As he campaigned across Florida this week, Sen. John McCain gave a Latino audience in Orlando a version of his stump speech that differed significantly from speeches he gave to other Florida audiences.

Speaking at a town hall meeting at the Asociación Borinqueña de Orlando, a Puerto Rican group, McCain told the audience that he would make immigration reform one of his, “first priorities,” if he is elected president.

But in another Florida appearance yesterday, in Jacksonville, the Republican candidate remained mum about the subject. Beth Reinhard and Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald report,

Once pummeled for backing what critics tarred as ”amnesty,” McCain has talked little about immigration during the general election campaign. He did not raise the issue Monday in Jacksonville, reliably Republican turf where he began a two-day tour that wraps up Tuesday in Tampa.

But Orlando offered a different audience. Central Florida is home to a fast-growing Hispanic community coveted for its political independence, unlike the staunchly Republican Cuban-American voters who have dominated Miami-Dade politics.

Earlier this week we reported on other instances where McCain has offered different messages on immigration policy depending on the composition of his audience.

Not only does Sen. John McCain present his stance on immigration differently when talking to Spanish-language media (as we showed yesterday.)

So do the Obamas.

A few days ago, Michelle Obama was interviewed by one of the top Spanish-language radio hosts in the country, Eddie Piolín Sotelo, on his Piolín en la mañana show. Mrs. Obama had this to tell Sotelo about immigration reform:

This will be at the top of his agenda, you know, along with ending this war in Iraq responsibly.

At another point Mrs. Obama said, “We need the Latino community and we’re gonna do everything in our power,” to attract their votes.

But going back to Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC a couple of weeks ago, one needs to look hard in the transcript to find that little nugget he dedicated to the issue of immigration.

“Passions may fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.”

He referred to immigration as lowering American salaries, which clearly isn’t the way most Latinos see the issue. And then he didn’t address so many aspects of the issue. What about the undocumented people already here? What about the undocumented students who want to go to college? Driver’s licenses? The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids that have scared people across the country?

This week, as John McCain had done, Obama sat down for an interview with a Univision anchor; this time it was María Elena Salinas. (We haven’t found an English transcript of the original conversation, so this is our re-translation of the Spanish translation.)

Salinas asked Obama whether he would call for a stop to immigration enforcement raids, to which he replied that he considers the raids a publicity trick to try to shift people’s attention from the lack of immigration reform. Obama added that what is needed is comprehensive reform which provides strong border security and which punishes employers who take advantage of undocumented workers.

Again, nothing to write Mexico or El Salvador about. Many Latino voters may still be waiting to hear the candidates reconcile their statements to Spanish-language media with their speeches and comments to English-language audiences.

Offering a glimpse of Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field tomorrow in Denver, a top campaign official said Obama will announce an unprecedented effort to enroll new voters before the November election. Obama’s Latino Outreach Director, Temo Figueroa told Feet in 2 Worlds, “You’re going to be hearing tomorrow from Barack Obama the kick-off of the largest voter registration drive ever in a presidential campaign.”

Figueroa’s remarks followed a presentation to the Hispanic Caucus this morning in Denver where he characterized the resources the campaign will put into the program as, “mind boggling.”

[audio:http://www.xrew.com/joceimgs/FI2W/fi2w_temo2_speech.mp3]

“Tomorrow (in his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination) you are going to hear Sen. Barack Obama talk about voter registration and he’s going to mention some numbers that we’re going to be spending on voter registration through the month of September that will be mind boggling. That’s going to be a focus of his speech at Invesco,” Figueroa promised.

Figueroa also told FI2W that unlike past elections, the campaign will not “contract out” the job of registering voters.

“But we’re doing it in-house. We’re doing it with our own volunteers, with our own staff,” he said.

“We’re already making a dent,” he said. “The numbers are already showing what we’re doing in Virginia, what we’re doing in New Mexico, what we’re doing in Colorado and Nevada. It’s amazing.”

[audio:http://www.xrew.com/joceimgs/FI2W/fi2w_temo1_interview.mp3]

The Obama campaign’s emphasis on voter registration started even before Obama had won the primaries. On May 10th the campaign launched Vote for Change, a 50-state voter registration drive which was intended to lay the groundwork for a general election campaign.

“I believe the only way Barack Obama can win is we have to play in states we normally, as Democrats, never played in, and we have to bring new people in,” Figueroa said.

While Obama’s voter registration drive will target Americans all of backgrounds, the Obama campaign has previously pledged 20 million dollars on Latino outreach efforts including voter registration and paid media. The campaign has 400 Latino organizers and is training hundreds of volunteers to increase turnout among Latinos in key battleground states. In New Mexico alone, where an estimated 40,000 registered Latino voters didn’t got to the polls in 2004, Figueroa said the campaign has 29 field offices staffed by Latinos.

Stressing the point to the delegates at the Hispanic Caucus, Figueroa gave a Power Point presentation – complete with slides, maps and electoral math – that showed that Latinos can even make a difference in battleground states like Virginia if turnout is driven up just among currently registered voters. But he stressed repeatedly that even in Virginia there is a large group of unregistered Latinos that the campaign hopes to tap.

Acknowledging that many Latinos are still not familiar with Obama, Figueroa told the crowd that starting next week the campaign will go on air with Spanish-language ads in New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Colorado to present Obama’s message and biography to Latino voters.

Diego Graglia is documenting the lives of Latinos during this presidential election year as he travels from New York City to Mexico City. For more on La Ruta del Voto Latino-The Road to the Latino Vote, visit www.newyorktomexico.com.

Last week, Diego visited small towns in North Carolina to find out what Latinos in rural areas think about the presidential elections and what issues affect them the most. In the South, some of these towns have been changed radically by the arrival of Mexicans and Central Americans -from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador- who work in agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

In Siler City, North Carolina, Diego spoke with Marcia Espínola, associate director of El Vínculo Hispano-The Hispanic Liaison. She talked about what happened in that rural county after a poultry processing plant closed in June and left over 800 people out of a job. Listen to their conversation in this podcast:

To see photos of Diego Graglia’s road trip, visit the NY-DF Flickr page, and visit his web-page at www.newyorktomexico.com.

Wednesday and Thursday, we visited a couple of small towns in North Carolina to get a sense of what Latinos in rural areas think about the elections and what issues matter to them at the moment. I had the feeling that we always hear a lot about Mexicans in Chicago and L.A., Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in New York, Cubans in Florida… but we seldom get news about the people who live in small towns across the country.

Diego Graglia is documenting the lives of Latinos during this presidential election year as he travels from New York City to Mexico City. For more on La Ruta del Voto Latino-The Road to the Latino Vote visit www.newyorktomexico.com.

On our first day on the road we arrived in Manassas, Virginia, not far from Washington D.C. Our goal was to revisit the intense and controversial debate on immigration that has been taking place there.

A year ago the Prince William County supervisors launched a crackdown on undocumented immigrants. They passed a resolution whose outstanding feature allows local law enforcement to inquire about the immigration status of people they suspect of committing a crime or misdemeanor (even jaywalking.) Officers can also report undocumented immigrants to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation processing.

Since then, the Latino population in the county appears to have plummeted.

As soon as we arrived, I met Teresita Jacinto, a spokeswoman for Mexicanos Sin Fronteras/Mexicans Without Borders. Listen here to a Podcast of my interview with Jacinto.

Teresita Jacinto at 9500 Liberty St., “El Muro de la Calle Libertad.” (More photos here)

I interviewed her in front of what people in Manassas call The Wall — and those supporting immigrants regardless of their status call El Muro de la Calle Libertad (Liberty Street wall). It’s painted on the side of a burnt-down house by Mexican-born owner Gaudencio Fernández. In the wall’s strong message, he calls Prince William County, “the national capital of intolerance.” [Read the full text in this photo.] Unfortunately when we arrived Fernández was on vacation in Mexico.

The wall has been the subject of controversy and the target of attacks. As you’ll read in this story, Fernández has to go to court after his vacation. But I was more concerned with understanding its message.

(more…)

Sunday Aug. 3 2008, The Ecuador Independence Day Parade in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. (Photo: Diego Graglia)

At last Sunday’s Ecuadoran Independence Day Parade in Queens, NY representatives of Ecuadoran political parties drew lots of attention, not all of it positive. But at least one community leader at the parade was trying to get people to focus on the US presidential election. As part of our special series La Ruta del Voto Latino – The Road to the Latino Vote, journalist Diego Graglia spoke to Francisco Moya, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In fact, he’s the first Ecuadoran to be a delegate to a major party convention in the US. In this Podcast, Moya talks about the challenge of getting Ecuadoran immigrants, including those who a US citizens, to pay attention to US politics.

Ecuadorans are one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in the New York area. The city’s Department of City Planning says Ecuador is third among the, “largest sources of the foreign-born,” in the borough of Queens, and it is second in The Bronx. There are also large Ecuadoran communities in Somerset and Essex counties in New Jersey and Westchester, NY. Despite their numbers Ecuadorans don’t have much political power, compared to other immigrant groups that have been in New York for decades, like Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.

Diego Graglia is on the road from New York City to Mexico City, talking to Latinos about the issues and the candidates in this year’s presidential election.

To see photos of the parade and Diego Graglia’s road trip, visit the NY-DF Flickr page, and visit his web-page at http://www.newyorktomexico.com/.