By Juanita Barajas
Hispanic Professional Network

“Suertuda” (lucky) is definitely a fitting word when used to describe Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo’s luck of late. Her current project “La Reina del Sur” has become an instant hit, making it the highest rated premier telenovela in the history of Telemundo. In the soap opera, Del Castillo portrays the lead character, Teresa Mendoza.

Del Castillo is not new to the acting business. She got her start in front of the cameras as a child and recently crossed over to the English market interpreting characters in “Under the Same Moon” and more recently Showtime’s hit series “Weeds,” to name a few.

This past weekend the actress was in Chicago to mingle with her fans and show her appreciation for the amazing support “La Reina del Sur” has received.

Hispanic Pro had an opportunity to briefly chat with Del Castillo amidst the madness. We learned what she thinks about the success of the telenovela, why she feels sadness for her country and what she really thinks about Mendoza’s whereabouts.

“I have been very lucky, it was marvelous that they wanted me to interpret Mendoza,” the actress said about her feelings toward the project adding that she feels fortunate for the opportunity. When addressing the success of the telenovela, she added that, “It’s a hit because, it has been a hit for I don’t know how many years. Anytime you have a good story, well, there are going to be [those] results." When the beautiful actress learned that she would be interpreting this role, she reread the book an additional three more times. She had initially read it when it was published.

“It was my bible,” she said because she wanted to ensure that she could engage the viewer and really connect them with Mendoza. Del Castillo stressed that this project is not meant to “glamorize” the narcotráfico lifestyle, a misconception that people have about the project.

“Anybody that has read the book or watched the novela can see that it’s the complete opposite. What Teresa Mendoza lives in is a hell.”  This hell on Earth has caused Mexico to become one of the deadliest countries due to the ongoing drug cartel wars.

“It makes me feel super sad. I have the desire to bring my family with me. I miss them and of course I fear for them, but I am also Mexican and I want to go back and do something for my country,” she said about the current situation.

In regards to the woman she brings to life, she had this to say: “Look, I think that we don’t even know if she exist or not. I know it’s based on true events. True events and that is it. Arturo Perez-Reverte [the author of the book] hasn’t even told me. I think we all have our fantasies about Mendoza. Maybe it’s one of you.”

So there you have it folks. Teresa Mendoza, can very well be any of us, but for now you can catch her weekdays on Telemundo at 9 p.m.

A comprehensive look at voter behavior and demographics reveals a momentous prospect: A Hispanic electorate that votes en masse, allies itself with one political party and changes America’s political balance for decades.

The rapid growth in the U.S. Hispanic population over the last 40 years — both in terms of raw numbers and percentage of the population — is probably the most important emergent force in American politics today. The evidence is around us: In 2008, each party conducted an entire presidential primary debate in Spanish. In 2009, the first Hispanic judge, Sonia Sotomayor, was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in 2010, for the first time ever in a single election, three Hispanic candidates won top statewide offices: Republican Brian Sandoval became Nevada’s first Hispanic governor; Republican Susana Martinez won in New Mexico to become the nation’s first Hispanic woman elected governor; and Republican Marco Rubio was elected to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate.

Despite these notable top-of-the-ticket wins by Hispanic Republicans in 2010, most political observers continue to assume there is significant and stable support for Democrats among Hispanics, similar to the support that African Americans have shown in recent decades. Indeed, new Hispanic voters have entered the electorate more often as Democrats than as Republicans in recent elections.

But the current degree of Hispanic attachment to the Democratic Party is by no means a future certainty. READ MORE

When Fernando Molina left central Mexico to move to Illinois, he was searching for affordable housing, job opportunities and established Hispanic neighborhoods with grocery stores, bakeries and clothing shops.

He didn't head for Chicago, a well-known magnet for Mexicans pondering the journey north. Instead, he settled in Aurora, about 40 miles to the west.

"It's like Mexico inside the United States," said Molina, 37, a social worker who has lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and now assists other immigrant families. "You can find everything in the stores."

Over the last decade, tens of thousands of others have followed his path to Aurora — more than 35,000 of about 55,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010 were Hispanic. The city, which is now 40 percent Hispanic, has surpassed Rockford to become Illinois' second-largest city.

The trend of immigrants heading directly to American suburbs instead of starting in a major city intensified from 2000 to 2010 — and was one factor in Illinois' 32.5 percent increase in Hispanic population in that period, according to recently released U.S. Census data.

Demographers say they aren't just seeing it around Chicago. The same thing is happening around other major cities that have long been entry points for immigrants, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even as the steep growth of the Hispanic population in Chicago tapered off, the arrival of Hispanics helped make Kendall County west of Aurora the fastest growing county in the U.S. for several years during the decade.

For many Hispanics in northern Illinois, Aurora supplanted Chicago as a cultural hub, and the growth has transformed smaller and smaller towns. READ MORE

Speaking of the census numbers and other evidence of the growing Hispanic population in the US, I learned this morning that “Hispanic communities have one of the only girl populations in the country that is growing.” That’s from a press release from the Girl Scout Council of Northern Texas, which has just unveiled a program to create “Spanish-language recruitment materials, program collateral and Girl Scouting guides.”

It’s part of a national campaign focused on recruiting Hispanic girls using a broad range of traditional media and digital/social tech.

There are a couple of things about this campaign that I find noteworthy:

–the fact that Hispanics in fact represent one of the few “girl populations that is growing.” Not quite sure I fully understand that, and I’d like to dig deeper in a future blog post. – the fact that the Girl Scouts are using an integrated approach to reach a young population.  It’s a complex project involving strategies for reaching both children and their parents (see the print ad to the left) in both English and Spanish. READ MORE

The number of Hispanic organ donors in the United States has increased thanks to educational campaigns in Spanish, but this effort is still not sufficient given the need.

According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, 110,667 patients in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are waiting for a transplant.

Getting an organ is almost a miracle, according to Martina Castañeda, who three years ago received a kidney transplant.

"They told me about (Atlanta's) Emory Hospital and said it had a gift from God for me, I was on a three-month waiting list. It was a blessing," she tells Efe.

In Georgia at least 3,000 patients are waiting for an organ donation, says Carlos Castro, coordinator of the LifeLink organization's link for Hispanic donors.

Researchers are using graphic novels to convey health information to Latinos.

"In 2006, for every 60 people who said they wanted to be donors in Georgia, four were Latinos, which increased in 2010 to eight (out of every 60)," Castro says, adding that the main reason for such a low percentage of Latino donors was the lack of information and religiously based misconceptions.

Castro says that many Hispanics wonder if organ donors can rise again for the Last Judgment since their bodies are incomplete, to which the coordinator answers that, as the Catholic Church tells us, resurrection is spiritual and not physical.

Castañeda says she also heard that some people think that if they sign up as donors and have an accident, they'll no doubt be killed to have their organs extracted.

But the lack of donors isn't the only reason why many patients die waiting for an organ - the high cost of transplants is another obstacle to staying alive.

A heart transplant, for example, can cost as much as $287,000 depending on the hospital. And a kidney transplant can cost $51,000. READ MORE

Gilbert Villegas Jr. was recently appointed by Governor Pat Quinn to the Chief of Staff position at the Illinois Capital Development Board. As the construction management agency for Illinois state government since 1972, the Capital Development Board (CDB) oversees the construction of new state facilities, such as prisons, colleges and university classroom buildings, mental health hospitals and state parks. In addition, CDB is responsible for renovation and rehabilitation projects at the State’s 8,441 state-owned buildings containing more than 96 million square-feet of floor space. Mr. Villegas oversees a staff of 124 State personnel and a $25 million dollar operating budget.

The agency also works with the Illinois State Board of Education to administer grants for school construction and renovation to local elementary and secondary school districts through the School Construction Program. In addition to its construction duties, CDB also is responsible for the removal of hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead from state-owned facilities, the replacement of leaking underground storage tanks on state property and the remodeling of state buildings to accommodate persons with disabilities.

As the Associate Director at the Hispanic American Construction Industry Association (HACIA) Mr. Villegas oversaw Government Affairs for the organization, as well as administered a variety of programs which focused on business and workforce development, apprenticeship training, minority/woman certification, and a universal spectrum of diversity advocacy in the public and private sectors of the construction industry. Mr. Villegas was responsible for ensuring HACIA had a presence and a voice at all levels of Government within the State of Illinois. Mr. Villegas recently spearheaded the development and lobbying efforts behind passage of two instrumental Illinois Senate Bills (SB 351 and SB3249), ensuring minority and women owned businesses have a principal opportunity to participate on state funded projects. These two Illinois Senate Bills have the ability to account for approximately $3-6 billion dollars in contracting opportunities for minority and women owned businesses.

Mr. Villegas has been recognized as a leader in promoting small and disadvantaged contracting within the mainstream of their industries. Prior to joining HACIA in May of 2008, Mr. Villegas served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Business and Workforce Diversity at the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) for 5 years. As the Deputy Director he oversaw two departments: the Bureaus of Small Business Enterprises and the statewide District Equal Employment Opportunity Contract Compliance Officers. During his tenure at IDOT, he helped to establish innovative programs which increased minority and women business participation and created On-the-Job Training (OJT) initiatives.

Mr. Villegas is a former U.S. Marine and served during Operations Desert Shield/ Desert Storm. His responsibilities included coordination of logistics and deployment of equipments needed for daily operations during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Mr. Villegas was assigned to the 2nd Light Anti-Aircraft Missile (LAAM) Battalion in Yuma, AZ prior to his deployment to Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Mr. Villegas was honorably discharged after serving his country for four years. Mr. Villegas received numerous awards and honors while in the U.S. Marines.

Mr. Villegas’s career has been marked by service to others. Mr. Villegas is currently a board member on the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation, McCormick-Tribune YMCA and the Illinois Veterans Foundation. He also is a member of the Diversity Action Committee, Commissioner for the Village of Elmwood Park Zoning and Building Committee and Chairman of the Hispanic Political Action Committee of Illinois (HPAC).

Despite an active life and busy schedule, Mr. Villegas has found time to volunteer to a host of other nonprofit and grass root organizations providing technical assistance, guidance, training and mentoring. READ MORE

When the 2000 Census data was released, it was a wake-up for many advertisers, who had not been spending time or money targeting Hispanics. The Hispanic population was exploding, to the surprise of many. That prompted marketers to begin moving dollars into Hispanic media, if not at the clip the new numbers justified. Now, with the 2010 Census out, it seems we're poised to see the same sort of reaction. The latest numbers reveal that Hispanics now account for one out of every six Americans. Surprisingly, just 4 percent of overall media spending is targeted to them, according to Wing, WPP's multicultural agency. But already media companies are recognizing the opportunity and starting to up their Hispanic media presence. A few days ago Fox announced the launch of a new Hispanic network group, including a new channel, and NBCUniversal is rolling out a marketing effort aimed at Hispanics. Wing president and CEO Alain Groenendaal talks to Media Life about what media people can learn from the Census, what surprises came out of it, and where media could improve its targeting of Hispanics.

What are the three most important things that media people should take away from the recent Census?

One is I think in 2000 there was this important segment you needed to start addressing. But now you can't think of it as general market as separate and Hispanic as separate, you really need to think of all targets from the get-go. So there's a lot of clean-slate thinking.

Another important thing is how do you think about this combination? How do you look at an overall media plan, what are the overlaps and how do you plan for that in an efficient way?

And the other thing is, when you start thinking about specific targets—mothers, younger demos, etc.—how do you get out of your assumptions and see what's going on and how Hispanic could be a driver for business?


Was there anything that surprised you about the Census data in terms of Hispanics, how the population is growing and what it means for their buying power?

I think one is this idea of people being in unexpected places. That's pretty interesting. I mean like Georgia, Montana—in that state Hispanics are growing seven times faster than the non-Hispanic population. It's doubled in Kentucky—it's places you would never think. READ MORE

Businesses founded by Latinos are contributing hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the Iowa economy at the same time that they are training a new generation of community leaders, according to a report released Wednesday by Iowa State University.

The study reveals that an important factor in the growth of small businesses in Iowa are the state's "newest residents, enterprising Latino immigrants in small communities who are very diverse in age, skills and education."

During 2010, Iowa's Hispanic business community contributed $457 million to the local economy, with total sales of $288 million and a combined payroll of $54 million, according to figures from ISU Extension.

While the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs says the number of Hispanic firms grew from 1,343 in 1997 to 2,252 in 2007, they still comprise less than 1 percent of the total.

According to the 2010 Census, of Iowa's 3 million residents, about 4.5 percent are Hispanic, and of those almost 70 percent are immigrants.

In cities like Waterloo, the Latino population has doubled over the past 10 years with the concomitant growth in the number of Hispanic businesses. In other towns, including Columbus Junction and West Liberty, Hispanics now represent 40 percent of the population.

Because of this growth, ISU Extension and other organizations developed a business training plan focused on Latinos. READ MORE

Obviously the headline is a play on the well-known film "Real Women Have Curves," which became the battle cry for all other-than-skinny Latinas. But according to researchers at Arizona State University (ASU), more and more Latinos see a woman's curves as anything but sexy.

Researchers at the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts collected data from 10 countries and territories, including the U.S., on their cultural attitudes towards fat and obesity.

The findings were disappointing.

Countries that at one time viewed obesity in a neutral or positive light were now found to view it negatively, to the point of stigmatizing obese individuals.

In "Body Norms and Fat Stigma in Global Perspective," researchers found that in countries like Puerto Rico, Paraguay and Mexico, where obesity used to be considered "normal," there was now an anti-fat attitude.

In fact, among all the countries, Mexico and Paraguay had the highest fat stigma scores. The researchers credit this global spread of stigmatizing overweight people with public health or fitness campaigns that target obese individuals as the ones at fault for gaining weight rather than including social or environmental factors that contribute to weight gain.

"Stigma causes prejudice and discrimination and a lot of emotional suffering. The spread of stigmatizing ideas has the potential to do enormous social damage," said Alexandra Brewis, executive director of the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change and director of the Center for Global Health. READ MORE

In my last two HuffPost entries I addressed the stellar showing of Hispanics in the

2010 Census: 50 million strong, accounting for more than half the population growth in the United States over the past decade, and making staggering gains in crucial states like Texas and California as well as traditionally non-Hispanic states like North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana. Leading this growth are Latino children and youth, a segment that is not even yet old enough to vote, but who have a remarkable impact on today's trends, pop culture and economy.

Kids under 18 have accounted for a significant portion of Hispanic growth, and a large chunk of them are 5 and under: In California and Texas alone 90% of new births can claim Latino heritage. I like to call them the "Dora Generation," after the popular Nickelodeon cartoon character Dora the Explorer.

The show was devised over a decade ago and soon took off and became one of the most popular children's icons in history, spawning a multi-million dollar empire of products (books, dolls, clothing, games, CDs, backpacks) marketed equally to Hispanic and non-Hispanic parents and children. The Dora phenomenon continues unabated today with a new generation of kids following perfectly bilingual Dora and her sidekicks Boots, Diego and others in their adventures, being inspired by their curiosity, and taking on her Latino culture as their own.

Dora's original audience is now composed of tweens, and they represent an even more

crucial market for brands. Not only are they much more digitally savvy and media saturated than any generation that came before, this group is also much more likely to be multicultural. They were also raised with stories and trends that were more likely to draw from diversity: like Dora, of course. The Dora phenomenon, like this Census itself, signals an important threshold for the growing Latino influence in the mainstream.

What The Dora Generation Can Teach Business

• Kids marketing and multicultural marketing have become one, as most kids come from a multicultural background, especially Latino. Brands should tap into the unique experiences of these kids growing up in two worlds as fodder for product innovation; a new Dora might be next in line.

• Rethink your marketing strategies when speaking to moms. Ask yourself whether your brand is incorporating Latina cultural insights into your product development given that Latinas are the main growth pillar in the mommy segment.

• Dora is a smart girl and she knows there's money to be made by knowing other languages, especially in this tougher inter-connected global economy. This presents some product opportunities in the creation of bilingual educational toys for the kids, as well as language and cultural products for adults. READ MORE

As women grow older, the risk of heart disease and stroke rises and it keeps rising with age, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). But it can also, nonetheless, hit young women in their 20s or 30s, if the right precautions aren't taken.

One of the biggest reasons for heart problems in the Latino community is diabetes. A little over 13 percent of Latinas are diagnosed with diabetes compared to 13 percent in the African-American community and 6 percent in the Anglo community, according to AHA.

Even more Latinas are diagnosed with pre-diabetes, with 27 percent compared to 22 percent in the African-American community and 21 percent in the Anglo community. The AHA reports that "Adults with diabetes have heart disease rates that are two to four times those of adults without diabetes."

Diabetes by itself is enough of a strain on a healthy heart but when it's aggravated by not eating the right foods, then additional problems, like obesity and high cholesterol, can arise that add to the list of risk factors for a person to develop heart disease.

According to Dr. Rabadán-Diehl, deputy director of the Office of Global Health for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the spokeswoman for The Heart Truth, the NHLBI's national awareness campaign for women about heart disease, high blood pressure and lack of exercise round out the risk factors that increase a woman's chances for developing heart disease.

"Heart disease is brewed over decades and its impact can be devastating," Dr. Rabadán-Diehl said during a telephone conference call. "We (Latinas) have to empower ourselves (with knowledge). It's critical that we take charge of our own risk assessment. It's never too late or too early to prevent heart disease." READ MORE

Latinos benefit from antidepressants like everybody else — only they do not use them nearly as often. The trick is getting past some cultural barriers.

A study appearing in the March-April issue of General Hospital Psychiatry confirms that the stigma of mental illness, poor communication with physicians and the underuse of antidepressants all play a major part in delaying the recovery of Latinos from depression.

The study authors followed the recovery of 220 Latinos who screened positive for depression at two clinics in Los Angeles County over 30 months. Overall, they found that nearly 70 percent of participants improved, albeit slowly, following a course of antidepressants and with the benefit of good physician-patient communication, but stigma remained an important barrier. Most of the participants were underemployed, Spanish-speaking Latinas with limited education, who had access to health care insurance.

“Doctor-patient communication is often the primary tool for bridging the gap between patients’ perspectives and the biomedical model that underlies medication-based treatments for depression,” said lead author Alejandro Interian, Ph.D., of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. READ MORE