Thread: Web site gives young Hispanics a venue for online political

www.sun-sentinel.com


Web site gives young Hispanics a venue for online political activism

By Sandra Hernandez
Staff Writer

August 15, 2005

The image on the brown T-shirt is simple, a colorful outline of the Southwest's craggy hills. The message under the picture -- "New Mexico, Cleaner than Regular Mexico" -- has galvanized thousands of Latinos, who are taking their protests from the streets to cyberspace.

"I was born in Mexico, so when people make comments about Mexico I take it personally," said Carime Hernandez, 24, of West Palm Beach.

Hernandez took action. She logged on to >BlueLatinos.org and fired off an e-mail demanding the chairman of Urban Outfitters, the retail chain that sells the tops, remove them from the store. About 6,000 Hispanics signed the cyber petition.

BlueLatinos.org is thought to be the nation's first online advocacy aimed at twentysomething Hispanics eager to speak out and challenge misconceptions. Its mission, according to the Web site, is "To organize progressive Latinos online and ... move voters, particularly Latino voters, toward progressive issues and action."

Since its launch in April, the Web site has gained 9,000 members, about 14 percent of them from Florida. BlueLatinos takes its name from the color assigned to the states that backed John Kerry in last year's presidential election.

José Quiñonez, founder of BlueLatinos.org, hopes the site will appeal to a generation as likely to get their news from MTV as from the Internet.

"I'm just trying to translate some of the legislative issues to the street level for younger Latinos," Quiñonez said.

BlueLatinos.org has led two other cyber campaigns: pushing to oust a CNN host, and getting a Latino Supreme Court nominee. In its latest drive against the T-shirts, would-be activists fill out the individual petition form and then click to forward it to Richard Hayne, Urban Outfitters' president and chairman.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel was unable to reach an Urban Outfitters Inc. representative for comment, despite repeated telephone calls to its Philadelphia headquarters.

Beyond its burgeoning membership, the nascent Web site is also attracting attention from experts who say BlueLatinos.org shows how young Hispanics, who came of age during an era when many states considered passing anti-immigration legislation, are taking a cutting-edge approach to politics and organizing in cyberspace.

"This is important in that [BlueLatinos.org] are trying to reach the demographic who has participated the least in the political world -- the 18-to-24 Latinos -- and they are doing it in the language and using the tools that fit them," said Harry Pachon, director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a Hispanic research group at the University of Southern California. "If this spurs them to action, this is really remarkable."

It is that targeted message that sets BlueLatinos.org apart from bloggers and other Web sites that focus on Latino issues.

"There aren't a lot of groups that pick a targeted demographic group, let alone focus on Hispanics," said Michael Cornfield, an assistant professor of political management at George Washington University and a consultant with the Pew Internet & American Life Project/Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. "And those groups that do aren't using the Internet to publicize it and build a grass-roots organization," he said, referring to the Web site's push to bring ordinary citizens into a progressive political movement.

In addition to the petitions, the site offers a blog where members can speak out on such diverse issues as Latinos in Hollywood and the environment. While no membership fees are required, the site asks for donations. "But I don't expect people to give money to the first Web site that comes along," Quiñonez said.

He said he hopes to add a Spanish translation to the site someday soon, but for now he is focused on busting the perception that Latinos are uneducated and ill-prepared to take a stand on issues.

Quiñonez came up with the Web site idea during the 2004 presidential election, while working in South Florida for MoveOn.org, the nation's largest liberal online advocacy group.

"We needed to take on some issues that some of the national groups weren't looking at ... issues that play out at the legislative arena but also play out in pop culture," he said during a telephone interview from his Washington, D.C., apartment that doubles as the Web site's headquarters.

The group's first e-mail campaign focused on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight and its popular host, whom Quiñonez said fans anti-immigrant sentiment by describing U.S. borders as overrun by undocumented Hispanic immigrants. In April, Quiñonez launched a petition calling on the network to fire Dobbs.

"I would watch it and it would get my blood boiling. I'd talk to my friends about it and they felt the same way. But there was no national response from the traditional groups, so I decided to take on the issue," Quiñonez said.

About 3,000 people signed within the first month and Dobbs later invited Quiñonez to appear on the show, where the two debated the coverage. While Dobbs remains with CNN, Quiñonez said he thinks the petition drive convinced the host to invite more Latino political leaders, including Janet Murgia, chief of the National Council of La Raza, a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights group, to appear on the show. The campaign to fire Dobbs is continuing. So far, about 3,500 Hispanics have signed on.

While the site is still focused on getting members, Quiñonez said he hopes that, like Moveon.org, it will spawn a political action committee that would endorse candidates and "help elect young progressive Latinos."

He said while the campaigns haven't led to the removal of Dobbs or the T-shirts, the site has given Latinos a place to have their voice heard.

"This is successful because it's about expressing our outrage collectively," Quiñonez said. "Before this, there wasn't a place for Latinos to say, `This isn't OK.'"

How does everyone feel about finding out how we buy these shirts and we launch a campaign tonight to buy them????

These people do not understand free speech at all.

What do you think? Activate the network and encourage everyone in the movement to buy one?

Remember folks, ALIPAC helped drive Blue Latino back last time when they went after Dobbs!

W

I posted an article about the shirt earlier. There is some information in the discussion where the shirts can be purchased.

https://www.alipac.us/ftopict-6987-mexico.html+shirt