Latinos make up a significant percentage of box office receipts, and according to a graphic from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), they are proportionately more ardent movie goers than other ethnic groups. Despite being only 16% of the population, Latinos buy 24% of the movie tickets. Latinos bought $30.6 million in movie tickets in 2011 compared to $80.6 million bought by whites and $15.3 million bought by African Americans. That works out to about 5.3 films per capita for Latinos, compared to 3.7 for blacks and 3.5 for whites.… more

Eleven year-old Paloma Noyola Martínez is the top math student in Mexico, according to the national Enlace test, and the kicker is that she lives in a community of people who survive from scavenging a dump in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Incidentally, she placed third overall in Spanish. Paloma attends a school with other children whose families depend on the dump, which is located across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. “I’m happy and very proud and I’m going to continue to study,” she told local media, adding that her family and friends pleaded with her to “continue to keep trying her hardest.” Paloma’s mother, Guadalupe Martínez, asked the state secretary of education to help her continue to send her daughter to school, since she is a widow and cannot afford to send her daughter to middle school.… more

By Maria Elena Alvarez Albuquerque, New Mexico — One of the most prominent Latino voices today on the media landscape is María Hinajosa. Through her NPR program Latino USA, and many documentaries for the PBS series Frontline, the Mexican-born, Chicago-raised, New York City professional is the leading the charge to inform the nation about the Latino experience. Through her trusted voice over the past 25 years, she has devoted her career to presenting an authentic and humane picture of Latinos in the USA.… more

Ever wonder where all the women in science and tech are? According to one study, one reason there are such low numbers of women in these fields is because their science professors don’t think they are as smart as their male counterparts. Sadly, these biases applied to both male, and female, professors. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and titled “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students.” According to a New York Times article about the study:

…professors were less likely to offer the women mentoring or a job.

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Diego Valle-Jones created an interactive map tracking homicides related to Mexico’s drug war. Data from the map runs from 2004 to 2010 and users can search for marijuana, opium and other drug-related violence. You can search the map with, or without, the names of cities. You can also zoom in and out of the map to see different details up close. Valle-Jones created the map with data from official Mexican sources. He wrote about the map on his blog:

 The really cool thing about the map is that it makes it very easy to select regions of Mexico and link directly to them, which makes refuting mistaken claims by government officials…a cinch.

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Every year in San Antonio present and former members of the media via the Society of Professional Journalists put on a show, Gridiron, to raise money for scholarships. This year, hot on the heels of his lauded Democratic National Convention speech, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro participated. He helped the group make the following video in which the Siri iPhone app reveals itself to be chock full of stereotypical Latino assumptions. Castro — who we interviewed and actually fully understands the need for more Latinos in tech and is working towards a solution in his hometown — plays along, and it’s pretty funny, check it out.… more

An interesting piece comes from Broadband & Social Justice, examining the fact that many YouTube stars are people of color, but don’t seem to have the financial backing that other stars do. On the one hand, YouTube stars are disproportionately people of color; on the other, venture capitalists are not. So, according to the piece:

The Washington Post article mentions advertising as the primary source of income for YouTube channels owned by people of color.  However, the Wall Street Journal article acknowledges that advertising is only one revenue stream for YouTube channel owners.

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A new study found that mentors of a similar background can help usher young people into STEM. The study, “Individual differences in preferences for matched-ethnic mentors among high-achieving ethnically diverse adolescents in STEM” was published in the journal “Child Development” recently. The study found that, for minority youth, having a mentor of a similar background could really make a difference:

Over the four weeks of the program, their perceptions of contact with mentors of similar background increased and were also associated with an increased sense of identity and belonging as a science student.

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Participant Media is using an online and social media campaign to promote its new film, “No,” about an ad campaign that contributed to the end of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s presidency. The film stars Gael García Bernal as advertising executive Rene Saavedra who spearheads a campaign against Pinochet during a referendum in 1988. The film was released in Chile on August 9 and is set to be released in the U.S. early next year. Amanda Farrand of Participant Media said the social media campaign is meant to mirror that of Saavedra’s: a free speech campaign that empowers people to speak out.… more

Border Fact Check is a website that provides answers to questions related to the border, providing factual information to back up its answers. A few questions include: Are terrorists crossing the border “from time to time?”, Are migrants routinely abused by Customs and Border Protection agents? and Is Texas unprotected, or just empty? The site is run by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and seems to have gone up earlier this year.… more