The Latino daily – Your Friday morning brief
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony Award winning writer and star of the Broadway musical hit “Hamilton,” says he’ll be leaving the show on July 9. His immediate next gig will be to drive Latino voters to the polls in November. It’s not exactly clear how he’ll do that; he appeared in a Hispanic Federation voter mobilization video, and he says he’ll perform more outreach over the summer.
FRIDAY, June 17, 2016
Good morning Taquistas!
This is the week that many parents count as the official start of summer, not because of Memorial Day (that was 2 weeks ago) or the summer solstice (next week) but because this week was the last week of school for many kids across the country. So before the summer shenanigans commence let’s see whatstory the U.S. Latino education numbers tell us; they were compiled by Learning Heroes, a national parent organization funded in part by the Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
►Friday’s numbers
90 – The percentage of U.S. Latino parents who want their children to go to college.
42 – The percentage of U.S. Latino students who make it to college graduation.
12 – The percentage of U.S. Latino high schools students who are proficient or above in math.
86 – The percentage of U.S. Latino parents who believe their child is performing at grade level in math.
26 – The percentage of U.S. Latino students who are performing at grade level in math.
70 – The percentage of U.S. Latino parents who say they worry a lot about financing their child’s college education.
58 – The percentage of U.S. Latino parents who say they worry a lot about their child gaining the knowledge and skills needed to be ready for college.
►Speaking of education and Mexican telecommunication moguls (there’s no easy way to segue . . .)
Carlos Slim has launched an education platform called Aprende.org that has the ambitious goal of providing learning opportunities for anyone with a smart phone and an internet connection.
According to a Pew Foundation study 49 percent of Latinos own a smartphone and 76 percent of them access the internet using their mobile device. So maybe Slim is on to something.
The platform is in Spanish and intended mainly for customers in Mexico – there are no usage charges if you use one of Slims’s internet provider properties. But it’s a pretty good idea.
►Here’s a bad idea that almost became law
The U.S. House of representatives rejected two Defense Department spending bill amendments that would have banned undocumented immigrants from serving in the U.S. armed forces.
The votes, 207-214 and 210-211, respectively, blocked measures that were targeted at DREAMers, those immigrants that qualify for DACA who were brought to the U.S. as children. Thirty centrist Republicans joined House Democrats to repeal the amendments.
The Pentagon confirms that it has recruited 141 DACA recipients as of April. But I can’t report this story without reporting on one of the outcomes for some undocumented military servicemen. It’s been an ongoing story that tends to resurface given the news cycle prompts: There are many U.S veterans who have been deported because at the time they served their military service wasn’t a path to residency.
There’s no concrete number to report, but anecdotal estimates say there are deported veterans all over the world and at least one support group in Tijuana, Mexico, has helped 70 former servicemen.
►While we’re on the subject of military service
The U.S. Senate approved a measure that will require women to register for the draft, the Selective Service (SSS). It’s a coming-of-age ritual for all men in the U.S. to register with the SSS – they must do so when they turn 18.
The Senate bill says women will have to do the same. The idea of women in combat is a separate issue, this bill is exclusively about young women registering. General Robert B. Neller told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “It’s my personal view, every American who’s physically qualified should register for the draft.”
The House version of the defense spending bill doesn’t include the women-in-the-draft measure, so the bills will have to be reconciled in a conference committee.
►Remember the young Latina who was killed in the Paris terror attack last November?
Her name was Nohemi Gonzalez, she was a 23 year old exchange student from Cal State Long Beach who was sitting in a café on a Paris afternoon with two friends when gunmen opened fire killing her and another 129 people. Her father, Reynaldo Gonzalez, is now suing the three social media titans – Google, Facebook and Twitter – claiming they provided “material support” to the extremists who killed his daughter.
Gonzalez filed suit in a federal court in Northern California alleging the companies “knowingly permitted” the Islamic State (ISIS) to spread propaganda, raise money and recruit members.
There are two things to consider in this case. One is that both Facebook and Twitter say they have policies prohibiting terrorist content and recruitment, another is that U.S. law generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material users post on their networks.
The difference here is that the lawsuit is because of what the companies enabled, not what they published.
Quote of the day
“When they shed negative light on our culture, it feels oppressing. But it’s also a challenge to defy the stereotypes.”
– Maria Camila Isaza, 21, a North Carolina college graduate, commenting in a Roll Call article about the growing influence of Latino/a voters in the battleground state.
►On to politics (I think it’s a requirement)
Marco Rubio wants back in.
Technically, he’s reconsidering his reelection run. And there’s a lot to be unpacked in that sentence.
Reconsider means he considered it in the past – he had decided he wouldn’t run for reelection because he was running for president. It was a White-House-or-bust kind of thing.
But now that he’s out of the presidential running, and he’s had time to simmer had think about his future (he’s only 45), he says he may reenter the campaign for the Senate. The thing is that he’s got little time to decide and launch his campaign, so he promised he’d let us know next week.
The filing deadline for the Florida Senate race is June 24, so he’s cutting it close.
At least one candidate, Florida lieutenant governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera, says he has encouraged Rubio to run. The problem for Rubio is that during his presidential campaign he missed many Senate votes and said he found the work in Washington to be slow and dysfunctional. He’ll have to clarify that, moving forward, as they say.
►And there’s a report that’s reshuffling the list of battleground states for the presidential election
Latinos will have something to do with it.
Utah could be in play because the former Mitt Romney voters aren’t falling for Trump.
Arizona is leaning blue-er because Latinos are engaged, registering to vote and paying attention. You can point to Trump and his rhetoric as the fabled last straw.
Georgia, where 81 percent of the state’s population growth came from minority populations –291,000 eligible voters are Latino.
Pennsylvania may lean Trump’s way. That’s because the liberal vote in the urban areas might not hold sway over the “Rust Belt sympathies” of the white rural population that favors Trump.
Michigan could also become a Trump state. Hillary Clinton’s lead in that state has gone from double-digits to 4 points last May.
Más vale un “toma” que dos “te daré.”
Have a great Father’s Day weekend!
