9979: Stove Top’s Plymouth Crock.

In What’s Black About It? by Pepper Miller and Herb Kemp, the authors spotlighted a case study involving Stove Top. To target Black consumers, the brand tapped research showing the audience preferred using cornbread over loaf bread, and referred to the side dish as dressing versus stuffing (see excerpt above). This marketing insight came to mind while viewing the new Stove Top campaign by The Martin Agency—a White shop in Richmond, Virginia—featuring annoyed Pilgrims to position the product as being great for occasions beyond Thanksgiving. Can’t help but wonder how the characters and concept cross over to Black consumers. Or Latinos. Or Native Americans.

Maybe Stove Top will produce a targeted commercial featuring Malcolm X proclaiming, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.”

9971: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges.

From The Los Angeles Times…

Latino or Hispanic? For many Americans, neither feels quite right

A new report suggests that the majority of people of Latin American descent prefer to identify themselves by their countries of origin. The findings shed light on the complexities of identity in a growing community that includes dozens of nationalities.

By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times

Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, Helen Iris Torres responded to questions about her identity by telling people she was Puerto Rican. It didn’t matter that schoolbooks referred to her as Hispanic.

Now, as head of an organization that supports women of Latin American heritage, Torres still says she’s a “proud Puerto Rican” but prefers the term Latina, which she says encompasses the larger community of Spanish speakers in the country.

Torres’ quandary is reflected in a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center, which suggests that the majority of people of Latin American descent choose to identify themselves by their countries of origin, over either Latino or Hispanic. When choosing between the latter terms, the majority, 51%, were ambivalent.

The findings shed light on the social and political complexities of identity in a community that is growing but includes dozens of nationalities.

“The notion of a pan-ethnic Hispanic identity is uniquely American,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, a lead author of the report. “Latinos have not fully embraced the terms Hispanic or Latino when it comes to describing themselves.”

Only one-quarter of those polled used the terms Hispanic or Latino most often, while about 21% said they predominantly use the term American. Most of those polled did not see a shared common culture among Latinos — as sometimes is assumed by politicians courting a voting bloc.

The survey of 1,220 Latino adults was conducted in English and Spanish during November and early December.

The term Hispanic was adopted by the government in the 1970s in an attempt to count people from such countries as Mexico, Cuba and the nations in Central and South America. But many whose lineage traces to those countries, particularly in Southwestern parts of the United States, have never felt an affinity for the term.

“It was a word that was used to identify Spanish-speaking people in the census,” said Haydee Cervantes, who works for the Chicano/a Latino/a Arts and Humanities program at UC San Diego. “It’s a word that was given to us.”

Cervantes said she chooses to identify as Chicana partly because of the political implications of the term, which was embraced by Mexican American student activists in the 1960s.

In the 1990s, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget added the term Latino to government data. But that term has also not been fully embraced, the report’s authors said.

For many Latinos, identity is fluid and can change with experience and context. In a larger group it might make sense to use a broader term, while in one-on-one conversations people often try to be specific, Torres said.

Some young Latino immigrants have embraced an altogether new term of identification.

Delia Arriaga and Alma Castrejon, who were both born in Mexico but came to the U.S. at young ages, said the term Mexican never quite reflected their experience.

“I used to identify as Chicana, but now I really don’t use that term,” Castrejon said. “I was born in Mexico, but I don’t identify as Mexican, or Latina or Hispanic. A lot of times when I talk to people I just say, ‘I’m undocumented.’”

Arriaga said she often calls herself an “undocumented American.”

“I am fully American,” she said. “I’ve been living in the United States my whole life. I am of Latin heritage but I haven’t been able to experience it. I’ve always experienced the American version of what being a Latina or Hispanic is.”

Nearly half of those polled said they consider themselves a “typical American,” while the same percentage said they are “very different from the typical American.”

Still, nearly all said opportunity for advancement in the U.S. is better than in the country of their ancestors. And nearly 80% of those who migrated here said that if they had to do it over, they would come again to the U.S.

9905: Seeing The Light On Latinos.

From CBS News…

NM Tourism ad seeks “light-skinned” Hispanics

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico’s new tourism ad isn’t done yet, but it’s already creating quite a buzz.

First, the Tourism Department touched some local nerves by hiring a Texas firm to produce its new branding campaign. That firm chose a California producer rather than someone in New Mexico’s film industry to shoot the spot. And on Friday, traditional and social media was abuzz over the ad’s “real people” casting notice, which called for Caucasian or “light-skinned” Hispanics to star in the spot.

The Santa Fe New Mexican in an editorial Friday (http://bit.ly/z9ZwJ1) called the “light-skinned” requirement “wrong-headed.”

“Hearing that term brings to mind a vision of casting agents holding up paper bags next to people’s faces to ensure they can pass,” the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote. “We don’t know, of course, who made it into the shoot and how New Mexico will be presented to the world once the campaign is unveiled. But really, light-skinned only? What were they thinking?”

The ad, which is being designed as part of a $2 million yearlong effort by Tourism Secretary Monique Jacobson to create a brand that will attract more out-of-state visitors, was shot in a variety of locations and is scheduled to be unveiled next month.

Jacobson, according to the editorial, has said that it included Native Americans dancing.

But the casting notice seeking fit and attractive people to portray real families carried the light-skin requirement.

“We’d wager that there are more than a few active Native climbers and bikers, couples and families even,” the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote. “Native people dance and make art, yes, but they are fully in the modern world. They, along with dark-skinned people, even take vacations.”

Tourism officials did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls about the ad.

According to the latest Census data, 46 percent of New Mexicans are of Hispanic or Latino origin. Just under 10 percent are Native American.

The state also has the nation’s first female Latina governor, Republican Susana Martinez.

9679: Defining Latinos.

From The New York Times…

For Many Latinos, Racial Identity Is More Culture Than Color

By Mireya Navarro

Every decade, the Census Bureau spends billions of dollars and deploys hundreds of thousands of workers to get an accurate portrait of the American population. Among the questions on the census form is one about race, with 15 choices, including “some other race.”

More than 18 million Latinos checked this “other” box in the 2010 census, up from 14.9 million in 2000. It was an indicator of the sharp disconnect between how Latinos view themselves and how the government wants to count them. Many Latinos argue that the country’s race categories — indeed, the government’s very conception of identity — do not fit them.

The main reason for the split is that the census categorizes people by race, which typically refers to a set of common physical traits. But Latinos, as a group in this country, tend to identify themselves more by their ethnicity, meaning a shared set of cultural traits, like language or customs.

So when they encounter the census, they see one question that asks them whether they identify themselves as having Hispanic ethnic origins and many answer it as their main identifier. But then there is another question, asking them about their race, because, as the census guide notes, “people of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin may be of any race,” and more than a third of Latinos check “other.”

This argument over identity has gained momentum with the growth of the Latino population, which in 2010 stood at more than 50 million. Census Bureau officials have acknowledged that the questionnaire has a problem, and say they are wrestling with how to get more Latinos to pick a race. In 2010, they tested different wording in questions and last year they held focus groups, with a report on the research scheduled to be released by this summer.

Some experts say officials are right to go back to the drawing table. “Whenever you have people who can’t find themselves in the question, it’s a bad question,” said Mary C. Waters, a sociology professor at Harvard who specializes in the challenges of measuring race and ethnicity.

The problem is more than academic — the census data on race serves many purposes, including determining the makeup of voting districts, and monitoring discriminatory practices in hiring and racial disparities in education and health. When respondents do not choose a race, the Census Bureau assigns them one, based on factors like the racial makeup of their neighborhood, inevitably leading to a less accurate count.

Latinos, who make up close to 20 percent of the American population, generally hold a fundamentally different view of race. Many Latinos say they are too racially mixed to settle on one of the government-sanctioned standard races — white, black, American Indian, Alaska native, native Hawaiian, and a collection of Asian and Pacific Island backgrounds.

Some regard white or black as separate demographic groups from Latino. Still others say Latinos are already the equivalent of another race in this country, defined by a shared set of challenges.

“The issues within the Latino community — language, immigration status — do not take into account race,” said Peter L. Cedeño, 43, a lawyer and native New Yorker born to Dominican immigrants. “We share the same hurdles.”

Read the full story here.

9649: NASCAR’s Multicultural Slow Start.

Advertising Age interviewed NASCAR CMO Steve Phelps, and the discussion included the sport’s multicultural efforts. Phelps said NASCAR has done “small things,” yet he likely realizes there is a long road ahead for building minority appeal. Hopefully, the initiatives will include partnering with multicultural marketing experts. Plus, NASCAR should steer clear of White advertising agencies that have failed to even promote and foster diversity in their own offices.

Nascar Targets New Audiences, Revs Up Social-Media Strategy

Sport Endured Several Bumpy Years, but TV Ratings Are Recovering and Execs Have Charted a Five-Year Plan for Growth

By Jason Del Rey

After a few bumpy years marked by declining TV ratings and weakened traction in the vital 18- to 34-year-old male demographic, Nascar regained some footing in 2011. TV viewership rose year-over-year in all three Nascar series, both overall and among the target group of young men. And the sport landed several key sponsorship renewals, including Sprint, UPS and Kraft Foods.

But if Nascar is to continue its assault on the professional team sports occupying much of the nation’s bandwidth, it needs to reach new audiences in new places. With that in mind, it has embarked on a five-year plan with five key goals: Build the star power of individual drivers, increase engagement among children and college-age consumers, attract a multicultural fan base, craft more cohesive digital- and social-media strategies and improve the racetrack experience for fans.

Nascar CMO Steve Phelps is overseeing the execution. While some efforts kicked off in 2010, work over the next 18 months on the digital-media and multicultural-marketing fronts will be crucial. Mr. Phelps, star of a 2010 episode of “Undercover Boss,” sat down with Ad Age to discuss the process of individual brand-building, the promise of a Hispanic fan base, and why the sport’s legacy digital partnership won’t work long term.

Ad Age: How do you go about building the individual brands of drivers?

Mr. Phelps: One key is that we’re not just going to be focused on the stars of today but on those emerging stars even outside of the three national series. We’re going back to the local level and identifying young talent. We’ll start with kids that are 15 or 16 in developmental series. We’ll identify who has the best talent and who has real charisma.

Ad Age: How far along is the process?

Mr. Phelps: We’re in Round Two, where we are doing the profiles and brand mappings for 120 drivers. We hired two new people to take this on, and we’ll talk to the team, sponsors and drivers to determine the best approach to have each driver break through. Certain drivers are media-savvy and like the lens, so to speak. Others, candidly, don’t. So we won’t ask a guy who doesn’t want to be on TV to go on Fox to promote the Daytona 500. We may instead get him involved in a hunting and fishing blog, if that’s his passion.

Ad Age: How will your digital and social strategy shift going forward?

Mr. Phelps: We are hiring someone new, and a big part of the job will be training an entire industry—from driver reps to driver teams to our own internal teams—on social.

On the digital side, we’ve had a relationship with Turner since 2001, where they operate Nascar.com. That relationship has served our industry very well. That said, our agreement goes through 2014, and we will probably go in a different direction after that. Not because Turner has done anything wrong, but because in the future it will be important for us to control our own message and content. They have allowed us to take portions of their rights back. For example, all the Twitter feeds that we do come from our internal team and are not run by Turner people anymore.

Ad Age: How are you improving the event experience?

Mr. Phelps: We wanted to get a sense for how a Nascar race stacked up against other sports. So we [anonymously] sent families of four or four college buddies to a Nascar race, an NFL game, the circus or a concert. [A third party] asked what they liked about each one, which provided very rich data. What came out of it was, for a new fan, if they’re not with someone who has been to a race before, they don’t know how to be a fan. Where do I park? Where’s my seat? We had guys come in button-down shirts and khakis, not realizing this is a big party. We’ll use all of this to make changes.

Ad Age: How are you reaching a new, multicultural audience, specifically Hispanics?

Mr. Phelps: We’ve done some small things. At three of our race tracks we did heavy up-spending in those markets buying media. We had a virtual garage tour in Spanish. The Nascar website can be viewed in Spanish, as well, but that’s basically just a translation. Looking ahead, we’re in discussions with a Spanish-language outlet to create digital content for us, and we hope to have meaningful content live in 2013.

9594: Unconstitutional Policing In Arizona.

From The New York Times…

U.S. Finds Pervasive Bias Against Latinos by Arizona Sheriff

By Marc Lacey

PHOENIX — In a strongly worded critique of the country’s best-known sheriff, the Justice Department on Thursday accused Sheriff Joe Arpaio of engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by unfairly targeting Latinos for detention and arrest and retaliating against those who complain.

After an investigation that lasted more than three years, the civil rights division of the Justice Department said in a 22-page report that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which Mr. Arpaio leads, had “a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos” that “reaches the highest levels of the agency.” The department interfered with the inquiry, the government said, prompting a lawsuit that eventually led Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies to cooperate.

“We have peeled the onion to its core,” said Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, noting during a conference call with reporters on Thursday morning that more than 400 inmates, deputies and others had been interviewed as part of the review, including Sheriff Arpaio and his command staff. Mr. Perez said the inquiry, which included jail visits and reviews of thousands of pages of internal documents, raised the question of whether Latinos were receiving “second-class policing services” in Maricopa County.

Mr. Perez said he hoped Sheriff Arpaio would cooperate with the federal government in turning the department around. Should he refuse to enter into a court-approved settlement agreement, Mr. Perez said, the government will file a lawsuit and the department could lose millions of dollars in federal money.

A separate federal grand jury investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s office is continuing, focusing on accusations of abuse of power by the department’s public corruption squad.

Sheriff Arpaio was singled out for criticism in the report, which said that he had used racially charged letters he had received to justify raids and that he helped nurture the department’s “culture of bias.”

Asked at a news conference about Sheriff Arpaio’s role in the department’s problems, Mr. Perez said, “We have to do cultural change and culture change starts with people at the top.” Mr. Perez made a point of reaching out to Sheriff Arpaio’s underlings. “These findings are not meant to impugn your character,” he said to the department’s deputies.

Sheriff Arpaio, 79, who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” brushed off the criticism in a news conference as politically motivated. He said he was particularly upset by an announcement by the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, that as a result of the findings of discrimination, the federal government would no longer allow sheriff’s deputies to check the immigration status of inmates in their custody.

“This is a sad day for America as a whole,” Sheriff Arpaio said, suggesting that the federal government’s action was tantamount to setting up a neon welcome sign for illegal immigrants. “We are proud of the work we have done to fight illegal immigration.”

Long a lightning rod for controversy, Sheriff Arpaio looms large over Arizona and beyond. His turf, Maricopa County, with 3.8 million residents, is one of the country’s largest counties in terms of both area and population. Republican candidates at all levels clamor for his backing, aware that he has become a potent symbol of the antipathy many Americans feel about illegal immigration.

Before he endorsed Gov. Rick Perry of Texas for president last month, Sheriff Arpaio was courted by much of the Republican field, including Representative Michele Bachmann, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Herman Cain, a businessman who has since suspended his campaign.

The inquiry’s findings paint a picture of a department staffed by poorly trained deputies who target Latino drivers on the roadways and detain innocent Latinos in the community in their searches for illegal immigrants. The mistreatment, the government said, extends to the jails the department oversees, where Latino inmates who do not speak English are mistreated.

“The absence of clear policies and procedures to ensure effective and constitutional policing,” the report said, “along with the deviations from widely accepted policing and correctional practices, and the failure to implement meaningful oversight and accountability structures, have contributed to a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations.”

The report said Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be stopped in the sprawling county, which includes Phoenix and its environs, than non-Latino drivers. The expert who conducted the study called it the most egregious racial profiling he had ever seen in this country, said Mr. Perez, the prosecutor, without naming the expert.

The report said that roughly one-fifth of the traffic-related incident reports generated by the department’s human smuggling unit contained information indicating the stops may have been conducted in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures.

The report also suggested that Sheriff Arpaio’s well-publicized raids aimed at arresting illegal immigrants were sometimes prompted by complaints that described no criminal activity but referred to people with “dark skin” or to Spanish speakers congregating in an area. “The use of these types of bias-infected indicators as a basis for conducting enforcement activity contributes to the high number of stops and detentions lacking in legal justification,” the report said.

Sheriff Arpaio has insisted that he is just enforcing the law and has mentioned in previous interviews that he has an adopted grandchild who is of Mexican descent. He has responded defiantly to past criticisms, with more raids. In the last three years, he has sent deputies into 56 Phoenix-area businesses, resulting in several hundred arrests for identity theft.

Asked at the news conference on Thursday whether he cared about the Latino community, the sheriff said, “I do have compassion, but enforcing the law overrides my compassion.”

As a result of the report, John Morton, director of immigration and customs enforcement, sent a letter Thursday to Maricopa County officials saying that the federal government would no longer provide the immigration status to deputies for anyone involved in a traffic stop, civil infraction or other minor offense.

The report is likely to increase calls for the resignation of Sheriff Arpaio, whose fifth term ends next year. He has vowed to run again. The sheriff, who has won election by wide margins even while frustrating his critics, has seen opposition to his leadership increase in recent months with reports that his department misspent county money and failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sexual-abuse cases, many involving illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, Sheriff Arpaio’s critics took their case to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which controls the sheriff office’s purse strings. The board heard a heavy dose of criticism of the sheriff, but also present were some of his backers, who praise his no-tolerance approach toward illegal immigrants. “Police officers make mistakes,” said Jerry Sheridan, Sheriff Arpaio’s chief deputy, in defense of the department.

The Justice Department report quotes from some people characterized as victims of the department’s overzealous ways. It cites the case of a Latino driver who won a $600,000 legal settlement after a deputy intentionally struck him with his patrol car during a traffic stop.

In another case, an inmate was not allowed to use another inmate as an interpreter to tell a detention officer that her sheets were soiled. She was told she had to make the request herself in English, even though she did not speak the language well.

After Sheriff Arpaio received a letter complaining that employees of a McDonald’s in Sun City, a retirement community, did not speak English, the sheriff forwarded the letter to a top aide, who mounted an immigration raid in the area.

Salvador Rodriguez contributed reporting.