Your vote is your power – the election in ethnic communities
Does politics matter in ethnic communities?
Ask Lakshmanna Rao of the India Tribune. His newspaper recently boasted about the way that Indians have risen up in American politics. Locally, he knows that politics stirs his community.
James Chang of the Chinese American News knows as well that his readers and his community cares about all of the issues that move others.
So, too, Magda Partyka of 4newsmedia.com, a Polish-language online news outlet, knows that politics is critical to Poles. But she worries that too few know what is happening and too few get out to vote.
For Latinos, voting is more important than ever as a way to signal the community’s growing strength. This is a message that Sylvia Puente has been sharing as her organization – the Latino Policy Forum – has been trumpeting the need for Latinos to get out to the polls.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-puente/latino-voter-apathy-in-blue-states_b_1866115.html
Indeed, her organization is holding a fund-raising event to talk about Latinos’ political power and their need to use it.
http://www.chicagoistheworld.org/download/FundraiserPressRelease.pdf
Getting voters to the polls is a problem across the board, but an especially frustrating one for Latinos. That’s because they have not been voting their strength across the country. In the 2011 mayor election, for example, a low turnout in Latino wards resulted in a failure of the community to “vote their numbers,” according to an analysis by the Institute for Politics at Roosevelt University.
That’s why were are holding our Oct. 2 workshop – to help reporters and activists in black, Latino and immigrant communities to talk about why the upcoming elections matter and who is doing what to get voters to the polls.
Mobilizing Ethnic Communities to Vote Join our FREE panel discussion!
If you’re a journalist writing about the upcoming elections you will need to find sources and learn more about what’s being done to mobilize communities to vote. Here are four reasons not to miss our upcoming Mobilizing Communities to Vote panel on Tuesday, October 2nd from 10AM to 11:30AM at Columbia College, room 609, 33 East Congress (corner of Congress and Wabash)
The Chicago Headline Club is a co-sponsor of this event.
- Learn about the reality about voter turnout in ethnic communities, why this matters, and how you can chart and report on it.
- Find out what’s at stake for ethnic communities this election year.
- Gain insights on initiatives by local nonprofits to mobilize ethnic communities to vote.
- Connect with organizations working to engage communities to vote.
Panelists include: Isabel Anadon (Latino Policy Forum), Kathleen Jung Hee Fernicola (Asian American Institute), Michael Calamese (NEIU, Carrruthers Center for Inner City Studies), and Abdelnasser Rashid (IL Coalition for Immigrants and Refugee Rights). Moderated by Stephen Franklin (Community Media Workshop). This panel discussion is co-presented with IL Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Though this is a free event, space is limited, and registration is required to reserve your place.
Saludos,
Stephen Franklin
steve@newstips.org; 312 369 6400.
ethnic news media project director
Community Media Workshop
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