Shanthell Saenz from the documentary Small City, Big Change.
Columbia University’s Media and Idea Lab is co-releasing a new short video titled “Small City, Big Change” about the impact of Latino LGBTQ and Latino participation in LGBTQ campaigns. The video tells the story of how the Latino leadership of Chelsea, Massachusetts’s smallest city, proved to be decisive the historical passing of the state’s Transgender Equal Rights Bill in 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
The video is based on the policy brief “Small Steps to Big Change: Why Support for Local Latino Groups is Critical to LGBTQ Organizing,” a collaboration with Hispanics in Philanthropy. The brief analyzes the advocacy effectiveness of LGBTQ campaigns with national repercussions since 2008. The brief found that despite the lack of philanthropic support for Latino LGBTQ groups and initiatives, LGBTQ campaigns were 35% more successful when they engaged Latino LGBTQ and Latino communities. “There is growing evidence that Latinos support for LGBTQ rights has grown significantly over the last decade,” says Frances Negrón-Muntaner, lead researcher and director of the video. “But what we found is that this support may be pivotal. In many contexts, it can spell the difference between success and failure.”
In response to these findings, the study recommends increased support to U.S. Latino LGBTQ and Latino grassroots organizations and stronger strategic communications that raise awareness of LGBTQ issues in Latino communities.
About The Media and Idea Lab (MIL)
The Media and Idea Lab is an integral program of Columbia University’s Center of the Study of Ethnicity and Race. The Lab’s main goal is to enable students, teachers, and visitors to jointly develop curatorial, video, web, and mapping media projects that enhance understanding of crucial questions, create knowledge communities, and found discussion spaces. At its core, the Lab offers courses, project opportunities and working groups that all promote media as modes of inquiry and community-building.
About Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Ph.D.
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer and scholar, as well as the director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Among her books are: Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (CHOICE Award, 2004) and Sovereign Acts (forthcoming). Her films include AIDS in the Barrio, Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican and the upcoming television show, War in Guam. Negrón-Muntaner is also a founding board member and past chair of NALIP, National Association of Latino Independent Producers. In 2008, the United Nations’ Rapid Response Media Mechanism recognized her as a global expert in the areas of mass media and Latino/a American Studies. In 2012, she received the Lenfest Award, one of Columbia University most prestigious awards.
About Hispanics in Philanthropy
HIP brings together grantmakers to find solutions to the structural underfunding of one of the nation’s greatest resources: the growing U.S. Latino community. In doing so, HIP provides information, referrals and advice to foundations seeking to support Latino leadership and capacity building; supports Latino leaders in philanthropy, from the newest to those already in their top tier; seeds capacity building for Latino nonprofits at the local level, and promotes philanthropic collaboration and investment in areas of critical need, including aging, LGBTQ, Latino men and boys, education, and other issues.
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