MTV Bringing Immigration Debate to Young Hispanics

September 28, 2007
Jordan Levin -- The Miami Herald
They're rocking la raza to a reggaeton beat.

MTV Tr3s, MTV's year-old channel for U.S. Hispanics, is bringing the immigration debate to an audience intimately familiar with the issue in Beyond Borders: An MTV Tr3s Immigration Forum.

The program airs at 6 p.m. Saturday on MTV Tr3s, which is Channel 605 on Comcast cable in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and Channel 416 on DirecTV.

MTV Tr3s hopes to mobilize and inspire a potentially powerful voting bloc. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 50,000 Hispanics turn 18 every month in the United States, and 87 percent of them are eligible to vote.

In a poll conducted by MTV Tr3s of its viewers and other young Latinos, 60 percent said immigration was the most important issue for young Hispanics, and 76 percent said they would decide to support a candidate based on their stance on immigration.

Many in the channel's audience are undocumented, or have family members who are, and face what can seem like overwhelming problems in going to college or planning their lives.

"There's a lack of hope; they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel," says Lily Neumayer, vice president of programming and production for MTV Tr3s and executive producer of Beyond Borders.

"And for a young person not to be able to see their future is very depressing. They have the motivation, they say they want to be part of the American dream. But they feel everything is against them."

MTV is tackling that frustration with its characteristic mix of pop and politics. The forum, hosted by Gustavo Arellano, creator of the nationally syndicated Ask A Mexican column, includes Residente, the outspoken rapper/lyricist of popular reggaeton duo Calle 13, actress Betty Ortiz of the hit ABC show Ugly Betty, Los Angeles rapper Malverde, and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.

Taped last week in Los Angles in front of a live audience, the panel took questions from about 400 in the audience and fielded questions previously submitted online. Viewers will be able to comment during the program online or via text messages.

The panelists are intimately acquainted with the issue. Malverde's mother was a farmworker, and Ortiz's father worked for the National Council of La Raza. Calle 13's song about immigration, Pal Norte, is nominated for a Latin Grammy.

The forum follows a 5 p.m. showing of True Life: I Live on the Border, part of an MTV documentary series that looks at young people who live on the border, including a member of vigilante group the Minutemen and an undocumented high school student.

Other programs -- on becoming a U.S. citizen and on education -- are in the works. The effort is part of Voto Latino, the Hispanic portion of MTV's Choose or Lose youth voter registration campaign.