Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Pew Hispanic Center

The PEW Research Center bills itself as supplying "the numbers, facts and trends shaping your world." Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts (oil money) the Center founded a separate project called the Pew Hispanic Center in 2001. The Pew Hispanic Center conducts polls, publishes fact sheets,, and reports on various topics.
I looked at one report on internet usage among Latinos in the US: while higher rates of going online seem to be correlated with education levels and English proficiency, I learned that the cell phone is an alternative mode of connecting for many immigrants:
Some Latinos who do not use the internet are connecting to the communications revolution in a different way – via cell phone. Fully 59% of Latino adults have a cell phone and 49% of Latino cell phone users send and receive text messages on their phone. Looking at the numbers in a different way, 56% of Latino adults go online, 18% of Latino adults have a cell phone but do not go online and 26% of Latino adults have neither a cell phone nor an internet connection.
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Between Here and There: How Attached Are Latino Immigrants to Their Native Country? is a report that gets behind the data and looks at how data concerning specific activities might be indicative of a level of attachement (and ideas of citizenship) to native countries and the U.S.
I am sure I will be sending many students to this site for the kind of data they are looking for as they do their research projects.

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