or even city-dwellers are over.

"It's not color-dependent," he said. "It's about reaching those in urban areas and those who relate to urban style in the culture. Hip-hop transcends urban and suburban. It's not just one demographic."

Retailers are also embracing hip-hop because it has been able to sell products to demographic groups in ways that had previously not been successful.

"Hip-hop has exploded the mens' jewelry market," said Amanda Gizzi, spokeswoman for the Jewelry Information Center, the New York-based industry group. "Oversized diamond studs and chains - people see them on Puffy or 50 Cent and they want them. People see that, and they think they need to get themselves some bling. It was hip-hop that started setting those trends."

It is this power to sell that has pushed hip-hop beyond the final color barrier. It's no longer about black or white; it's all about the green.

"Hip-hop," Marshall's DeBarge-Goonan said, "is now the mainstream."

No doubt. Read the entire story.

Name Droppin'/I'm Going Back To Cali

Last week's Census Bureau release of new 2003 census figures have generated a flurry of new punditry and forecasts in an attempt to comprehend exactly what the new numbers mean--especially for those of us here in California (sorry to be so Cali-centric lately dear readers, but the cusp of new national demographic trends favors the west coast--or the southwest to be precise). Here are a couple pieces today by several friends of mine illuminating these trends. Not to name drop, but why wade into the numbers myself, when these guys have already done the heavy lifting for me?

Assimilation and its Discontents: First, my friend Gregory Rodriguez -- who, I can attest, belts out one mean karaoke version of 'California Dreamin' after, uh, a couple beers -- picks up the meme about the impact acculturation has on fertility that I pointed out in last week's entry and breaks it down in more eloquent terms in his L.A. Times piece "Assimilation Happens--Deal With It". Excerpt:

The cult of cultural preservation encouraged us to believe that contemporary immigrant ethnicity and culture are constant, if not static, over time. New immigrants and their children were expected to continue playing their assigned roles. We're astonished and disappointed when a third-generation Mexican American politician speaks poor Spanish, yet we'd never think of scolding Rudy Giuliani for his poor Italian skills or Barbara Boxer for her nonexistent Yiddish. Some post-ethnic Americans even romanticize new immigrants, particularly Latinos, as symbols of resistance to the anomie and cold commercialism of contemporary American life.

But like it or not, assimilation happens.

In a 2002 study by the Public Policy Institute of California, demographers Laura Hill and Hans Johnson discovered that higher educational achievement, lower rates of marriage and less poverty accounted for the decline in fertility among second-generation Latinas. In fact, it is the fast growth of the second generation of Latinos that has state demographers lowering their estimates of Latino population growth.

And in a description that fits our firm's vision to a T, he writes:

Even as government, business and organizations strive to better reach the first-generation immigrant by crafting new messages and speaking their languages, they may soon have to reconsider their approaches because the number of American-born children of immigrants is exploding. Korean immigrant churches must offer services in English to hold on to their second-generation parishioners. Marketing firms are studying the eclectic consumer and entertainment tastes of the children of immigrants.

The question of whether we view ethnicity as fluid or rigid is not merely academic.

Nope, it sure isn't. As an aside, for those of you who missed it, check out the interview I did with Gregory for our summer Dimensions newsletter here. (pdf required)

Don't Call It A Comeback: My occasional cohort and mentor, Joel Kotkin, co-pens a piece with Brookings demography honcho, Bill Frey, about Southern California's remarkable population growth since 2000. While the rest of the country wrote off SoCal a decade ago -- after a turbulent few years of riots, earthquakes, wildfires, and other assorted natural disasters -- this region has since rebounded in spectacular fashion, becoming one of the nation's top destinations for immigrants and domestic migrants alike, while it's other big city rivals have sputtered and shed people. To wit:

Since 2000, the L.A. region has added about 800,000 people from other parts of the U.S., according to annual census data, more than any major metropolitan area in the country — a rate of population increase twice that of Chicago, three times greater than New York and 10 times that of the Bay Area. Even the city of Los Angeles, where the "stew of despair" was supposedly boiling over, has enjoyed a strong surge of post-2000 growth, increasing its population by 125,000 people (not counting immigrants from other countries), while much ballyhooed "hip" cities such as San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago and Boston have all lost population.

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If fewer people are now leaving L.A., then the next question to be asked is this: Who is moving in? Interestingly, a close analysis of the 2000 census finds that the area continues to attract large numbers of well-educated, younger residents. This migration of Americans and their offspring, added to the continuing influx of immigrants from abroad, accounts for the bulk of the region's restored demographic dynamism.

Now allow me to wear my policy wonk hat for a brief sec. To be sure, while I do believe this population resurgence injects a certain level of cultural vibrance and youthful energy that is welcome here in L.A., I'm nonetheless concerned about whether our state and local decision makers will devote their attention to developing the requisite infrastructure capacity necessary to accomodate this growth. To do so requires that the state, particularly Southern California, build new housing, schools, roads, and communities more efficiently than it has in previous eras, in contrast to perpetuating continuing sprawl. This won't please all Californians--a point alluded to by the authors in their closing statements:

Some local residents may object to a growth-oriented strategy — including new infrastructure spending — because of possible effects on the environment or, more selfishly, on their lifestyle, but the truth is that the region has no real alternative. Because of its growing appeal among young families, Los Angeles — unlike Boston, Seattle or San Francisco — cannot hope to age gracefully into a region of senescent yuppies and soon-to-be-expiring pensioners. For better or worse, we are still a young and growing region, and we need to begin acting our age.

More shameless plugging: Those of you interested in hearing more from demographic guru Bill Frey can peep my interview with him in our Spring Dimensions newsletter here. Enjoy!

Squaring The OC Fantasy With Reality (updated)

Alex Williams is as befuddled as I am about how Orange County has become pop culture's new ground zero for teen hipness. From yesterday's New York Times:

But such are the realities in the new, rebranded Orange County. Particularly since "The O.C." a Fox drama, became a pop-culture phenomenon last year, the formerly quiet patchwork of planned communities and insular beach towns south of Los Angeles has become recognized worldwide, however improbably, as the embodiment of all things hip, youthful and glamorous.

To those of us with roots in Orange County, that is bizarre. It is as if the organizers of New York Fashion Week had pulled up stakes in Bryant Park and relocated their tents to Bergen County, N.J., the newly discovered capital of cool.

To me, offerings like Fox's The OC and MTV's Laguna Beach are probably a counter-reaction to a popular culture that now overwhelmingly favors a stylistic and aesthetic ethos toward all things urban. It's also fueled by a certain kind of nostalgia for a lilly-white California, that, well, frankly does not exist anymore -- especially in light of last week's report that Orange County no longer possesses a white Anglo majority. Jon Wiener nails it here:

Jon Wiener, a writer for The Nation and a history professor at the University of California, Irvine, believes this region's flawless new television image echoes cultural impulses akin to the county's historic political conservatism. "It's an attempt to hold onto that California of the 50's and 60's, that paradise for middle-class white people," Mr. Wiener said. "The sun, the beach, the healthiness, the happiness of being young. I see this as a nostalgia for the California of yesteryear."

In light of the OC's new demographic and cultural reality, urban guru Bill Fulton has the best money quote pitching a new reality-TV series set in Orange County:

If any rival producers from CBS or HBO are listening, here's one idea for a "real Orange County" show for next fall:

"What I want to see is the sitcom about the Latino family that moves into a Vietnamese neighborhood," said William Fulton, a senior scholar policy planning and development at the University of Southern California. "When you see that, you'll know that the perception of Orange County has finally caught up to reality."

Yeah, I'd definitely watch that. Read all of "The County Formerly Known as Squaresville".

UPDATE: Another related piece -- this one far harsher: "Latino Youth Talk About the Real 'O.C.'"

California's Population and Assimilation

Those concerned that the Golden State will somehow degenerate into some kind of third-world dystopia because of uncontrolled immigration and out-of-control population growth can just chill out -- California is now reducing its population forecasts:

The state's population will keep growing as the result of two things: immigration, and births continuing to outpace deaths. But the increase will be notably slower than once believed.

Demographic experts now project California's population to hit about 51 million by 2040 — 7 million fewer than they forecast a few years ago, according to new state estimates. The state currently has about 36 million residents.

So instead of 600,000 new residents a year, officials now project the state will average about 400,000 annually.

Declining Latino birthrates are cited as the primary reason for this adjustment, driven a great deal by second generations adopting upwardly-mobile, middle class American values when it comes to conceiving families and their lifestyle.

Maricela Morales, a 33-year-old daughter of Mexican immigrants and a graduate of Stanford University, is a social activist and a city councilwoman in Port Hueneme. She and her friends were determined not to have children young, she said.

"We saw how difficult it was for our parents: There were so many demands at work and at home that it didn't allow for a high quality of life with the children," she said.

The advantages of a smaller family "was something we'd heard about from our friends who were more middle-class," she said. "And we wanted it too."

Catalina Solis, 45, an office manager in Ventura, grew up in a family of seven children. "It seemed such a hardship making ends meet," she said, recalling how her father, a mariachi musician, worked at a steel plant in Vernon and her mother took factory jobs beginning at age 46.

In all, Solis and her six brothers and sisters — four of whom were born in Mexico — have had only nine children. Those children, in turn, have had only nine babies.

"We were pretty textbook when it came to assimilation," Solis said.

The piece also notes that fertility rates have dropped significantly among Latina mothers in the state over the past decade-and-a-half -- 2.6 babies now from 3.4 in 1990. I'm sure those early numbers were likely used as faulty inputs into California's earlier population forecasts -- all of which goes to show you that when demographers, forecasters, and bean counters gaze into their crystal balls, they end up making the same mistaken assumptions as immigration's pessimist detractors: that people don't change, they don't acculturate.

Hispanic Communications en Voto Latino

Dallas-based columnist, Ruben Navarrette Jr., says both Presidential candidates are blowing the Latino vote:

So, with the contest a month away, you'd think that the campaigns would be pulling out all the stops with Latino voters. Not necessarily so, according to a new study. The amount of attention that Latino voters are getting depends a lot on where they live and what language they speak. If they live in a so-called battleground state and speak Spanish, they're being hit with television and radio commercials. But if they live in states assumed to be dependably red or blue and speak English, it's more likely they're being ignored.

Not completely surprising. As I've stated repeatedly here before, the English-speaking Latino segment is conspicuously absent in most corporate ethnic marketing efforts too. The ethnic marketing formula breaks down into something like this: Hispanic communications equals Spanish-language advertising -- and that's pretty much it. There are many Hispanic advertising agencies who probably prefer to keep it that way.

Unlike the Voto Latino PSA spots running on MTV (which, in my personal opinion, is a highly effective campaign), Latinos who prefer English (a gigantic legion of acculturated second generation natives) get short-shrifted when it comes to targeted messaging and media programming choices. Campaigns like Voto Latino are the exception, not the rule. It's a glaring omission -- one that will hopefully begin to change with the advent of nascent media upstarts SiTV, Mun2, and VOY. In the meantime, "ethnic" political advertising campaigns get caught up in the same trappings as corporate ethnic marketing strategies. Here's more from Mr. Navarrette:

Then, there is language. Who came up with the bright idea of targeting Latino voters in Spanish? At a time when English-as-a-second-language classes are filling up in Latino neighborhoods and Latino parents are removing their children from bilingual education, geniuses in both presidential campaigns decided that the way to inspire Latinos to exercise their civic responsibility was in a foreign language.

These whiz kids must have missed the report by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center in April indicating that most Hispanics either get their news from English-language media or flip back and forth between English and Spanish stations. Just 24 percent of Latinos get all their news in Spanish.

How could both presidential campaigns, in going after Latino voters, have been so wrong about so much? It looks like they got some very bad advice. They probably heard from political experts who assured them that Latinos could be targeted with the battleground strategy that the campaigns had in place for the mainstream. And then they listened to the Latino marketing experts--the sort of folks who usually help Fortune 500 companies sell millions of hamburgers and soft drinks--who told them that the way you reach Latino consumers is in Spanish. And the people running the campaigns didn't know enough to know better.

That's exactly right. Univision head Jerry Perenchio and his merry band of Hispanic media and advertising cronies pretty much dominate the discourse in convincing the marketing suits at Fortune 500 companies (who don't know better) that Spanish is the only language Latinos speak, listen to, or consume in media.

But we should now know better, shouldn't we?