EthnicMajority

(Nielsen Wire) In the U.S., Hispanic consumers’ usage rates of smartphones, television, online video, social networking and other forms of entertainment make this group one of today’s most engaged and dynamic populations in the digital space, according to Nielsen’s recent State of the Hispanic Consumer: The Hispanic Market Imperative report.  Mobile presents a significant avenue of opportunity for marketers looking to reach Hispanic consumers – Hispanic mobile users send or receive 941 SMS (text) messages a month, more than any other ethnic group.  They also make 13 phone calls per day, 40 percent more than the average U.S. mobile user.

Social is another platform where Latinos are especially active and rising in numbers.  During February 2012, Hispanics increased their visits to Social Networks/Blogs by 14 percent compared to February 2011.  Not only are Latinos the fastest growing U.S. ethnic group on Facebook and WordPress.com from a year ago, but also Hispanic adults are 25 percent more likely to follow a brand and 18 percent more likely to follow a celebrity than the general online population.

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(PBS) GWEN IFILL: Along the campaign trail, Democrats and Republicans take note of the census numbers and plot a new path to victory.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Soy Barack Obama y apruebo este mensaje.

GWEN IFILL: It's not a coincidence that President Obama has begun speaking Spanish. As the general election campaign takes shape, Democrats and Republican Mitt Romney are competing for the support of the nation's fastest growing demographic group, Latino voters.

The NewsHour's Vote 2012 Map Center found, in 2008, Hispanics represented large percentages of voters across the Southwest and Florida. But the map is much bigger than that. Both campaigns are competing heatedly in at least three critical swing states: Nevada, Colorado, and Florida.

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(Miami Herald) The U.S. Hispanic population is young, mobile, growing and has skyrocketing spending power, making the segment highly desirable for marketers, a report released Tuesday by Nielsen reveals.

Already at 52 million — and projected to represent the bulk of population growth during the next five years, Hispanics are undoubtedly a vital part of the American economy, impacting everything from popular culture to politics and consumerism.

Indeed, the group’s buying power reached $1 trillion in 2010 and is expected to grow 50 percent by 2015, hitting $1.5 trillion, according to Nielsen’s report, “State of the Hispanic Consumer: The Hispanic Market Imperative.”

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Youths from African American, Native American, and Latino backgrounds are underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (known as STEM subjects). Although having a mentor of the same ethnicity is widely seen as one way to engage these youths in STEM subjects, no study has asked these young people if they consider having a mentor who shares their background to be important. Now a new study of African American and Latino youths has found that having a "matched" mentor does matter, but only if having such a mentor is considered important by the adolescent.

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(Huffington Post) Wells Fargo & Co., the nation's largest mortgage lender, is facing the second of at least two federal probes into how it treats minority borrowers and the properties it owns in minority neighborhoods. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials confirmed this week that the agency will investigate allegations lodged against the bank Tuesday by the National Fair Housing Alliance. The alliance complaint accused Wells Fargo of working to maintain and market bank-owned foreclosed properties in predominantly white communities far more aggressively than it does in mostly black and Latino neighborhoods.

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(Salt Lake Tribune) Richard Jaramillo self-identifies as a Latino, though he is OK with being called Mexican-American, Hispanic, even Chicano.

"Hispanic is generally how government classifies us, so I’m used to checking that box," the Salt Lake County resident said. "It is an odd thing to come to terms with because you have so many terms to use. The race category considers us white, even though I don’t consider myself white."

The Pew Hispanic Center released a report Wednesday that explores the issue of self-identity and found that 51 percent use their family’s country of origin to describe their identity while 24 percent use Hispanic or Latino to describe themselves.

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(Huffington Post) Three years since a Wells Fargo Bank loan officer shared the details of how she and her colleagues targeted and directed prospective African American homebuyers into taking out expensive high-interest subprime mortgages to The New York Times, racial discrimination in the housing market is still an issue.

According to a new investigative report by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), a coalition of fair housing non-profit organizations, six major banks are engaging in discriminatory practices in the maintenance and marketing of foreclosed Real Estate Owned (REO) properties in predominantly Latino and African American neighborhoods.

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(Think Multicultural) Did you hear about Nestle’s recent launch of Construye el Mejor Nido (“Create the Best Nest”), a new communications platform to reach the U.S. Hispanic market? Maybe you’ve seen or visited Unilever’s Vive Mejor program, a similar cross-platform effort to engage Hispanics around various Unilever brands. If you haven’t noticed, there has been a growing trend over the last 5 years among consumer goods companies to launch Hispanic multi-brand programs. Here is a brief summary of some of the larger Hispanic multi-brand platforms currently in market.

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(NBC – San Diego) A majority of Americans with origins in Spanish-speaking countries do not embrace terms such as "Latino" or "Hispanic" in describing themselves, a new Pew survey found.

More than half of the Pew Hispanic Center's respondents say they prefer to just say which country their family is from.

About 40 years ago, the U.S. government mandated the use of the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" to categorize Americans with roots in Spanish-speaking countries for census data.

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(Huffington Post) Selena Gomez, Victoria Justice and "Big Time Rush" singer Carlos Pena are just a few of the young Latino stars getting slimed at tonight's annual Kids Choice Awards in Los Angeles.

And since there are more Latino stars this year than ever before, we decided to take a look at the 25 Coolest Latinos in Young Hollywood. These talented youngsters have their own shows, movies, albums, clothing lines – you name it! Some of them are gay rights activists and some make a difference by volunteering to help The American Cancer Society, or by visiting Guatemala with the "Girl Up" Foundation." In short, they're all the total package: beauty, brains, intelligence, and public service.

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