Univision – Let's Dance

The Oscars this past Sunday were a celebration of diversity with “The Shape of Water,” one of my favorite films, winning for best picture and best director; Jordan Peele winning for best original screenplay; “Coco” winning for best animated film and best song and “A Fantastic Woman” from Chile winning for best foreign-language film. There were many memorable moments, i.e. Rita Moreno presenting and Guillermo Del Toro winning, but for me personally the three most impactful moments were:

Peele’s win and the reaction to the win, including this
the lack of women standing when Frances McDormand asked all female nominees to stand (as Brian Stelter reminded us, only six of the 33 Oscar winners were women and there is much work to be done, read more here)
seeing Dolores Huerta onstage because of her civil rights work

I am optimistic that the work being done by various organizations means this celebration will translate into more opportunities and access. [Post has been updated based on this breaking news.]

Univision recently launched a campaign titled “Se Habla USA.” Having worked there and seeing the passion, commitment and recognizing the incredible brand equity the company has, I decided to reach out to get more insight on the campaign. This is what Jessica Rodriguez, president and chief operating officer of UCI Networks, and chief marketing officer of Univision Communications Inc. shared: “Given the narrative around diversity, languages and culture in the past months, as a company that has in its DNA to stand up and represent the underrepresented, we saw an opportunity to use the power of our platforms to further instill a sense of pride. Univision is enabling our community to truly celebrate the beautiful language of Español, Hispanic culture, and all the achievements they have brought to this country. Se Habla USA aims to create a positive narrative and unite all cultures that make this nation so great and successful.” Talking about Univision, congratulations to CEO Randy Falco and the other honorees of the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s 21st Annual Impact Awards.

Last week Kapor Center for Social Impact unveiled “The Leaky Tech Pipeline.” Its “framework and website are meant to increase understanding of the causes of disparities in the technology ecosystem, raise awareness about effective strategies and stages for intervention, and drive the development and implementation of comprehensive solutions.” On the tech front, I learned about “Rise of the Rest” from an article in Wired. I think it is fantastic and would hope to see some border cities in Texas and New Mexico added to this effort in the near future.

On Friday I attended “The Future of Hispanics” conference, a project of The American Bar Foundation. Here is the website created for this initiative which aims “to generate findings that can be utilized by organizations and individuals who work to advance justice for the Latino community.” It was an interesting conversation, the third conference to date. Having Dr. Eduardo Padron open by sharing his story was inspiring. The information and insight focused on Florida and Miami. As one attendee said, it was a very valuable discussion. Much more to come on this effort as the organization holds additional sessions across the country.

This week we also saw the report from MarketWatch titled “When a woman or person of color becomes CEO, white men have a strange reaction;” also this must-read piece in LinkedIn by Ashlene Nand titled “Ad Agencies Are Still So Shamefully White & It’s Affecting All Of Us;” and this from knowledge@wharton titled “How Firms Can do a Better Job of Leveraging Diversity.”

Last week it was announced the shutdown of UNITY, an umbrella organization for minority journalists. I had the opportunity to attend UNITY and found it an engaging and productive event, hopefully we’ll find other ways to have these groups come together.

Finally, in case you missed it, the regional grocery retail store HEB worked with Selena Quintanilla’s sister Suzette to create a reusable grocery bag with Selena’s image. The bags not only sold out but crashed the website. This was done more than for marketing, HEB is donating $25,000 as part of the collaboration.

Today I’m in DC for the International Women’s Day Forum convened by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the U.S. Department of State, more on that next week.

I’ve had the honor of working with many Hispanic-focused organizations throughout my career and have been following the turmoil at two of these leading Hispanic-serving organizations closely. USHCC CEO stepped down following claims of “sexual and financial improprieties” and Fernand Fernandez has been named interim CEO as the organization conducts a search. The League of United Latin American Citizens faced its own turmoil. The embattled, elected president of the organization decided not to resign following controversy resulting from a letter he sent to President Trump which led to the CEO, who has been at the helm of the organization for 30 years, to resign. Here is a good piece from Suzanne Gamboa on how things transpired. LULAC was one of the first clients I worked with at Fleishman-Hillard as they were holding the conference in Dallas, Texas in the 1990s. We will have to wait and see what happens but it has been very moving to see the many comments on social media about the important impact Brent Wilkes had during his tenure at the organization. LULAC and USHCC have done great work for our community and it is disappointing to see this turn of events.

The current turmoil at these two organizations is concerning to say the least as the community faces so many challenges. Raul Reyes has this great piece in The Hill touching on this. Having said that, there is great work being done by these and other Hispanic-serving organizations including NALEO, UnidosUS (formerly called NCLR), MALDEF, Latino Donor Collaborative and professional groups including Prospanica (formerly called NSHMBA), HNBA, SHPE, and ALPFA to name a few. It is unfortunate that the issues facing two groups are taking away from the important work being done.

This story from PBS stating that cities are “pitching their diversity in order to lure businesses” caught my attention. It’ll be interesting if diversity plays a key role in Amazon’s decision for its second headquarters.

Other headlines this week include NLRB siding with Google and this from NBC regarding NASCAR’s two milestones this week as “Darrell “Bubba” Wallace, Jr. and tire changer Brehanna Daniels will make history during the Daytona 500 race weekend.”

Did you think I would ignore the premiere weekend of Black Panther? Of course not! This headline from the New York Times says it all : ‘Black Panther’ Smashes Box Office Records and Hollywood Myths. This from Peter Rubin is an important point and here is this from CNN. Here is also this Letitia Wright profile in Vanity Fair. One of my favorites moments was this one, when Serena Williams surprised Black Girls Code students.

This week don’t miss Univision’s Premio Lo Nuestro as it celebrates its 30th anniversary. Read more here.

Finally, ICYMI, here is this great Makers interview of Yai Vargas from Latinistas.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Tag: Univision

LULAC and USHCC turmoil, cities leading with diversity, Google, Black Panther, Premio Lo Nuestro, Latinistas & more