Tag: Podcast

AudioStories

Dreaming of Damascus – The Fi2W Podcast

A Syrian refugee looks toward the city, and wishes she was somewhere else.

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Look What I Brought You – The Dream City Podcast, Episode 4

A story about what you choose to take home and what you bring back.

Stories

Timeless Stories About Immigrant Life In America

A look at hard news coverage and in-depth features.

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Podcast: Reporting on Religion for and about New Americans

A conversation with journalists covering Judaism and Islam.

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New Hampshire Public Radio Features Fi2W Podcast

The Fi2W podcast was the top story Wednesday on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth program.

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A Growing Asian Immigrant Presence in Organized Labor

The rank and file membership of American labor unions is increasingly made up of immigrants. In this podcast Fi2W’s Cristina Pastor talks about the influence of Asians on organized labor.

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Podcast: Michael Steele, a Republican Chairman Who Understands the Challenge of Reaching Minorities

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Steele.

Steele. (Photo: ABC News)

The election of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee has been hailed by some as yet another effect of Barack Obama’s ascent to the presidency.

“It took the election of the nation’s first African-American president, one who won landslide margins among blacks, Latinos and Asians, to convince the GOP of its need to expand its appeal beyond its overwhelmingly white base,” Charles Mathesian writes in Politico.

It remains to be seen if Steele’s designation is the first step, or a false start, in GOP efforts to expand its tent to try to include a majority of minorities in the nation. It is clear, at least, that Steele is well aware of his party’s need to reach out to those voters it has left mostly unattended for generations.

Last September, Feet In 2 Worlds executive producer John Rudolph interviewed Steele at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, where he was one of the few African Americans to address the GOP delegates. (Still, it was Steele who came up with the convention’s likely most memorable phrase: “Drill, baby, drill.”)

In that interview, Steele acknowledged that the McCain campaign made “no effort” to counterbalance the surge of support for Obama among African Americans and that Republicans had “literally, dropped the ball” when it came to going after the black vote.

You can listen to the whole interview by pressing Play below.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_msteele.mp3]
Audio

La Ruta del Voto Latino: Hispanics Find a Voice in New Orleans

Journalist Diego Graglia has been documenting the lives of Latinos during this presidential election year. He recently traveled from New York City to Mexico City, stopping along the way to talk to Latinos in small towns and big cities about the issues that matter to them. For more on La Ruta del Voto Latino/The Road to the Latino Vote visit www.newyorktomexico.com.

In a previous post, Diego Graglia wrote about his visit to New Orleans, where Hispanic Americans had long assimilated into the local mainstream culture, which in effect, made them “invisible.”

While in New Orleans, he interviewed Diane Schnell, news and marketing director of the local Telemundo station, KGLA-TV 42, which has recently launched the city’s first-ever Spanish-language newscast.

In this podcast, Diane talks about how the Latino community is no longer an invisible market in New Orleans, and which presidential candidate is doing more to reach out to New Orleans’ Latinos.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_laruta_diane.mp3]
AudioStories

La Ruta del Voto Latino (The Road to the Latino Vote): Milton, Florida

Journalist Diego Graglia has been documenting the lives of Latinos during this presidential election year. He recently traveled from New York City to Mexico City, stopping along the way to talk to Latinos in small towns and big cities about the issues that matter to them. For more on La Ruta del Voto Latino/The Road to the Latino Vote visit www.newyorktomexico.com.

Restaurant owner Gerónimo Barragán saw ten of his employees arrested and deported in February, some to his native Mexico, others to Guatemala. Santa Rosa County, Florida authorities also went to other businesses, looking for people using stolen Social Security numbers. Since the raid, the already small Hispanic community in the Florida Panhandle town of Milton has all but disappeared.

Gerónimo Barragán

In this interview Barragán talks about the raid and his thoughts on the upcoming the election. A committed Baptist, Barragán supports President Bush and may not vote at all.

Listen to the interview with Gerónimo Barragán.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_laruta_geronimo.mp3]
AudioStories

Podcast: Asian Elites Weigh Issues, History and Race in the Presidential Contest

Asian voters have been called the, “new sleeping giant,” of American politics. Asians make up about 5 per cent of the US population, and their numbers are growing rapidly. But according to a recent study by researchers at UCLA, political participation by Asian Americans is significantly lower than the national average. Even so, both the Obama and McCain campaigns are reaching out to Asian voters. Lotus Chau, Chief Reporter at Sing Tao Daily in New York recently wrote brief profiles of two Asian American Democrats who have come to very different conclusions about Barack Obama’s candidacy.

For Brian Wang, a first-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention there is, “important symbolic meaning for the Asian community,” if Barack Obama becomes the first black president of United States. Wang, a lawyer from San Francisco, recalled the 1988 primary when his mother voted for Jessie Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination. Holding a Martin Luther King-style poster which said “Change and Progress” in Chinese, Wang recalled that his mother’s Chinese friends were upset by her support of Jackson. But, he said his mother responded to her friends, “If Jessie can be the president of this country, my son also can be the president one day. Voting minority gave me hope.” Brian said he followed the same path as his mother, supporting Obama and at the same time fulfilling his own dream.

Po-Ling Ng, the director of the Open Door Senior Center, was a Democratic delegate in 2004. She is a long-time supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and in 2000 supported Al Gore for president. This year she was invited to be a Democratic delegate form New York, but she refused the invitation. “Deep in my heart, I am not prepared for a black candidate as president of the country. I don’t want to spend my money and time to support someone not from the bottom of my heart. I prefer to step back and stay in New York,” she said.

A record 270 Asian American delegates attended this year’s Democratic National Convention. There appeared to be only a handful of Asian delegates at the Republican National Convention, although an exact count is not available. However, Asians are organizing on behalf of John McCain. James S. Cheng is a businessman from Virginia who is involved in efforts to build support for McCain among Asian Americans. I spoke with him about campaign strategy and the challenges facing the campaign.

Listen to an interview with James S. Cheng a strategy adviser to the Asian Americans for McCain Coalition.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_cheng.mp3]