Essentially, what I will be doing here is managing social media for MiTú, but also working on building a community around our platform. If you’re interested in collaborating with us in any form, feel free to e-mail me here: sara@mitunetwork.com.

Thus far, the network has more than 228 million video views and more than 659,000 subscribers. If you think about this, and what it entails for the  men and women who are creating this content, I think this is a really exciting development. As I wrote recently, Latinos need to move past simply consuming media and technology and become wielders and creators.

I believe MiTú offers an incredible opportunity for folks to do just that, and I’m so excited to be on board. You can check us out on the following social media channels, stay tuned.

• YouTube
• Facebook
• Twitter

Ask the Texas Democratic Party and, as far as they’re concerned, there has never been a Latino party chair. This is partly due to party structure. But, it’s also the historical exclusion of Latinos from power in Texas.

Whatever the case, that’s all about to change.

One way or another, in a few short months, a Latino will be the public face of the Democratic Party in Texas. Currently, the only three candidates are Gilberto Hinojosa of Brownsville, Fidel Acevedo of Austin, and Rachel Barrios-Van Os of San Antonio. Changes have been taking place within the party in the past few years, such as the recently launched Promesa Project meant to bring Latinos into the political fold.  As a result, it seems that the Democratic Party is run increasingly by, and marketing itself to, Latinos.

In June, at the party’s convention in Houston, delegates will have to choose between Latino candidates to replace current chair, Boyd Richie, who has held the position since 2005. While Latinos are pushing population growth in Texas, Latino politicians are an ever larger part of the Democratic delegation, and would-be Latino voters hold the key to power in the Lone Star State.

And last but not least, Latinos are increasingly the backbone of the Democratic party, specifically: in 2005, Ruben Hernandez became executive director; in 2009 Anthony Gutierrez became the deputy executive director; in 2006 the first Spanish speaking spokesperson was hired; and last year Rebecca Acuña was brought on to serve as the deputy political director for base outreach, as well as being the director of communications…MORE

I am definitely not the smartest person I know, nor am I the most technologically savvy. And yet, oftentimes it strikes me that in the world of media and technology that is increasingly ruling our lives, Latinos are left on the sidelines. Increasingly technology is going to be a necessity, not simply a chosen field or profession.

For several decades, there have been initiatives and a general movement to help Latinos finish high school, enter undergraduate study, and graduate with bachelor’s degrees. Consequently, thousands and thousands of Latinos now have degrees and have permeated into the professional world. But as we all move forward into the future that will most certainly be ever dependent on technology, if Latinos do not keep up, we will have to see an entirely new movement to push them into technology…

I rediscover this every time I find myself without Internet connection, we are increasingly useless when we are unplugged. But such is our world. And if Latinos want to create a viable place in this world, they need to engage the technology beyond the role of consumers, and become the creators and the wielders of technology.

In my family, humility has always been an important virtue. Culturally speaking, humility may be important because of the ever-present cultural permeating from Catholicism, but also because it’s a characteristic of the working class. And, ultimately, I believe that valuing humility played an important role in my family’s American Dream. That humility allowed them to rise from an immigrant family struggling to get by to a family of college-educated professionals in just a generation. If you’re not too good to do a job, then you’re willing to do whatever it takes to take care of your family (or finish college, start a business, make life better for your own children, etc.)

But humility, I’ve found, also has its drawbacks.

Recently I’ve had several conversations with other Latino/a professionals and we’ve been forced to tell each other the same thing: stop being so humble! The fact is, in our capitalist, dog-eat-dog American world, humility won’t get you very far — no matter how well-intentioned it is!

From somewhere along the Expo Line — On Saturday the Expo line opened from downtown LA to Culver City. On Monday, I found myself and a throng of others, squirming my way through the trains and tunnels to get to my new job in that part of town from my beloved home in the San Gabriel Valley. Here is my story:

I’d never really used the LA Metro much, but getting a job so far from home gave me a huge incentive to figure it out. And, come on, when serendipity has it so that the Expo line opens just as I got a job in that part of town, you just can’t say no.

Overall, my Metro experience was slick and easy — and that’s not even to mention the fact that I’m going to actually save money on my commute and read books and write pieces like this on my way to work!

The LA Times noted yesterday:

political partisanship consistently predicts when and where states and localities will introduce restrictive immigration laws, with Republican-heavy areas especially likely to do so. For instance, restrictive ordinances are 93% more likely to pass in Republican counties than in Democratic ones. At the state level, there is a 47% difference between Republican-heavy states and Democrat-heavy states.

The short version: Republicans are more likely to target immigrants/Latinos legislatively than Democrats. Then there’s this from the Texas Democratic Party:

The Obama administration filed suit against Arizona’s law because it usurps federal law and would lead to harassment. All of the sixty eight U.S. Representative who filed briefs opposing SB 1070 are Democrats. These include Texas members of Congress Al Green, Charlie Gonzalez, Gene Green, Ruben Hinojosa, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Silvestre Reyes.

In contrast, Governor Rick Perry declared Arizona-style immigration legislation an emergency priority and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a legal brief in support of SB 1070. Mitt Romney said that Arizona’s immigration law was a “model for the nation.” Fifteen states with Republican Governors, 2 Republican U.S. Senators, and 56 Republican members of Congress have filed briefs supporting SB 1070. These include Texas Republican Congressmen Bill Flores, John Culberson, Kenny Marchant, Lamar Smith, Michael Burgress, Ralph Hall, and Ted Poe.

…there is only a negligible impact of working at a firm that also employs undocumented workers.

More specifically, the study found that working in a firm that hires undocumented workers does have an impact on wages — you can earn .15% less — but the types of firms that tend to hire folks without papers also affects these wages.

So there you have it.

[Photo By Images_of_Money]

The partnership aims to promote citizenship and political participation through a series of on and offline engagements throughout 2012 and beyond.

As a partner organization, LATISM will provide support to the NALEO Educational Fund and their work with the award winning non-partisan civic engagement campaign, ya es hora (It’s time). The NALEO Educational Fund and the ya es hora campaign will benefit from LATISM’s extensive online network and local chapters, including access to regional workshops and opportunities to collaborate on technology-based strategies to engage Latinos in the American political process.

Happy 2012.

Paz.

Rihanna – What’s My Name? ft. Drake

Ceci Bastida – No Me Conoceras

Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse – Valerie

Those Darlins – Screws Get Loose

Beastie Boys – Make Some Noise

Beastie Boys - Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win

Beck – Think I’m In Love

Sonic Youth – Bull In The Heather

The White Stripes – Catch Hell Blues

Phoenix – 1901

Louis Prima – Just A Gigolo-I Ain’t Got Nobody

Pixies- Debaser

As a Latina who not only was raised to be aware of these issues, but who’s studied in them in school and written about them professionally for several years, I am occasionally accused of “making everything about race.” Even on News Taco. The funny thing is, I think this accusation is supposed to put me on the defensive, make me feel like I’m doing something wrong, or simply “put me in my place” — oops! There I go again.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that such accusations are really a blatant expression on the part of the speaker that it is they who are uncomfortable talking about race, or even listening to someone else discuss it. Because, if we were to get technical about it, the country was kind of founded on race and the divisions among races; even if we only use the examples of Native Americans and African-Americans, not even venturing into the world of Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Mexicans, etc. Race is a part of our cultural heritage in this country, not talking about it is just silly.

In other words, it is not me who is making anything about race, rather, I’m just pointing out what we all already know is there.

I can imagine that, for someone who is white or does not consider themselves to be of an alternative ethnic group, any discussion of race makes them feel like they are being blamed for racism. Indeed, academic studies I read about last semester in white privilege found that, because whites often do not consider themselves to belong to an ethnic group, any discussion of race often automatically puts them on the defensive. Which, I think, is unfortunate, because I think an honest conversation of race, white privilege and history is something that would do our country good and help us move forward in the 21st century in a healthy, strong and united way.

I personally do not blame all whites for the racism we continue to tolerate in this country. On the contrary, some of the most tolerant and racism-aware people I know are white, but the fact of the matter is that white privilege exists, and part of the privilege is claiming that race doesn’t matter and that other people have to stop talking about it.

Now, before I go too much further, I have to point out that I myself have never been the victim of much blatant racism. There is the occasional drunk guy in a bar who tells me that Mexicans have ruined his life, the stern and disgusted look I get from women at Starbucks when I’m having a cell phone conversation in Spanish, the classmate who makes an ignorant remark about Latinos fully sure that she’s actually very intuitive. These are the types of incidents that mark my experience with racism; personally, sexual harassment and sexism have been much bigger problems in my life — but that’s for another column.

Yet, just because I do not experience it personally, does not mean that it’s okay for other people to. I have family members who are not as light-skinned as I, who have suffered greater scrutiny before the Border Patrol for example, or who have been called racial slurs. I have friends alive today who can recall times when they were not let into restaurants because they were “messcin,” told by fathers they couldn’t date their daughters, told by management that they simply “weren’t qualified,” told to “go back to Mexico” even though their family is from somewhere else. This is, indeed, 2011, and these types of incidents (except for the restaurant example) are still happening.

The truth is, despite what some of our racist commenters on News Taco believe, I am a proud American and I love my country. That’s exactly why I want it to be the best country it can be, and allowing and tolerating racism — even if that means we all bite our tongues and don’t discuss it because it’s uncomfortable — isn’t going to get us there. So there it is, why it is I always have to “make everything about race,” although when you think about it, it’s really not me at all.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD

[Image By News Taco]