Más Sabe el Diablo

The soap opera “Más Sabe el Diablo” featured the 2010 census.


















On the set, Michelle Vargas, an actress; Don Browne, Telemundo’s president; and Aurelio Valcarcel, an executive producer.


















September 23, 2009
U.S. Census Uses Telenovela to Reach Hispanics
By BRIAN STELTER

MIAMI — Perla Beltrán, a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks in New York, has suffered a great deal lately — her husband, a thief, has been murdered and she has been associating with lowlifes. But she thinks she has found a way out: as a recruiter for the United States Census Bureau.

Ms. Beltrán, a character in the popular Spanish-language soap opera “Más Sabe el Diablo,” “The Devil Knows Best,” represents only one element of the government’s yearlong effort to garner trust among Hispanics, an ethnic group that has been historically wary of the decennial census process.

In addition to the typical public service announcements and advertisements, the Census Bureau is helping to compose a remarkable story line featuring the Perla Beltrán character on the telenovela, amid the genre’s usual tales of sex scandals, unspeakable illnesses and implausible villains. It may be the first plotline on a soap opera blessed by the United States government.

“It’s the perfect vehicle for product placement,” said Patricia Gaitan, a communications consultant for the bureau, as she watched the taping here last week. She swiftly gave the technique a new name: “people placement.”

The coordination between the Census Bureau and the “Diablo” producers at the Telemundo network also strikes some as an unusual intrusion by the government. Although a bureau staff member met with the writer of “Diablo” and provided props for the production, the network’s president, Don Browne, said it maintained “total creative independence.”

Many Americans are unfamiliar with telenovelas like “Diablo,” and most efforts to introduce them to English-speaking audiences have flopped. But among Spanish-speaking viewers, the five-nights-a-week dramas are enormously popular, making them a prime way to encourage Hispanics to be counted next year.

“We’ve been evangelizing,” Mr. Browne told Ms. Gaitan and other visitors between takes on the set last week. “Hopefully, we’ll get the message across without hitting viewers over the head.”

The message is the same one Census Bureau officials are trying to emphasize at nearly every turn: Do not be afraid to be counted.

Next year’s census is expected to show a substantial increase in the Hispanic population, which is already the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States. The government estimated in May that 46.9 million Hispanics lived in the Unites States last year, up from about 33 million during the last census in 2000. Census figures are analyzed to apportion Congressional districts and distribute about $400 billion in federal money each year.

But the census is a delicate subject for some minorities, including Hispanics. Language barriers and fear of filling out forms for the government limited participation in earlier counts.

Census officials contend that Hispanics were undercounted in 2000 by about 0.7 percent, or roughly a quarter of a million people. Other scientific studies assert that as many as 1.3 million Hispanics were not counted.

With the census story line, “we’re trying to fight the fear,“ Aurelio Valcarcel, an executive producer at Telemundo Studios, said.

The campaign is not merely about civic participation. Next year’s count is likely to mean more advertising revenue for Telemundo, a unit of NBC Universal, and other Spanish-language networks over time. Nielsen Ratings sample of television households is directly tied to the census results.

“It’s very good for our business,” Mr. Browne said in an interview, given that the census numbers should help substantiate audience growth.

With the enduring debates over immigration, some people are wary of giving their name, address and information about their household to the government. “In some cases they’re trying to hide from the government,” said Stacy Gimbel, a bureau spokeswoman who observed the taping. “We’re trying to convince them that their information is safe.”

Next year, in a first for the bureau, about 13 million households will receive census questionnaires in English and Spanish. But other issues compound the bureau’s challenge in trying to achieve a comprehensive count.

Some advocates warn that the recession has forced more families to share a single residence, sometimes in violation of housing codes or leases. Those families may be reluctant to provide information, said Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Some Hispanic religious leaders are urging their congregations to boycott the count, which will begin next spring, as a way of forcing Congress to act on immigration reform. Most Hispanic advocacy groups oppose such a move.

Telemundo is taking a stand in favor of the census, though it says it covers other points of view in its news programs. Mr. Vargas said Telemundo and Univision, the country’s dominant Spanish-language network, which is conducting a public service campaign of its own, were being “good corporate citizens.”

Telemundo producers started considering a census plot in the spring at the start of the network’s yearlong campaign to increase census participation. Eventually a census employee worked directly with the writer of “Diablo.”

In an episode that will be shown in early October, Ms. Beltrán is selling empanadas, stuffed pastries, on the street when a Census Bureau employee approaches her. The ensuing conversation amounts to Census 101, explaining why the count matters.

Soon Ms. Beltrán, who is played by Michelle Vargas, will become a census worker. At the Telemundo Studios last week, Ms. Beltrán was shown completing a skills test for her census job application. After handing in the test, she asks about the census, and the test administrator tells her that the information collected is “estrictamente confidencial,” or strictly confidential.

Mr. Valcarcel said previous novelas had included social messages about drug abuse and workplace violence. Working with a government agency, though, is a new strategy. He said he wanted the census information to feel as organic as possible. “I don’t want to feel like it’s a Discovery Channel documentary,” he said.

Ms. Gaitan and other consultants smiled as they watched the taping and spotted census pamphlets and logos on the set. “Do you see all the brochures?” one of the marketers asked.

“Diablo” ends its run next February. While the network has not determined if it will add census plots to any other telenovelas, Mr. Browne said that another contemporary series was in the works that would “lend itself to this.”

For more traditional forms of communication, the government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for census community outreach, part of which will be devoted to Spanish-language advertising.

Although it is hard to put a dollar figure on the people placement in “Diablo,” it may prove to be even more valuable.

Spanish-language networks say they have struggled for years to achieve advertising budget parity with the broader media marketplace. Post-census, Mr. Browne contends, they will be much closer to that goal.

In a business presentation last year for his bosses at NBC’s parent company, General Electric, Mr. Browne concluded by saying, “If you think it’s a good business now, wait until after the census.”

Sotomayor's Talk Made No Waves in '01

Newt doesn't want her on the bench. He should read her speech (given at Berkeley Law).

Sotomayor talked about her Latina identity and how it affects her work on the bench. Today, President Obama nominated Sotomayor as his first appointment to the Supreme Court. This speech was originally published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal in 2002.]

Cardozo: Hispanic?

Some may consider Benjamin Cardozo, shown in 1936, the first Hispanic justice.














While most people may believe Sonia Sotomayor is poised to become the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court, there has been a rich under-the-radar debate for years as to whether the court had already had a Hispanic justice.

A stretch?

Several people have suggested that Justice Benjamin Cardozo might properly hold the title of the court’s first Hispanic justice. Prof. Andrew Kaufman of the Harvard Law School, who is the author of a 1998 biography of Cardozo, said the debate was esoteric, complicated and, perhaps above all, amusing.

Silly.

“Was Cardozo Hispanic?” Professor Kaufman asked, noting that the assertion has been prevalent on Web sites and in articles for years. “Well, I think he regarded himself as a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula.”

The executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Arturo Vargas, said the contemporary political definition of Hispanic in the United States would definitely not include Cardozo. The practical definition he uses, Mr. Vargas said, includes people who are “descended from countries in the Americas” with a Spanish-language heritage. It does not even include those from Spain itself, he said.

A right-wing commentator appearing on the News Hour discussion of Judge Sotomayor yesterday asserted that Cardozo was the first Hispanic justice, clearly an attempt to defang the effect of President Obama's nomination of Judge Sotomayor.

Protest From the Right Side of Country

John Rich, at the Astor Place subway stop in the East Village. His new song, “Shuttin’ Detroit Down,” is uncommonly topical for a Nashville production.




There’s no screaming on the first great song of the bailout era. No audible rage. No tears. Instead, on “Shuttin’ Detroit Down,” the country star John Rich, singing evenly, sounds perfectly levelheaded, as if he’d thought through his position thoroughly and acquired the peace of the righteous:

I see all these big shots whining on my evening news

About how they’re losing billions and it’s up to me and you

To come running to

The rescue

“The song is not depressing,” Mr. Rich said last week, in an interview in the rooftop bar of a hotel in Gramercy Park. “The song is defiant.”

And for contemporary Nashville, shockingly topical. Mr. Rich, 35, conceived and wrote “Shuttin’ Detroit Down” in late January, in a fit of pique after watching news accounts of the $1.2 million office remodeling by John Thain, the Merrill Lynch chief executive. Within two weeks it had been recorded, mastered and released to country radio stations, as well as added to his new album “Son of a Preacher Man” (Warner Brothers Nashville), which had already been submitted to the label.

Well, he makes sense, but leans right. Yet he isn't simply the same old yahoo.

And he makes for a charming sermonizer. Speaking of his disbelief at government enabling of corporate arrogance on the Fox News’s “Glenn Beck Program” last week, he quipped, "Why don’t you just come to my house and slap me while you’re at it?"

That appearance was part of an album-release media offensive that included turns on “Glenn Beck” and “Hannity,” where he answered one question with a recitation of the first verse of “Detroit,” and gave Sean Hannity a T-shirt that read, “If you don’t love America ... why don’t you get the hell out?”

Well, he is something of a yahoo, clearly. Still:

Politics aside, Mr. Rich can be refreshingly undogmatic. As the host and avuncular mentor on the CMT series “Gone Country,” he shepherds once-weres from other music genres or entertainment careers in their quests to become country singers. And on the most recent season of “Nashville Star,” a country-music competition similar to “American Idol,” he was vocal about the need for Nashville to embrace Hispanic singers who can connect with the growing Hispanic population in the United States.

U.S. Births Reach Record Level

The new numbers indicate the nation is experiencing a baby boomlet with fertility rates higher in every racial group. On average, a U.S. woman has 2.1 babies in her lifetime. The highest fertility rates were among Hispanics.

Associated Press

ATLANTA -- More babies were born in the U.S. in 2007 than any year in the nation's history, topping the peak during the baby boom 50 years earlier, federal researchers reported Wednesday.

There is both good and bad news from the more than 4.3 million births: The U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend. However, the teen birth rate was up for the second year in a row.

The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40%, continuing a trend begun years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older.

For a variety of reasons, it's become more acceptable for women to have babies without a husband, said Duke University's S. Philip Morgan, a leading fertility researcher.

Even happy couples may be living together without getting married, experts say. And more women -- especially those in their 30s and 40s -- are choosing to have children despite their single status.

The new numbers indicate the nation is experiencing a baby boomlet with fertility rates higher in every racial group. On average, a U.S. woman has 2.1 babies in her lifetime. The highest fertility rates were among Hispanics.

But it's not clear the boomlet will last long. Some experts think birth rates are already declining because of the economic recession that began in late 2007.

"I expect they'll go back down. The lowest birth rates recorded in the United States occurred during the Great Depression -- and that was before modern contraception," said Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health.

The 2007 statistical snapshot reflected a relatively good economy coupled with cultural trends that promoted childbirth, she and others noted.

Meanwhile, U.S. abortions have been dropping to their lowest levels in decades, according to other reports. Some have attributed the abortion decline to better use of contraceptives, but other experts have wondered if the rise in births might indicate a failure in proper use of contraceptives. Some earlier studies have shown declining availability of abortions.

Cultural attitudes may be a more likely explanation. Mr. Morgan noted the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, the unmarried teen daughter of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The young woman had a baby boy in December, and plans for a wedding with the father, Levi Johnston, were scrapped.

"She's the poster child for what you do when you get pregnant now," Mr. Morgan said.

Teen women tend to follow what their older sisters do, so perhaps it's not surprising that teen births are going up just like births to older women, said Sarah Brown, the chief executive for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Indeed, it's harder to understand why teen births had been declining for about 15 years before the recent uptick, she said. It may have been due to a concentrated societal effort to reduce teen births in the 1990s that has waned in recent years, she said.

The statistics are based on a review of most 2007 birth certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The numbers also showed:

-Cesarean section deliveries continue to rise, now accounting for almost a third of all births. Health officials say that rate is much higher than is medically necessary. About 34% of births to black women were by C-section, more than any other racial group. But geographically, the percentages were highest in Puerto Rico, at 49%, and New Jersey, at 38%.

-The pre-term birth rate, for infants delivered at less than 37 weeks of pregnancy, declined slightly. It had been generally increasing since the early 1980s. Experts said they aren't sure why it went down.

-Among the states, Utah continued to have the highest birth rate and Vermont the lowest.

CDC officials noted that despite the record number of births, this is nothing like what occurred in the 1950s, when a much smaller population of women were having nearly four children each, on average. That baby boom quickly transformed society, affecting everything from school construction to consumer culture.

Today, U.S. women are averaging 2.1 children each. That's the highest level it's been since the early 1970s, but is a relatively small increase from the rate it had hovered at for more than 10 years and is hardly transforming.

"It's the tiniest of baby booms," said Mr. Morgan in agreement. "This is not an earthquake; it's a slight tremor."