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 News from Around the Americas | June 2007 
Univision Pushes Viewers to US Citizenship
 Peter Prengaman - Associated Press
| | Mexican native Maria Elena Castillo, 37, right, a legal permanent resident, waits with others to apply for U.S. citizenship at the Hispano America Immigration office in Fullerton Friday. She was inspired to do so by a campaign on Univision, the Spanish-language TV giant. (AP) |
Fullerton, Calif. - Maria Elena Castillo let her voice go unheard in American politics for a decade because she was afraid of failing the U.S. citizenship test that could give her the right to vote.
The Mexico native was finally convinced to give it a try by a massive citizenship campaign on Univision, the Spanish-language television giant better known for its newscasts and torrid telenovelas.
"I didn't want to do it, but all the things I saw on Univision convinced me," said Castillo, 37. She and her husband recently applied for citizenship at an immigration center where Univision was broadcasting live.
"We need to be part of this country," she added.
Univision officials believe helping eligible immigrants become citizens can help Hispanics realize their significant voting power.
Of the 8 million legal permanent residents eligible to apply, the majority come from Latin American countries, according to federal immigration data.
With a few exceptions, immigrants must be legal residents for at least five years before applying for citizenship, a process that usually takes about six months and involves civics, English tests and fees.
The "Ya Es Hora" ("Now is the time") campaign started in Los Angeles in January. It's now in a dozen cities with large Hispanic populations, such as Houston and Miami, and is coming soon to New York.
Public-service announcements throughout the day give viewers details on application requirements, locations and costs. Reporters quiz viewers on the citizenship exam, asking for example, what are the three branches of government.
On Fridays, Univision broadcasts live from a citizenship drive location, where volunteers charge $25 to help with lengthy applications.
"How do you think this will change your life?" a Univision reporter asked Perla Guizar, a Mexican green card holder, during an interview in Los Angeles.
"Immigration agents will treat me better when I come into the country," said Guizar, who often travels to Tijuana to visit her mother.
One applicant at a location in Fullerton, Calif., last week said she had been meaning to apply for years, but the Univision campaign finally pushed her to do it.
"All that I've seen on television has shown me we need to vote, and we need to be electing the people who are going to be representing us," said Patricia Hernandez, 38, who moved from Mexico 20 years ago.
Hispanics have traditionally voted in low numbers for several reasons: Many are too young to vote or are not U.S. citizens, and others are wary of politics because of corrupt elections and governments in their native countries.
Univision is one of the most watched networks in America, often attracting more viewers than English-language counterparts in major cities. The citizenship campaign has help from other organizations, including Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, known as Naleo.
Major news organizations traditionally do not take sides in community issues, but Spanish-language audiences often expect their media outlets to be advocates for them, said Dante Chinni, a senior researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Project for Excellence in Journalism.
"If you watch Univision broadcast, there is literally an us-versus-them tone," Chinni said. "It's part of the strategy of how they reach their audience."
Univision President Ray Rodriguez said the network's activist role is ethical because the campaign was nonpartisan.
"I think we are fairly pure as journalists," Rodriguez said. "For us, there is not one negative thing about helping people who should be voting."
Though it's impossible to pinpoint exactly what pushes eligible immigrants to apply for citizenship, applications have skyrocketed in recent months. Between January and April, there were 404,448 applications compared with 251,428 during the same period last year, according to federal immigration data.
Immigrant and Hispanic advocacy groups believe Univision is playing a big role.
Marcelo Gaete, senior director of programs for Naleo, said his organization has fielded about 15,000 calls from people wanting more information about the campaign they saw on Univision.
"Smart politicians will try to figure out what all these potential new voters mean for their campaigns," Gaete said.
On the Net: "Ya Es Hora" campaign
| • R E A D E R S ' C O M M E N T S •
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Great. So now there can be more of a lobby for an open border? The elites of Mexico and the US are working together to lower wages in the US, and export the extra working-class people that the Mexican elite doesn't want.
The working classes of both nations are hurt - the Americans as wages are lowered and a Quebec in the Southwest is created, and the Mexicans as their government refuses to do anything to help them (you have some VERY wealthy people in Mexico,) and simply tells them to go to "El Norte" (which they don't have the decency to call by its proper name, "Los Estados Unidos".)
Any truly comprehensive solution to the problems between our two nations, including illegal immigration, has to involve a grand bargain, not between the Democrats and Republicans, both of whom represent the American elite, not the working class, but between the US and Mexico.
The bargain should be something along the lines of: The US should increase its foreign aid to Mexico perhaps tenfold, and demand that that aid be spent on brown people (those who numerically dominate Mexico and especially dominate among the illegal aliens, but do not dominate among the financial and political elites.)
If we have to build infrastructure in Mexico, let's build it. We have no mass illegal migration across the Canadian border because Canada is a first world country. We all need for Mexico to become one too.
We should also pass the Real ID Act and come down REALLY hard on those who hire illegal aliens after that point, political contributions be damned. If NAFTA and globalism caused a huge group of unemployed Mexicans who move illegally into someone else's country out of desperation, we need to do something about NAFTA and globalism (or at least their effects,) political contributions be damned.
For its part, Mexico should stop encouraging its people to come into our country illegally, and should stop helping them (with maps, etc.) and should address the apparently racist nature of Mexican society, where the people coming illegally across the border look very different from the people who run Mexico. (We too have our problems with inequality, but we don't have millions of Americans trying to sneak into a foreign country for the opportunity they can't find at home.)
Mexico should stop living off remittances. It's not good for anyone (except pampered elites) for Mexico to be a beggar nation. We have a right to control how many people come into our country legally, and to keep people from coming in illegally. Just like Mexico does.
P.S. Opening your oilfields to foreign investment would help. We'd much rather buy oil from Mexico than from the Middle East, and Mexico has not been producing as much oil from its oilfields as it could.
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