“Our job as journalists is to continue to write about the immigration crisis so it will earn the place it should have among the priorities of the new president.”

By Aswini Anburajan

We began blogging about Barack Obama’s troubled relations with Muslims and Arab-Americans yesterday. Today the headline in The New York Times reads “Muslim Voters Detect a Snub From Obama.” The article, which has an interview with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress, says the campaign has repeatedly snubbed the Muslim community’s efforts to reach out to the campaign. The Obama campaign counters that Sen. Obama has spoken favorably about Muslims and recorded a radio ad for Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN), the second Muslim elected to Congress. In an interview with ’60 Minutes,’ Mr. Obama said the rumors (that he is a Muslim) were offensive to American Muslims because they played into “fearmongering.” But on a new section of his Web site, he classifies the claim as a “smear.” “A lot of us are waiting for him to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, by the way,” Rep. Ellison said.

The criticism comes as the Obama campaign has ramped up its push to court Christians and Evangelicals, to the consternation of other religious groups. The Wall Street Journal quotes Tony Kutayli, a spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and himself a Christian: “There have been some concerns that courting Christians could alienate voters from other faiths, like Jews and Muslims. And the fact that Obama’s new anti-smear website has taken such pains to discredit the allegation that he is a Muslim, and therefore somehow linked to radical Islamism, could offend Muslim voters. If he were a Muslim, so what? That insinuates that if he were a Muslim, he’s automatically a jihadist. That’s incredibly insulting to people of the Muslim faith and Arabs who are Christian.”

Meanwhile a new site launched by Obama’s campaign, Fightthesmears.com, has drawn criticism from Salon.com. Rather than fighting smears, Salon says the new page plays into fears and gives legitimacy to a rumor that should be in the category of too false, too outlandish and too impolite to repeat.

Salon continues, “Late last week Barack Obama’s campaign launched Fight the Smears, a Web site that aims to put a lid on the chain e-mail-based rumors that have menaced the Senator’s presidential bid since its inception. By now you’re probably familiar with the smears in question: Obama is secretly a Muslim, he refuses to pledge allegiance to the flag, he was sworn in to the U.S. Senate on a Quran, and his terrorist-fist-jabbbing wife has taken to calling people ‘whitey.’ As political rumors go, these are of a piece with John McCain’s illegitimate black baby: Too ugly for polite company, the stories thrive on e-mail and talk-radio hearsay, and though they’re trivial to debunk (the truth is just a Web search away), the lies seem possessed of uncanny sticking power. Polls show belief in the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumor now hovers at around 10 to 13 percent, up from single digits last December.”

The sharp outcry last week after two Muslim women wearing headscarves were told they couldn’t appear behind Senator Barack Obama at a campaign rally in Detroit, has raised questions about the credibility and motivations of Obama’s post-racial, multi-ethnic message and appeal.

On June 18th two Muslim women separately reported that they were told they could not appear on stage behind Obama because they had headscarves on. Obama later called the women to personally apologize, and his campaign released a statement saying that the actions by the Obama volunteers who barred the women was unacceptable and went against the spirit of his campaign.

The incident was picked up by the national press, some calling the move hypocrisy, while others pointed out that the campaign has had to tread a tightrope between combating rumors and perceptions that Obama is a Muslim and at the same time not appearing to denigrate Muslims or Islam with his disavowals.

The reaction in the Arab press has been louder, harsher and more impassioned. A scathing column by Ray Hanania posted on the Arab Writers Group went so far as to allege a tacit agreement between the press and the Obama campaign to report the incident without a sense of outrage. Hanania called the incident an act of “racism.” He claimed that if the same thing had happened at a McCain event there would have been a loud outcry in the media.

To underscore that sentiment a political cartoon released to Arab newspapers by Hanania and David Kish shows Obama telling a crowd that there are many differences between him and Sen. John McCain. The following panel shows a volunteer telling two women in headscarves that they can’t be seen. The cartoon ends with a thought bubble over Obama’s head that reads: “Then again maybe not so many.”

While reporting on the incident has focused on the motivations and tactics of the campaign, it has neglected to delve into whether Obama’s candidacy may be raising the level of interest and participation in the political process by Muslims and Arab-Americans.

While there’s no concrete evidence to suggest that Obama’s candidacy has galvanized Arab or Muslim voters, there are attempts within the community to increase political participation. The Arab American Institute has launched “Our Voice. Our Vote. Yalla Vote ’08.” to bring issues related to the Arab-American community to the forefront in 2008.

“Like all Americans, we’re concerned about the economy and education, about health care and home prices. But there are a host of other issues that are impacting our community more deeply and more personally than any others: issues like civil liberties, immigration, and our country’s foreign policies,” Dr. James Zogby, of the Arab American Institute said in a statement.

The group is planning to put organizers on the ground in key states, and plans to monitor political races on all levels to help advance an agenda that reflects Arab-American concerns.

It’s easy to see how Muslim voters would be attracted to a candidate with family members who are Muslim, whose father comes from Kenya, and who spent his early years in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. But is the appeal of Obama’s personal story outweighed by his campaign’s efforts to downplay his Muslim roots? For Arab and Muslim voters incidents like the one in Detroit last week could end up linking Obama to what some in the Muslim community allege is a long-standing bias by American politicians and the mainstream media against Muslims and Arabs in this country.

Michigan will be a battleground in 2008, and has one of the largest Arab and Muslim populations in the country. In a tight election the Arab vote could be a significant factor.

Both of the major parties’ presumptive Presidential nominees are salivating over the Latino vote, and with good reason. Four years ago, George Bush won New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida by less than 5 percent of the vote. Each of these states has a vast Latino population—case in point: one in three New Mexico voters is Latino.

In other words, Latino voters matter like never before in this year’s tight Presidential race.

As analysts point to growing numbers of Latino voters in crucial Southern and Western states, Latinos are the new soccer moms and Nascar dads (in 2008 political parlance) and the Presidential campaigns are answering this clarion call loud and clear with multimillion-dollar ad buys (both Obama and Clinton spent at least $4 million on Spanish-language campaign ads before the June 1 primary – an astronomical 400 percent increase over what Bush and Gore spent on Spanish-language media in the 2000 race) and heartfelt Spanish-language television appeals.

It appears the Latino voter is poised to join this election’s mythic white working class voter in the campaign’s hall of fame.

Sadly, despite all the candidates’ duels for the corazones y almas (hearts and souls) of Latino voters, both McCain and Obama assiduously duck real discussions of immigration policy as they jab at each other on safer campaign issues.

Truth be told, McCain and Obama actually disagree on immigration– though you wouldn’t know this from the mainstream media’s coverage of the campaign, which tends to put both candidates in the same corner because they supported last year’s immigration reform proposals.

Newsflash: candidates’ platforms change.

As is often the case on immigration policy, some of the best analysis I’ve seen on how the candidates substantively differ from each other comes from a community with a stake in looking at the details.

Maribel Hastings from Los Angeles’s Spanish-language La Opinión (sister paper of New York’s own El Diario, and a Feet in 2 Worlds partner) did a stellar and detailed comparison last week of the nominees’ stances on a wide variety of immigration policies. Check out the whole (translated) article, it’s well worth the read.

At various points in their political careers, both McCain and Obama have supported large-scale legislative proposals to allow undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status. McCain initially co-sponsored (with Senator Ted Kennedy) a couple of such proposals, the most recent of which failed spectacularly in the Senate last year. Obama also supported the bill, and has promised to revisit the issue of immigration reform in the first 100 days of his campaign.

Fast forward to June 2008, when Hastings’s article outlines real differences between the candidates on key immigration reform proposals. They include the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented high school students who’ve been in the US for at least 5 years and meet a laundry list of other requirements to apply for legal status (Obama says yea, McCain says nea); and issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented state residents (McCain says nea, Obama says yea).

The upcoming long election season promises to see more twists and turns on immigration (and many more pleas en espanol), so stay tuned.

Hundreds of bodies and tons of debris are left behind in the southern Arizona desert each year. They are the remains and former possessions of immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico. Journalist Karla Escamilla is documenting this littered landscape in a series of reports for Univision, KUVE-TV in Tucson, Arizona. She is a fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Insitute for Justice and Journalism. In this podcast, Karla speaks with Feet in Two Worlds executive producer John Rudolph.

With this podcast we also introduce a new feature: political news briefs from around the country. Find out what’s being reported in La Opinion, New America Media, and New England Ethnic Newswire, as well as at the recent Immigration, Justice and Crime conference hosted by the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice and New York Community Media Alliance.

Hispanic women are emerging as a sought-after voting bloc in the 2008 campaign. Like soccer moms, blue-collar workers, and union members, Latinas are increasingly being courted by the Democratic presidential candidates. New York Senator Hillary Clinton, in particular, is making a significant effort to reach out to Latina voters, and a non-partisan group, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, is conducting a voter registration drive aimed specifically at Latinas.

The growing importance of Hispanic women comes at a time when Latino voters – both men and women – have already demonstrated their pivotal role in primary elections in states including California, Texas, and New Mexico. Latinas are especially important because Hispanic women vote in greater numbers than Hispanic men and their decisions about which candidate to support have considerable influence among their family members, friends, and neighbors.

Feet in Two Worlds reporter Martina Guzmán recently visited Allentown, Pennsylvania, to report on grass-roots efforts to reach out to Latina voters before the Pennsylvania primary. In this Podcast Martina speaks with FI2W executive producer John Rudolph.

Latino voters were pivotal in Hillary Clinton’s recent victories in Texas, California, and New Mexico. According to the Pew Hispanic Center exit polls show that, “Latinos accounted for at least 30% of the total votes cast in the Democratic primary (in those states), and Clinton outpolled Sen. Barack Obama among Latinos by a ratio of about two-to-one.”

When and how did Latino voters gain this level of political power? What are the implications for the rest of the primary campaign and the general election? What are GOP Senator John McCain’s chances of winning significant Latino support?

In this Podcast veteran journalist and Feet in Two Worlds reporter Pilar Marrero takes an in-depth look at these questions. Marrero is the senior political writer at La Opinión, the leading Spanish-Language daily in Los Angeles. In a conversation with FI2W executive producer John Rudolph, Marrero also discusses historical trends that have given Latino voters unprecedented clout at the ballot box this year.

Barack Obama is reaching out to Latino evangelical leaders as part of a broader strategy to win support for his presidential campaign among Latino voters.

The Illinois senator has invested significant resources in faith outreach, holding community faith forums and courting religious leaders in key primary states such as Texas and South Carolina.

Aswini Anburajan, a former Feet in Two Worlds reporter covering the Obama campaign for for NBC News/National Journal, and current Feet in Two Worlds journalist Lorenzo Morales of El Diario/La Prensa speak with FI2W executive producer John Rudolph about Obama’s faith-based campaign strategy.

They discuss his unique approach, its effectiveness and the issues that matter to evangelical Latino voters—many of which have little to do with church positions on abortion or same-sex marriage.

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