Tipsheet: Hispanic Heritage Month
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 12, 2006
EDITORS: The following Indiana University Bloomington professors have prepared comments about Hispanic issues in the United States. Hispanic Heritage Month begins on Friday (Sept. 15), which is the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries, and continues until Oct. 15. Contact information for each professor is listed below.
The professors discuss the following topics:
First generation Latinos and how they seek information
The first Latin American-influenced television show premieres
Interest in Latino Studies increases
Schools need to adjust their attitudes about Latina/o parents
Hispanic representation in American media
Higher education institutions and high schools need to be very intentional about getting information about the college and advising process to first-generation Latino students and their parents, according to Vasti Torres, an associate professor at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Education who is affiliated with Latino Studies at IUB. Torres, who is currently engaged in a three- to five-year study of this issue, said first-generation Latino students don't necessarily understand the role of advisors and academic administrators. These students value the establishment of trust and relationships and don't see the advisor as a trusted source of information until a relationship is built. The students who were able to establish effective information-seeking techniques tended to be at institutions where advising is a mandatory part of the registration process. Institutions that have the most at-risk students tend to receive the least amount of funding toward programs like advising, making mandatory advising expensive to maintain. In an article scheduled for this fall in the National Academic Advising Association Journal, Torres discusses first-generation Latino students and how they seek information from university sources. "What the model illustrates is students initially seek out information from those they trust, which tend to be family and close peers," Torres said. Students do not seek advice or information from academic advisors until they have a circumstance that shows them their information-seeking activities don't work. "Without the advising, often times these students take courses that are not necessary and have credit hours that do not meet requirements," Torres said. "Without knowing the questions they need to ask, they flounder, and it diminishes their beliefs that the college is supportive of their success."
Torres can be reached at vatorres@indiana.edu or 812-855-8399.
The first American television show modeled after a Latin American soap opera premieres this fall on ABC. The network will premiere Ugly Betty, which is modeled after the Colombian soap opera, Yo Soy Betty La Fea. This is the first American television show that has been an adaptation of a "telenovela," according to Yeidy Rivero, an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University Bloomington. Rivero said the show is significant because it confirms the impact and popularity of telenovelas on a global television scale. Rivero also indicated that the selection of America Ferrera (Real Women Have Curves, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) as the show's protagonist "could be viewed as the industry's attempt to attract Latinas/Latinos as viewers, an important and profitable segment in the U.S. media market, and as a political decision made by [Mexican actress] Salma Hayek, the show's executive producer." Ugly Betty tells the story of Betty Suarez, an unattractive but intelligent woman who has a difficult time fitting into the fashion world. Rivero said she hopes the show "pushes the envelope" regarding the interconnection of class, ethnicity, race and gender in relation to ideologies of beauty and ugliness in contemporary U.S. culture. Hayek's production company, Ventarosa, is partnering with Touchstone Television on the hour-long program. Hayek plans to make occasional appearances as an actress on a fictional telenovela watched by Betty and her family. Ugly Betty premieres on Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. EST.
Rivero can be reached at yrivero@indiana.edu or 812-856-3153.
Interest in Latino Studies continues to increase. There has been an upsurge in student interest in Latino-related courses at Indiana University Bloomington. In the past two years, student enrollments in these courses have increased nearly twofold, reflecting a broader national awareness of the expanding Latino population. Nearly one in seven U.S residents is "Hispanic" or "Latino," according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics. (The Census Bureau uses "Hispanic" and "Latino" interchangeably.) By 2050, Latinos will make up fully 25 percent of the U.S. population. "These numbers alone do not account for the surge in student interest," said John Nieto-Phillips, interim director of the Latino Studies Program at IUB, associate editor of the Journal of American History and an associate professor in Department of History. "Rather, recent debates over immigration, and a burgeoning immigrant rights and labor movement, have caught students' attention. And, of course, Latinos have made major inroads into American popular culture. Scholars once called Latinos 'America's invisible minority.' Latinos are invisible no longer." Forward-looking employers and institutions are recruiting students who know Latino communities, their histories, cultures and needs. And students are very much in tune with the times, Nieto-Phillips said. They want to position themselves for more opportunities, and they want a well-rounded education. Responding to students' growing interest, Latino Studies launched an undergraduate minor program this fall. The objective of this new minor is to empower individuals with analytical skills and concepts to understand Latino communities; to advance rigorous scholarship on Latino cultures, histories and social conditions; and to engage students and professors in civic programs and service learning. As a "multidisciplinary" program, Latino Studies offers courses in a number of traditional disciplines such as history, education, comparative literature and folklore, as well as in newer areas such as gender studies. "The need to study Latino communities could hardly be more apparent," Nieto-Phillips said. "Nearly one-third of Latino children will grow up in poverty. Most hospitals, schools and service professionals -- especially here in Indiana -- remain ill-prepared to meet the needs of the growing Latino population. And yet Latinos are an asset to industry and are revitalizing the nation's work ethic. The vaunted 'Hispanic market' and 'Hispanic voter' are gaining economic and political clout. But the American public remains largely unaware of Latinos' contributions to society, to tax coffers and to the economy."
Nieto-Phillips can be reached at 812-855-8589, 812-856-1795 or jnietoph@indiana.edu. More information about Latino Studies at IUB can be found at http://www.indiana.edu/~latino. To speak with an IU student involved with the Latino Studies program, e-mail Michelle Ruhlin Nicholson at mruhlin@indiana.edu.
Schools need to check their deeply-held attitudes, biases and assumptions about Latina/o parents. Gerardo Lopez, an associate professor at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Education, is conducting research that looks into Latina/Latino parent involvement at their children's schools. His findings show that parents may not be going to school to participate in the parent teacher association (PTA), but they are highly involved in other ways. Latina/Latino parents also might not be able to speak English, but this doesn't mean that they have a language barrier or deficiency. In fact, the deficiency might be in the school itself for not having the capability to communicate with parents. "How schools perceive parents is a critical first step in forging strong home, school and community relations," Lopez said. His findings highlight several interesting results:
• Latina/Latino parents tended to refer to teachers as "second parents," which is very different than the concept normally heard -- parents as "first teachers." This suggests that parents are negotiating parent/teacher roles differently: they view teachers as responsible for parent-like activities in the classroom. "This doesn't necessarily mean they want babysitters or 'proxy parents,' but that they simply expect teachers to reinforce the values, mores, traditions, beliefs and expectations of the home," Lopez said.
• Latina/Latino parents were involved at their children's school even though they weren't in the school building. Involvement was defined differently -- as "cosejos" or advice they gave to children: having good behaviors, making good decisions, being motivated, respecting elders and not repeating errors they made as children, for example.
• Interviews with teachers, administrators and other school personnel showed they were generally very receptive of the Latina/Latino community, but used phrases such as "language barriers" or "language deficiency" when speaking about this population. "What is interesting is that they generally talked about barriers as though the Latina/Latino community had them -- not as general barriers that prevent communication,'" Lopez said. "In effect, there was a problematic notion that barriers were uni-directional, even through barriers, by definition, are bi-directional in nature -- because neither party can communicate across this barrier."
Lopez can be reached at 812-856-8392 and lopezg@indiana.edu.
Despite some advances, Hispanics continue to be underrepresented in American journalism and when compared with other minority groups, according to David H. Weaver, the Roy W. Howard Professor in the Indiana University School of Journalism and the lead author of the new book, The American Journalist in the 21st Century (Erlbaum, 2006). "Minority representation in American media has inched up over the years, but, at 9.5 percent by 2002, remained much below the minority percentage of the U.S. population and also the college-educated minority population," he said. While U.S. census figures say Hispanics account for 13.4 percent of the total U.S. population, only 3.3 of all reporters and editors in 2002 were Hispanic. This was an improvement from what Weaver found in earlier studies, up from 2.2 percent in 1992 and 0.6 percent in 1982-83. When only full-time journalists hired during the past decade are considered, the overall percentages of minorities in the profession are higher, but his research also found that a larger number of minorities are leaving after four years than majority white Americans. Since the 1980s, Weaver and colleagues at the IU School of Journalism have surveyed reporters and editors in the traditional mainstream media. The "typical" Hispanic journalist was male, held a bachelor's degree, was married or living with a partner, and had more than 10 years of experience. He had a median salary of $49,167, was a member of a journalistic organization and worked for a large, group-owned media organization.
Weaver can be reached at 812-855-1703 or at weaver@indiana.edu.
