Latinos takes to the streets in LA in 2007 during immigrant marches.

It wasn’t a big surprise. Some had thought this already happened. Yet, the headline itself is just a headline. It doesn’t mean anything to the average person if it isn’t relevant to their lives. Most of us don’t work in maternity wards to count these bundles of crying joy to tally them up.

But there’s another headline that is much more relevant — Hispanics will be majority in California by 2013.

That means something and it should be enough incentive for California to not only realize what awaits them but relay that same message to Congress.

According to the article:

Hispanics will eclipse whites, who have dominated California since statehood, sometime in 2013. Since 1990, the white population has declined by 2.1 million while the Hispanic population has grown by 6.3 million.

Bill Schooling, chief of demographic research at the state Department of Finance, had expected the tipping point to come later than 2013. But he agreed the Register’s calculations appeared correct.

“We’ll see some interesting changes to come,” Schooling said. In contrast with the 1950s, when most Californians came from other U.S. states, he said, today most Californians either are natives of the Golden State or are foreign-born.

According to the 2010 American Community Survey, 62 percent of California Hispanics are native-born Americans and another 12 percent are naturalized citizens. The remaining 26 percent, 3.7 million people in all, are not citizens.

It’s that last sentence that is a game-changer. Twenty-six percent are not citizens. In a state that is home to some of the highest grossing Silicon Valley-based businesses, it’s ironic that the state is experiencing a $15.7 billion deficit, up 70 percent since January, easily the worst in the country.

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s response to the fiscal time bomb? Austerity measures. That means higher taxes, cuts in social services and education. Each measure would be painful to whomever it affects. We don’t have to look far — say, Greece — to know what happens to people when austerity measures like what California is thinking about are implemented.

From suicides, an increase in homelessness and poverty and no resources for these people to fall back on, austerity just exasperates these issues that already affect countries, states and cities around the world without having austerity measures be the official strategy.

Yet, what is so striking about California’s case is that the state has the potential to make up a portion of the deficit — let that 26 percent, over a quarter of the state’s population, legally work.

Yes, it would mean passing immigration reform and creating both a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for those who want it but the benefits of having this population actively contribute to the state’s economy should be a no-brainer and is long overdue.

On top of that, California is home to many undocumented students who have their college degrees. If they were granted legal status, imagine the workforce that could be dispatched to put California back on its feet. Since Latino graduates are young, a work program modeled after service-oriented examples could be created to give these young people the opportunity to finally put their degrees to use, gain work experience, give back to California and fulfill whatever requirements would be needed to gain full citizenship.

California isn’t just hurting anymore. If taxes are raised and social service programs cut and college tuition hiked to the extent the governor says, the people of California will suffer — and needlessly if state and national legislators don’t wake up to the fact that immigration reform is no longer an issue to be debated — but one that is needed.

If they live in a state where racist legislators have enacted laws barring these students from getting in-state tuition.
If they live in a state where the higher authority has deemed them unworthy to attend a public university.
If they have graduated from college and now cannot put their degree to use.

The hard reality of what the present and the future hold for these students could be compared to someone serving a life sentence who didn’t commit the crime themselves. The emotional toll of the prospect of living a life with no rights has to be excruciatingly painful.

“These are American-raised kids who were legally integrated into the framework of US society by virtue of going to K-12 in our school system,” said Roberto Gonzales, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service, and the co-author of a new study on undocumented youth titled Awakening to a Nightmare. “Many of these DREAMers are fighting to hold onto an inclusion they’ve had since childhood.”

Professor Gonzalez, and his co-author UC Irvine anthropologist Leo Chavez, interviewed dozens of undocumented youth who had gone to college to understand how they’re coping after college. What Gonzalez and his colleague found was instead of giving up, or resorting to acting out their frustration in criminal ways, these students decided to no longer be the passive victims of laws they don’t make sense and push back.

The result is an impressive national movement where undocumented graduates are practicing civil disobedience and getting arrested in the hopes of pressuring legislators to pass the DREAM Act, which would put them on a path to citizenship but equally important allow them to be just like every other college student who has the benefit of US citizenship.

The outlook for passage of the DREAM Act is uncertain at this point with both political parties offering up their own versions of the DREAM Act. While a lot of attention has been paid lately to the GOP version, authored by Sen. Marco Rubio, it’s still unknown whether or not it would be supported by the accepted GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Romney, who has declared his opposition to the Democrat’s version, has not publicly stated what he thinks about Rubio’s alternative.

It’s this uncertainty that eats away at the patience and hope undocumented youth have for passage of the Act. In response to the current level of uncertainty, a new national campaign launched by United We Dream called “Right to Dream.”

The campaign entails an online petition where signees urge the Obama Administration to grant them a list of rights:

The Right to live our lives without fear
The Right to live with our families
The Right to live with our loved ones
The Right to move freely
The Right to education
The Right to give back to our communities
The Right to build a strong sustainable economy
The Right to fulfill our Dreams

The campaign launched today, a day designated as a National Day of Action.

While many people, Latino citizens and non-Latino citizens, have shown their solidarity with the DREAM students, Professor Gonzalez feels that the greater community must help these students in another very important way.

“Much of the discussion has been about outcomes — jobs, legalization, in-state tuition, etc. — all important but no one is addressing the emotional impact on these students,” Professor Gonzalez said. “It’s the community-based folks who can help relieve the stress of these students by creating programs that widen the menu of legally permissible options.”

And in the process return some hope into their lives.

The study, “Awakening to a Nightmare”: Abjectivity and Illegality in the Lives of Undocumented 1.5-Generation Latino Immigrants in the United States,” published in the June issue of Current Anthropology, strives to humanize the unique plight of these young people — young people born in another country but “American-grown.”

The following is a summary of the study:

The political rhetoric over the fate of the children of undocumented immigrants is deeply divided. Are they simply “illegal aliens” who broke the law and thus do not deserve what is called a “path to citizenship”? Or, are undocumented young people filled with great potential and we should provide a way for them to live and work legally in the United States?

“Awakening to a Nightmare” attempts to go beyond the political rhetoric. Using data collected from a random-sample survey and in-depth ethnographic interviews, it provides insight into lived experiences of undocumented young Latinos in Orange County, California, who came to the United States as children. They daily confront the importance of citizenship. They are constantly aware of the potential for detection and deportation during the current period of heightened police surveillance and rising deportation numbers.

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM Act was first introduced in Congress almost eleven years ago in effort to reconcile the untenable circumstances confronting these young people. While legislators continue to debate their futures, these young people must carry out their everyday lives. Through the narratives of the study’s respondents, “Awakening to a Nightmare” reveals daily life to be rife with legal obstacles and risks. While much of contemporary immigration research focuses on outcomes, this study shows that increased enforcement efforts narrow their worlds and sows fears—so much that even mundane acts of driving, waiting for the bus, and traffic stops can lead to the loss of a car, prison and deportation.

The consequences of two related processes — the shrinking of rights for non-citizens and the intensification of enforcement efforts — are profoundly felt as young Latinos confront their undocumented status. As they get older and want to experience the rites of passage common to American youth – getting a driver’s license, traveling, and applying to college – they come to realize they are different from their friends. As one young person told us, “It was like awaking to a nightmare.” The constraints on their lives become real and unavoidable, as one interviewee said:

I know I can do so much more, but I can’t because…I can’t choose where I live. I can’t choose where I work. And the worst thing is that I can’t choose my friends. In high school I was able to do that. I can’t anymore. I can’t even hang out with my high school friends anymore and that hurts a lot. Yeah, they want to do grown up stuff. I can’t do anything that is eighteen and over. I can’t do anything. I can only hang out where little kids hang out. I can’t hang out with them. I can’t travel with them. I can’t go out to dinner with them. I can’t go to Vegas with them. If I want to go to a bar, I don’t even have a drink. If they want to go to San Diego, if they want to go visits museums down there, if they want to go to Sea World, I can‘t go with them. I can’t go to Los Angeles. I can’t go to any clubs in L.A.

“Awakening to a Nightmare” explores what an abject life means. Undocumented Latino youth realize society sees them as discardable, as easily cast away. The idea that undocumented young people should simply “self-deport,” as if they did not have emotional or social attachments to the United States, captures this sense of being discardable and unwanted. Rather than merely give up, many of the young people profiled here became involved in campaigns to change the law. They are called DREAMers because they hope for the day the U.S. Congress passes the DREAM Act, thus giving them a chance to become legal residents and even citizens. For these young people, this would be a sign that society recognizes them as contributing members of society. Until then, they must wait.

(Photo: CNN)

At last month’s meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Bolivian President Evo Morales made headlines by dramatically brandishing a coca leaf he had apparently smuggled into the Austrian city between the pages of a book.

The coca leaf, which is the unrefined source of cocaine and is considered an illegal substance under the UN’s 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, holds special significance for the Bolivian leader. A former cultivator of the plant himself, Morales swept into the presidency in 2006 with the backing of Bolivia’s cocaleros movement, a syndicate of coca-growers unions Morales has helmed for decades.

The standard-bearer of his own political party, the Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS), Morales has faithfully conformed to the MAS platform. His tenure has seen the establishment of an intensely nationalistic, left-leaning government whose ambitions lie in the installment of a uniquely Bolivian brand of “Andean capitalism,” and whose support base is firmly rooted in Bolivia’s largely agrarian indigenous population.

As President of Bolivia and leader of the cocaleros, Morales has remained true to his constituency, having instituted a policy of “Yes to Coca, No to Cocaine” (Coca Sí, Cocaína No). Under the policy, the cultivation of coca for legal purposes has been expanded, while the Bolivian government has ramped up efforts to crack down on the illegal production of cocaine. Meanwhile, Morales has lobbied for international acceptance of the coca leaf, citing its importance in Andean culture and touting its uses in everything from medicine and soap, to candy and liquor.

As the third largest producer of cocaine, Bolivia represents an enormously important area of interest for the United States. The Andean nation’s drug policy is of vital concern to Washington, and so when the Morales government officially devotes 12,000 hectares — about 30,000 acres, though Bolivian coca occupies approximately triple that in reality — to the cultivation of a plant classified internationally as an illegal substance, the United States takes notice, and when it calls for 8,000 more to be set aside, that is doubly true.

Thus, Morales’ advocacy on behalf of the deceptively innocuous-looking coca leaf, combined with his naturally outspoken demeanor, has left many U.S. officials ill at ease.

Washington, traditionally in favor of the complete eradication of the plant as part of its ongoing War on Drugs, has in recent years endorsed alternative development programs. Yet the success of these programs, which subsidize farmers who choose to suspend their cultivation of coca in favor of other crops, has been limited, as coca is far more cost-effective than alternatives like coffee and rice, which are more labor-intensive and require more land to grow.

And so while recent spikes in global food prices and renewed USAID pushes for alternative development models have made life without coca more feasible for the average farmer, the polarizing plant remains an attractive option for many Bolivians.

Indeed, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, although significant eradication efforts have been made under the Morales administration, they “have not resulted in a net reduction in the cultivation of coca,” and thus illicit cocaine production in Bolivia has held steady at an estimated 195 tons annually.

The sheer size of Bolivia’s domestic cocaine industry, to say nothing of the vast amounts of the drug produced elsewhere and shipped through Bolivia en route to markets in the U.S. or Brazil, is of grave concern to the United States. And Morales, who expelled the American ambassador and drove U.S. DEA agents from the country in 2008, has done little to assuage Washington’s fears.

Such tensions between U.S. policymakers and the oft-critical Latin American leader play into the larger narrative of Washington’s War on Drugs, as the U.S., in waging its patently ruinous crusade, has continually sought to pressure Latin American countries into falling in line with its own agenda.

Hence, what Washington calls a warranted effort to cut the hemisphere’s flow of cocaine off at its source, many Latin American countries see as an attempt on the part of the world’s largest consumer of cocaine to bully them into footing the bill for the United States’ own problems at home.

And for Morales, frequent critic of the U.S. and unabashed advocate of the coca leaf, the idea of scaling back cultivation of a potentially lucrative and culturally significant resource at the behest of such a bully is absurd. Consequently, so long as Washington continues to push for eradication in accordance with the failed War on Drugs to which it so desperately clings, La Paz — and Morales — will continue to be a thorn in the side of the United States.

If Washington is interested in putting an end to the plague of drug-related violence that has racked the hemisphere for decades, then short of a full-throated endorsement of outright decriminalization, it must find willing partners. And to do that, it has to be willing to work with those who have their own domestic agendas to contend with.

In the case of Evo Morales, this means recognizing that coca is not cocaine, just as wheat is not beer and grapes not wine, and acting accordingly. It means respecting a country’s millennia-old heritage, and it means opening the doors to a large and previously untaxed area of the market.

But most of all, it means acknowledging that Washington does not have all the answers.

This analysis was prepared by Alexander Frye, Research Associate for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

One of the goals of the CBC Diversity Committee is to recruit a wider, more diverse range of people to work in the children’s publishing industry. In service of this goal, committee members visit schools in the New York area to talk about how we got into the industry and how students of today might find their way into it in the future.

This past Tuesday, in honor of Children’s Book Week, my fellow committee member Antonio Gonzalez, author Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, and I visited Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence in Brooklyn. Gbemi is the author of the wonderful Eighth Grade Superzero, which I edited, while Antonio handles school and library visits for Scholastic as part of our marketing department. Thus together we covered almost the entire publishing process, from the author’s initial inspiration to putting books into kids’ hands.

We spoke to two classrooms of seniors on the verge of graduation. Gbemi kicked the presentation off by talking about her path to becoming an author — her years as a new kid in many different schools around the world, and the various kinds of writing she did for magazines and nonprofits, all growing out of her own passion for the subjects she wrote about. I talked about the three roles involved in being an editor — that I’m simultaneously a talent scout, a responsive reader, and a producer — and showed some sketches of various draft covers for Gbemi’s book, including this lovely final image to the right.

Then Antonio talked about marketing, and passion came into play here as well, as he spoke about matching up the right authors with the right schools and making sure kids can get the books they need. (The students were thrilled to learn that social media has now become such a huge component of marketing that some employees are now paid to spend their time on Facebook.) We emphasized the importance of getting an education and doing internships, and that whatever your particular passion is — creating art, running numbers, being excited about books — there’s probably a way to fit it into the publishing industry.

The kids asked some great questions afterward, including “How much does a publisher make per book?” “Do you offer internships?” and “Which one’s harder? Being an editor or being a writer?” (Gbemi and I exchanged a glance, and agreed that both had their pluses and minuses.) One young man asked what he needed to do to become a children’s book illustrator; he had a gorgeous koi tattoo on his arm that he’d designed (and more impressively still, executed!), and we told him about the programs at the School of Visual Arts and Pratt. In the end, it was a great opportunity to connect with some of the real-life readers of our books, and hopefully speak to some editors or writers or marketers or artists of tomorrow.

One last note: Our talk took place in the school’s library, which was a fascinating and sad location. Thanks to a donation from Chase Bank, the space was beautifully appointed, with nice chairs . . .

well-built computer workstations (Frank J. Bisignano, for whom the library is named, is the present CEO of Chase) . . .

. . . and thankfully, hundreds of books! (Apologies for the wonkiness of my photographs.)

But when I looked closely, I saw that the books were arranged randomly on the shelves, not sorted by subject matter, not alphabetized by author or any system. That’s because, thanks to citywide budget cuts, Bushwick Leaders doesn’t have a school librarian, so no one has yet organized the library properly. Worse still, the teachers told us that without a staff member to supervise the space, students are never allowed to use it; it’s mostly for meetings. The visit was a sobering reminder that while we’re working to diversify the publishing industry, many kids have no access to books to start with — so it’s a battle to be fought on multiple fronts.

EL PASO – In an effort to explain the longstanding and sometimes complicated ties between border city El Paso, Texas and its Mexican sister city Juarez to fellow classmates at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Peter Svarzbein decided to create a fictional advertising campaign for the revival of a trolley system that would connect the two municipalities.

But he never expected his hometown to incorporate his graduate thesis art project into an actual city planning proposal that could possibly stimulate the economy in both countries, and reduce the risk of drunk driving accidents.

“I wanted to challenge the negative media representation about the border by using the media itself,” said Svarzbein.

Svarzbein, who now lives here, hosted a presentation on the El Paso Transitional Trolley Project recently at the University of Texas at El Paso. His talk, entitled Bridging Borders, was sponsored by UTEP as a part of the school’s DYNAMIC Communication Lecture Series.

A street car service was present in the El Paso/Juarez area from 1881 until 1974. (Amanda Duran/Borderzine.com)
Svarzbein, 31, said his intentions were never to push the project into reality, but now that his ideas have gathered support from local residents, he said he is very excited to see the concept receive passionate enthusiasm from others. “It’s hard to have a better future for ourselves as a city if you can’t even imagine one,” said Svarzbein.

The better future he imagined was proposed in the thesis in the form of a poster ad campaign because he thought that medium would have more lasting impact than the more traditional methods of an essay or documentary. Svarzbein said the method he chose to go with was unexpected and would therefore actually get people to stop and question what they were seeing and perhaps get excited about the possibilities.

Svarzbein started working on designs for the logo of his faux international trolley in February of 2010. Before and during the project, the eager artist…

Finish reading School project brought to life the idea of an El Paso-Juarez trolley line

A recent study found that one in 13 children in America suffer from food allergies. Unlike other childhood medical conditions, there is no cure for food allergies and they can linger an entire lifetime.

What makes food allergies even more challenging is that trace amounts of a food allergen can cause a reaction. Most are caused by ingestion, but some are due to contact or inhalation, such as cooking fumes or peanut dust.

Allergic reactions are unpredictable. They may present and progress differently than previous reactions and a seemingly mild reaction can turn serious quickly. Prompt administration of epinephrine (adrenaline) is crucial to surviving a life-threatening reaction.

Many of the kids with food allergies are aware that they could die if they eat the wrong food. At our most recent San Antonio Food Allergy Support Team (FAST) field trip, even a pre-schooler carried his own easy-to-use EpiPen, an epinephrine auto-injector.

When they reach school age, they may wonder if their schools are making efforts to keep them safe. Danger is often at the front of their minds, rather than any classroom objectives. They worry about who will help them if they have a reaction and if they will be teased or unintentionally exposed to a food that most people consider nutritious or delicious, yet to them can be life-threatening.

At the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network’s (FAAN’s) Support Group Leaders’ Summit which I attended last month in Chicago, Sara Shannon was our keynote speaker. Her daughter died tragically at the age of 13, after eating what she thought were allergen-free French fries from her school cafeteria.

Another conference speaker, FAAN’s medical advisor, allergist Dr. Todd Mahr, shared research about several promising clinical trials. However, since there is no cure for food allergies yet, he advised us to remain vigilant about avoiding allergens and carrying the epinephrine auto-injector. We also heard advice about school safety from Eleanor Garrow (FAAN VP), Gina Clowes (FAAN VP/Allergy Moms), and Nicole Smith (Allergic Child).

Following several recent student deaths, including a 7th grader in Illinois and a 1st grader in Virginia, FAAN is working to pass a federal law that would allow schools to stock an extra dose of life-saving epinephrine for emergencies. This “School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act” would help students with known allergies as well as the significant number of kids who have their first reaction at school. Maria Acebal, FAAN’s CEO, implored us to “always have epinephrine an arm’s reach away” from our food allergic children and support this legislation.

Many of us with allergic children recognize that allergen exposure is often preventable and quick treatment with epinephrine can save lives, but requires education and diligence on the part of all adults who care for our children. So, when kids die from allergic reactions, it breaks our hearts, terrifies us, and frustrates us.

Fourteen states have statewide guidelines that include best practices and resources. These guidelines are not intended to create nut-free schools, but are designed to ensure that school administrators, faculty, and staff are better prepared to help prevent, recognize, and treat allergic reactions.

The Texas “Guidelines for the Care of Students with Food Allergies At -Risk for Anaphylaxis” should be published May 1. School districts must have policies in place by August 1, 2012, based on the Texas guidelines. We are hopeful that this will allow food allergic kids to safely participate in more school activities.

If you care about someone with food allergies, encourage them to follow their allergist’s recommendations for avoiding their allergen. If they were prescribed an epinephrine auto-injector, ensure that they always have it with them, along with their written emergency plan.

Furthermore, help us to ensure that all schools and families use FAAN’s downloadable “Food Allergy Action Plan.”

For more information, visit The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network or call (800) 929-4040

Susan Tharp, leader of the San Antonio Food Allergy Support Team (FAST), a group of parents of food allergic children volunteering to improve the safety of children with life-threatening food allergies.

Raised in San Francisco’s Mission District, Alegria is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara and received her MA in Education. She is a teacher, organic gardener, seed activist, Aztec dancer, performer and an inspirational role model to a new generation or readers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aside from strong family values, everything else has changed. Unfortunately, there are some politicians who think time stands still for Latinos. They believe that at their own political peril.

For example, a lot of people thought President Obama signed his political death warrant when he recently endorsed same-sex marriage. While they knew the general population might be more sympathetically liberal to applaud Obama, they felt sure Latinos — being of strong Catholic faith and conservatives to boot — would desert Obama fast.

The opposite has happened.

The headlines tell it all:

Obama’s Gay Marriage Shift Energizes Immigration Activists

Obama’s Gay Marriage Stand May Not Sway Latinos

Opinion: On gay marriage, Latinos agree with Obama

President Obama’s Latino kryptonite same-sex marriage? (The author concludes that the President’s endorsement doesn’t lose him any Latino voters)

Hand-in-hand with views about same-sex marriage, Latinas, when it comes to contraception, aren’t their mothers daughters entirely. Whereas, most of our mothers were preached into guilt about using contraception, the reality of today’s economy and career goals of the new generation are dictating different attitudes towards what used to be considered a taboo subject.

According to the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health:

Fact: The overwhelming majority of Latinas, including Catholic Latinas, use contraception.

• 97% of Latinas who have ever had sex have used contraception.
• 96% of sexually active Catholic Latinas have used a contraceptive banned by the Vatican.
• 90% of married Catholic Latinas use modern contraception.

Fact: Most Latinas, including Catholic Latinas, support the coverage of contraceptives.

• 89% of Latina voters 18-34 support contraceptive coverage without copayments for all women.
• The Health and Human Services decision to cover contraceptives without copays as preventive care is one of the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
• Polling data indicates that even if church leaders take a different position, when it comes to the law, many religious Latinos are comfortable with and support birth control.

On the issue of abortion, Latinas have evolved in their attitudes in this area too but not as much as in other areas. According to the Guttmacher Institute:

• Non-Hispanic white women account for 36% of abortions, non-Hispanic black women for 30%, Hispanic women for 25% and women of other races for 9%

Yet, the fact remains that Latinas are having abortions, regardless of church teachings. As one young Latina who had had a couple of abortions once told me, “It’s all fine for the Church or someone else to tell me not to do it but in the end where are they when I need food for the children, clothes and a roof over our heads. Are they going to provide that for me? They’re not doing it now.”

And finally, we come to Cuban Americans. Of all the subgroups of Latinos, Cuban Americans could be counted on to vote Republican, think Republican and do Republican. To a certain degree that’s still true but there definitely a generational divide in the Cuban vote these days.

In an article published by Politico titled Younger Cubans no longer a lock for GOP, the author points out several reasons why the GOP should worry if they think they can still appeal to Cuban Americans with the same old rhetoric.

Political strategists in Miami caution against drawing too strong a connection to U.S. policy and fading allegiances, but for various reasons, overall GOP support among Cuban-Americans has dropped by nearly 20 percent since 2000.

Aside from these evolving perspectives, there is another change happening in the Latino electorate — more Latinos are running for political office. Long been told that nothing will change unless the right to vote is exercised, some members of the community are taking that scolding a step farther to place themselves in positions to instill change themselves.

Although all eyes will be focused squarely on the race for the White House this year, there are several important races taking place down the ticket that have important implications for the Latino electorate. There are several Latino non-incumbent candidates running for Congress in 2012, with many having legitimate chances to win. You add to this the many Latino incumbents who will be running to retain their seats, and this election could be pivotal for Latino representation in Congress.

Many pundits are already starting to discount the value of the Latino vote in the 2012 election by citing lower enthusiasm for this presidential election and voter apathy. Yet, to see more Latino candidates run for office and knowing that they will only get in with the help of Latino votes, could be enough to spur disillusioned voters to the polls come November.

After all, family is the one area where Latino voters haven’t evolved one bit.

Ten years ago, the Billboard Latin Music Awards were dominated by artists that were ‘imported’ to the United States. This year, Bronx-born bachata star Prince Royce took home Artist of the Year and other bicultural acts such as Romeo Santos, Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias racked up key nominations, making it clear that Latin music tastes have evolved – and a new generation of U.S.-born artists and music fans are redefining the genre of this generation.

Marc Anthony and Pitbull.

The mix of American and Latin sounds coming out of the US isn’t exactly new: Tito Puente in the 50s, Joe Cuba in the 60s, Santana’s in the 70s, Miami Sound Machine’s in the 80s and Ricky Martin in the 90s.

But what’s tipped the balance toward biculturalism is the major demographic change that’s occurred over the last decade.

Today, 65% of Hispanics in their 30s are foreign-born*. Their musical histories are deeply rooted in their home countries, with Spanish as the primary language. In contrast, 59% of Hispanic Millennials (18-29) are US born. They grew up hearing their parents’ favorite songs from back home, as well as Lady Gaga, Jay-Z and the Foo Fighters – paving the way for the blend of languages and musical styles that we’re experiencing today.

Being part of a generation known for multi-tasking – moving from screen to screen, audio to instant messaging – has also influenced Hispanic Millennials’ eclectic tastes, which can go from Flo Rida one moment to Aventura the next.

With acts like Wisin y Yandel and Enrique Iglesias playing major U.S. arenas, general market music labels are aware of the power of this audience – which has opened up the door to collaborations between Latin and non-Latin artists to broaden commercial appeal.

Most recently, former Aventura front man Romeo Santos partnered with Usher on “Promise,” the first release of his debut solo album. In this bachata duet, Santos croons in Spanish and Usher in English, opening up their fan bases to new sounds.

Pitbull is particularly known for taking advantage of the audience-expanding possibilities that collaboration can offer, partnering with Ne-Yo to add R&B smoothness to “Give Me Everything” and Marc Anthony for “Rain Over Me,” singing almost entirely in English. Pitbull recently confirmed in an interview that he chooses his lyrics wisely so they can be translated easily and gain maximum duo-play on English and Spanish radio.

Another cultural phenomenon that’s impacted the Latin music scene is the concept of digital music discovery and sharing, which now allows acts that would never have made it past the gatekeepers a few years back, to get noticed and played.

Hispanic Millennials are known for being digitally savvy and active social networkers. What their friends listen to is probably the main driver of how they hear and consume music, so a Facebook post can be an influential endorsement that has the potential to make something obscure go viral.

Ten years ago, the top Latino acts were imports from Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Latin America. Now, the trend is reversing… the US is becoming an exporter of Latino talent to the rest of the world.

Wisin y Yandel, Pitbull, Aventura and Prince Royce are becoming household names outside of the US. Between the recent shift among young Hispanics from mostly foreign-born to mostly U.S.-born, the growing cachet of cross-cultural mixing, and the rising influence of online music sharing, Hispanic Millennials are changing the sound not just of Latin music — but American music as well.