America By The Numbers with Maria Hinojosa (ABTN) will examine voters whose power and influence are growing in a 2016 election special titled “The New Deciders.” The one-hour program will air on Tuesday, September 6, 2016 on OETA.
“The deciders in this year’s presidential election will be young people and citizens of color,” said ABTN Executive Producer Maria Hinojosa, who is also Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning weekly radio show, Latino USA, and President and Founder of the Futuro Media Group. “The racial, cultural and social landscape of America continues to change rapidly and we need to pay attention to the growing numbers of youth, Asians, Latinos, African-Americans, persons of mixed race and immigrants who are registering to vote, becoming politically engaged, and increasingly, will be determining the outcomes of elections.”
“The New Deciders” is produced by the Futuro Media Group in association with PBS and is being presented by WGBH with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Researchers and political observers say demography and population change are factors that cannot be ignored in electoral politics, and ABTN will track the link between population change and voting. ABTN will explore individual communities and demographic groups that are redefining the electoral landscape in 2016 through four segments:
- “Arab-Americans Fight Islamophobia through the Ballot” – Traveling to Cleveland, Ohio, ABTN will explore how the growing Arab-American population in the U.S. is countering the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric heard on the campaign trail by becoming more involved in electoral politics. ABTN will follow leaders in the Arab-American community in Cleveland to report how, in response to vitriolic sloganeering and threats of bans and deportations, Muslim and Christian voters of Arab descent are finding their political voice.
- “Black Millennials: Do Not Count on Us or Count Us Out!” – Young people between the ages of 18 and 33 now surpass Baby Boomers as the largest voting-eligible group in the nation. ABTN will look at the ways millennials are participating in politics by focusing on some of the most politically engaged youth in the country – African-Americans in North Carolina. In 2012, African-Americans in this swing state had the highest voter turnout of any voters in the nation. ABTN will profile black millennials on both sides of the political spectrum who say they are continuing the civil rights tradition and are building diverse coalitions to tackle local issues such as voting rights. ABTN will also examine if/how major political parties are taking notice.
- “Latino Evangelicals: The Unpredictable Evangélico Vote” – Latino Evangelicals, also known as “Evangélicos,” number at least 6 million and are growing into a powerful political force that is being courted by both parties. With Florida as the home to the third-largest Latino population in the nation, ABTN will see which candidates and issues are gaining traction among Latino Evangelicals and will document the power and influence of super-churches on this voting bloc in Orlando.
- “Asian-American Candidates Compete for the Asian Vote” – The Asian American and Pacific Islander community is the fastest-growing group in the U.S., increasing at four times the rate of the overall population. Projected to grow from 18 million in 2014 to more than 40 million by 2060, Asian Americans constitute the majority in more than a half-dozen cities in the greater Los Angeles area, and are becoming a dominant political and cultural force. ABTN will look at a state senate race between two Asian American candidates in Southern California – the only political face-off in the nation where Asian Americans will be running against each other in a non-primary race – to assess the political behavior of the AAPI population and their voting patterns in the future.
“This is a timely and important program examining our country’s ever more complex and nuanced electorate,” said Joseph Tovares, CPB chief Content Officer. ‘The New Deciders’ is reflective of the critical role that public media plays in building an informed civil society.”
“Americans trust public media to explore the issues that matter most and to provide in-depth and thoughtful coverage from diverse perspectives,” said Marie Nelson, Vice President News & Public Affairs at PBS. “‘The New Deciders’ offers an unexpected look at the changing demographic shifts in our country, and what it could mean – not only for the current election – but for the future of our nation.”
America By The Numbers with Maria Hinojosa is groundbreaking documentary reporting, which premiered on the WORLD Channel and PBS in fall 2014. ABTN is the first national series dedicated to examining how quickly the nation is becoming more diverse and how those changes are playing out in local communities across the U.S. For all the latest ABTN news and behind-the-scene footage, visit www.americabythenumbers.org.
Futuro Media Group also recently introduced two new multi-media products focused on politics, including “HUMANIZING AMERICA,” video shorts that present the human stories behind the American electorate in vignettes about engaged voters, and “In The Thick” a podcast hosted by Maria Hinojosa featuring a wide variety of reporters and pundits, providing new voices and diverse points of view about the 2016 election and a changing America. Follow the Futuro Media Group on Twitter @futuromedia and Facebook at facebook.com/TheFuturoMediaGroup.