Mobile Film Classroom is a non-profit organization with the aim of providing digital media instruction to the underserved children of Los Angeles County. Using a bus outfitted with digital technology, this digital media production studio-on-wheels provides educational classes to children of all ages. MFC provides a filmmakers bootcamp, an intro course to digital media for 3rd through 6th graders, an identity film projects for junior high students and a short documentary project for high school students.… more

Two cholo puppets talking about philosophy, their ex-girlfriends and the rims they are going to buy for their Geo Metro may not sound like forward thinking digital media — except when it’s done by the makers of the “Hey Vato” web series. Juan Rodríguez, Robert Vasquez, Marc Rivera and Aldo E. Serrano created a web series that went from an inside joke between two friends to a YouTube web series, and now a 15-minute short film that has transformed the way they see themselves as artists and writers.… more

A report from Politic365 this week had an interesting interview with Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai. In it he noted that the FCC should revisit how the agency allocates resources to minority and foreign broadcasters:

“It’s time for us to revisit this limitation and make sure that we are giving minority broadcasters and all broadcasters a full range of financial options that enable them to keep their operations afloat and to thrive,” Pai said. He also lauded the Minority Media and Telecommunication Council’s (MMTC) comments regarding how a foreign investor’s capital infusion into local broadcast stations poses no more threat to national security and poses no more risk than a foreign investment in U.S.

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Somos Primos is a website with more than a decades’ worth of news and resources pertaining to Latino genealogy. The site started out as a quarterly newsletter in 1990, but when that became too unruly, founder Mimi Lozano moved the information online in 2000. Genealogy, knowing where we come from and how we got to be where we are, is pivotal in helping us understand where we’re going, Lozano told me once. In her own life, she said that genealogy played an important role in helping her to better understand her family, and thus herself, and enabled her to pursue a good life for her own family.… more

Only Texas seniors in the top 7% of their graduating class will be guaranteed admission to the University of Texas at Austin for the summer/fall of 2014, further raising the bar for automatic admission to one of Texas’ top public colleges. Under a change to the statewide top 10% rule, only UT is allowed to limit the number of automatic admissions students to 75% of its incoming freshman class reserved for Texas residents. Since the change took effect in 2011, the percentage of those automatically admitted has been dropping.… more

A project from 4thEstate.net found that less than 1% — .9% — of front page print articles covering the 2012 presidential election were written by Latinos. Asian and African American reporters were represented in slightly higher numbers, but a whopping 93% of the stories were written by whites (Updated). And, we’d venture to say, the majority of those were written by men. According to the project:

The most striking under-representation of minorities in our data is that of Hispanic journalists, considering the Hispanic population stands at approximately 16.3% of the U.S.

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By Violeta Reinaga I am both a teacher and a filmmaker.  All of my students are either Latino or African-American, and many of them dream of attending college — the majority of would be the first in their family to do so.  I get to share my love of narrative in all its forms and open their eyes to the world around them. But as many teachers can attest, there is often a lack of representation in the canon, which is a shame given the diversity in so many of our schools.  However I’m lucky because I live in a digital world where the possibilities for creating and distributing narrative are endless. … more

If you haven’t heard of Los Master Plus, you’ve been missing out. If you have heard of them, you are going to love their latest hit! “Ponte SMART” is not only a catchy tune, but talks about the different ways Latinos (Mexicans, in this case) use technology, their smartphones in particular. The song details everything from texting to Facebooking and more. So check out this latest video and let us know what you think! Thanks to Clarissa for the tip! … more

About 1 in 6 Latino students in the country couldn’t take physics in high school if they wanted to — because their schools don’t offer the class. For African American students it’s 1 in 5, and 1 in 3 Native American students goes to a school that does not offer physics. But it gets worse, according to Vital Signs:

Things are even worse in Calculus. Schools that do not offer the subject enroll a third of Hispanic students, more than a third of Black students, and a whopping 44 percent of American Indian students… If you can’t take classes like physics or calculus in high school, you’ll have a hard time getting on a path to critical (and high-paying) jobs in fields like engineering and technology.

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By Amalia Deloney, The Center for Media Justice Prison inmates are often charged egregious rates just to be able to talk to their families. For several reasons this affects Latinos more than other groups. Recently Alex Nogales, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), spoke to this very issue:

Some at the Commission have made strong statements about the exorbitant, predatory rates that phone companies charge the families of prison inmates for phone calls — an issue that disproportionately impacts many African-American and Latino families that can least afford it — indicating that a positive change may be within reach.

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