The People Speak

The University of Washington worked with State Farm Insurance and tú Decides Newspaper to conduct a Hispanic market study at a recent event.

Here are some highlights:

• When local Latinos were asked about the most important issues when it comes to choosing a president, they listed economy and jobs at the top.
• As issues with greatest importance, the nation's economy, the state's economy and education led.
• When asked about whether the situation for Hispanics in Washington State was better, worse, or about the same, males and females responded significantly differently. The majority of women found it about the same (56.5%) or worse (30.4%), whereas men responded that it was about the same (38.3%) or better (30%). In general, we could say that Hispanics feel their situation here is about the same. Note that there was no significant difference in how U.S. born versus foreign-born Hispanics responded.
• Men were found to be generally much more confident about their financial situation than women, but in general Hispanics are only somewhat confident.

For more details on the study, visit the newspaper's bilingual site and look up the October 31, 2008 edition:
http://www.tudecidesmedia.com/

More Media Updates!

I failed to mention another interesting update in Washington state Hispanic media, which was just announced in the current issue of Tú Decides, the bilingual newspaper that earlier this year made its way over the mountains to Western WA.

Several big-name businesspeople have invested in the paper. They are:

• Edgar Martinez, CEO of Branded Solutions by Edgar Martinez.
  
• Dr. Pedro Celis, Distinguished Engineer and CTO in the SQL Server group at Microsoft
  
• Frank Armijo, Program Director and General Manager for Lockheed Martin Information Systems and Global Services
  
• Diehl R. Rettig, Senior Partner of the law firm Rettig, Osborne, Forgette, O’Donnell, Iller & Adamson LLP
  
• Michael E. Sotelo, President of Approach Management Services (Approach) and W.G. Clark Construction Co. and Chairman of the Washington State Association of Hispanic Chambers
  
• William N. Lampson, President of Neil F. Lampson, Inc., one of the largest crane and heavy rigging organizations in the United States
  
• Todd Halterman, President & CEO of Pacific Crest Planning, Inc., a financial planning firm
  
• Craig Gaylord, founder and owner of Fiesta Foods in Eastern Washington.
  
• Dr. Robert Rettig, founder of Back to Basics Chiropractic in Kennewick
  
• Fran Forgette, partner in the Tri-City law firm of Rettig Osborne Forgette, LLP
  
• Albert Torres, founder and CEO/Publisher of Tú Decides Media, Inc.
  
• Blanca Torres, founder of Tú Decides Media, Inc. and President/CEO of EXPO NW LLC
  
• Ismael Campos, founder and Vice-Chairman of tú Decides Media, Inc.
  
• Gracie Campos, founder of tú Decides Media, Inc. and Vice-President of EXPO NW LLC

So it appears that this relatively new publication is stronger than ever. What impressed me was the involvement of non-Latinos in the future of Tú Decides.

The company's deal with The Seattle Times, to include Tú Decides in Times issues going to Newspapers in Education, should take effect in the coming months.

More to come...