{"id":21474,"date":"2023-12-16T05:33:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T11:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21474"},"modified":"2023-12-16T05:33:35","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T11:33:35","slug":"california-billboards-call-attention-to-latino-media-and-investment-disparities-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21474","title":{"rendered":"California billboards call attention to Latino media and investment disparities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amid conservative campaigns to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs<\/a>, a Latino group is vowing to hold accountable those who have promised to keep investing in and representing Hispanic people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recently formed nonprofit group Aqu\u00ed: The Accountability Movement<\/a>, launched mobile billboards Thursday in San Francisco and Los Angeles as part of its \u201cShow the Receipts\u201d campaign to draw attention to disparities between Latinos\u2019 economic contributions and how the community is represented in turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The billboards are part of Aqu\u00ed\u2019s mission to be a watchdog on promises made to the Latino community, and to put pressure on those who make them to deliver, said Nathaly Arriola Maurice, a former Obama and Biden White House staffer who is now Aqu\u00ed\u2019s lead strategist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery single Hispanic Heritage Month, someone comes out with something, a pledge, commitment, or even a statement \u2026 saying, \u2018My company has X number of Latinos employed,\u2019 or, \u2018My company aims to have this amount of money spent on Latino talent in news or film.\u2019 Who is actually following up with that?\u201d Arriola Maurice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The San Francisco billboard calls attention to continued disparities in capital and investment in Latino startups<\/a>. It displays an image of a store receipt highlighting the economic output of Latino consumers<\/a> ($3.4 trillion) versus the amount invested in Latino startups<\/a> ($1.3 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Latino Collaborative study released last year found that U.S. Latinos\u2019 economic output would rank them\u00a0fifth in the world<\/a>\u00a0were they their own country. And though there has been significant growth in Latino startups, the share of all business investments going to those companies is in\u00a0the single digits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Los Angeles, the billboard calls out the lack of Latino representation in film<\/a> despite the community\u2019s high box office spending<\/a>. A similar store receipt shows the stark contrast between ticket sales<\/a> to Latinos (29%) and Latino movie leads<\/a> (5%) and directors (3%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This campaign comes after another in October that sent a message to corporate America through a digital ad. The ad, titled \u201cY Ahora Qu\u00e9? (Now What?),\u201d<\/a> attacked companies that celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month but lacked Latino leadership and representation and invested little in Latino communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arriola Maurice said calling for accountability on promises to the community is overdue considering that the Latino population \u2014 now more than 62 million \u2014 has been driving U.S. growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that Aqu\u00ed’s founding follows decades of work by Latino civil rights groups to help make real their hard-fought gains. The group’s three areas of focus are: corporate representation, hate rhetoric against Latinos, and improving narratives about Latinos in media. The group plans to create a speakers bureau, through which it will train Latinos for media appearances and help get them booked on media outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAqu\u00ed is focused on shifting all the negative things that are said about who we are, elevating our voices and then positioning us in places of power to ensure that the focus is on us, whether that\u2019s with media, whether that\u2019s in the boardroom … calling those things out,\u201d said Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, chair of Aqu\u00ed\u2019s board and outgoing CEO of Latino Community Foundation<\/a>, a philanthropic group that invests in Latino organizations in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLatinos are here. We are not going anywhere,\u201d she added. \u201cYou can celebrate us 30 days out of the year, and that\u2019s not right, it\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid conservative campaigns to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a Latino group is vowing to hold accountable those who have promised to keep investing in and representing Hispanic people. The recently formed nonprofit group Aqu\u00ed: The Accountability Movement, launched mobile billboards Thursday in San Francisco and Los Angeles as part of its \u201cShow the Receipts\u201d campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[25045,1189,25049,25048],"class_list":["post-21474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-billboards","tag-california","tag-investment-differences","tag-latino-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21476,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21474\/revisions\/21476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}