Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90z0PMnKwI

On August 11, 2006, a young Indian-American man, S.R. Siddarth, was recording Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) at a campaign event. When Allen, noticing Siddarth, said, “This fellow over here, Macaca, or whatever his name is,” the senator sunk his political career. Allen, whom many had speculated would run for president in 2008, lost not only […]

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Lehman Brothers’ Managing Director Romita Shetty
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has appointed four co-chairs to the DNC’s new South Asian American Leadership Council, which will organize South Asian voters—and more importantly, campaign donors—during the 2008 election. The co-chairs are high-up in the financial and technical fields: they are New York investor bankers Parag Saxena, […]

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Over the past two years, towns and suburbs around the country (Hazleton, Pa.; Farmers Branch, Texas) have cracked down on illegal immigration with local ordinances. These laws are usually designed to make it hard for illegal immigrants to find jobs or rent homes, and they have had mixed success. Now, it looks like the Washington, […]

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Republican presidential candidate John McCain is running a new ad that seems to pit Latino interests against the Democratic candidate. In Spanish text and voiceovers, the ad notes that Obama neglected to mention a single Latin American country during his “citizen of the world” speech in Berlin. (Read more on Huffington Post)
Will this ad […]

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Above, Barack Obama with his half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng.
When News21 reporters talked to immigrants around the country about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, we found that many identified with him, not only because Obama is a minority, but because his multi-ethnic background and peripatetic childhood gave him a taste of the immigrant experience.
Now, […]

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In Pennsylvania’s 11th district, Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-Nanticoke) faces a serious challenge from Mayor Lou Barletta (R-Hazleton), who has earned a reputation as a crusader against illegal immigration since the Kanjorski last faced him in 2002.
The map above shows a few points of interest in the 11th, including major cities, historical landmarks […]

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Newly-naturalized citizens register to vote in Denver
A key factor in a Barack Obama victory in Colorado, New Mexico, or Nevada will be his ability to turn out Latino voters.
One segment of the Latino population specifically targeted in registration drives is newly naturalized citizens. Grace Lopez Ramirez, director of the Colorado chapter of Mi Familia Vota, […]

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Over the past several years, Hazleton, Pa., has attracted thousands of Hispanic immigrants, most of them from the Dominican Republic. This influx lead to conflict over illegal immigration in 2006 and 2007, thrusting Mayor Lou Barletta into the national news. This year, Barletta is running for Congress, his campaign based largely on that issue. “I […]

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At the Columbia News21 project on immigration and elections, we began our reporting this summer with many story ideas and a whole country to work with. To help focus our efforts, we put together a Google map (see below) where we indicated electoral races that might be useful in our coverage of immigration (blue pins), […]

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News21 reporter Elizabeth Mendez Berry and I have been talking to Cubans in Miami over the past week, as we report our story on challenges to their political power from other Latinos, and from within their own community. And we have noticed many events and people recurring as points of reference for this community.
For the […]

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