July 21, 2008 2:35 PM
After a delay in Austin, I'm back from Netroots Nation in Austin.
While there I met some great immigration and Latino issues bloggers and look for some of their posts to be featured here in the next coming weeks.
On a funny side note, also in Austin this past weekend was the conservative blogger convention which 500 people attended. Netroots Nation, considered a more progressive arena, had an attendance of 2,500 people.
I have to say, we made some great contacts and alliances over the 4-day conference, all to bring you the best content possible.
Hey Lisa, it was great seeing you at the NN conference. I am so happy you we got to hook up.
Looking forward to working with you in future endeavors.
Edmundo
By XP July 21, 2008 08:35 PM
Lisa,
how many of the participants at Netroots attended immigration related sessions, in your estimate?
By Pat Young July 23, 2008 04:30 PM
In all there were two panels and a caucus that dealt directly with Latino issues with immigration as an important issue.
The Latino Blogger caucus probably had about 30 people and two Latino candidates with staff.
"Dos Centavos" probably had about 50 people and "How to Win the Immigration Argument" probably had about 40-45 people.
Andrea Batista-Schlesinger also was on a panel about violent language in the media, where spoke extensively about Long Island WINS probably had close to 90-100 people (George Lakoff was also supposed to be on that panel but had an emergency).
Not bad attendance when you consider that there were 8 or 9 options during any particular time slot.
By Lisa Votino-Tarrant July 23, 2008 04:44 PM
I'm glad there were some folks there on immigration beat, but I worry about what used to be called the "digital divide".
Last year CARECEN asked our clients (all legally in the US and all here for more than five years) if they used the internet and had an e-mail address. Only about 2% did.
By Pat Young July 23, 2008 04:59 PM
I brought this point up a couple of times and also at the Personal Democracy Forum, specifically talking about access that minorities have to the internet. At least at PDF it seems as though they want to take things to the next level, while many (mostly minorities) haven't been brought-up to THIS level.
A new study was just released in California a few weeks ago about Hispanics access to digital technology. What they found was that there is still a big gap in owning a computer, but use text messaging on their phones in high numbers....interesting for immigrant groups to investigate more throroughly.
By Lisa Votino-Tarrant July 23, 2008 05:04 PM
PS - I still utterly hate using the term "minority." Can't we come up with something different??!!
By Lisa Votino-Tarrant July 23, 2008 05:07 PM
How about "Formerly Oppressed People", FOP for short?
By Pat Young July 23, 2008 05:20 PM