MATT.org: Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together
“Thinking together?” You mean as opposed to hurling invective at each other? Well, I suppose it’s worth a try.
I saw the billboard above on my way home from work last night, way out west on North Ave. I was intrigued and visited the website, which is rather interesting.
Not only is there a range of opinion from the American side, but there’s also the Mexican perspective, including the views of candidates in Mexico’s upcoming Presidential election.
It’s a helpful reminder that our policies here in the U.S. reverberate throughout the world and play a role in the domestic politics of other countries (for another reminder, see: the last Iranian elections, in which Bush’s big mouth helped push hardliners into power, or for that matter, the last Palestinian elections).
I visited the http://www.matt.org site, too. I am afraid that it could be a GOP front. For astroturfing, harvesting or red herring or more…
Lionel Sosa, Texan from San Antonio, is the lead on the site. It seems most of the posters are gringos, with a few other latinos who might be sympathetic to one view or the other.
I got a little squeamish when I could not find sponsorship and when they asked posters to be polite, “not bleepable”, suggesting some agenda behind the scenes.
;-)
MV
MV-
INteresting point- thanks for your comment!
What is the funding source of this site?
As an individual who has lived almost twenty years in countries other than the U.S., I find it interesting that ALL countries require passports and visas. Children born in foreign countries must depart with the parents. Dual citizenship is mainly a pretext to obtain names for draft purposes.{Many have been the occasions when we waited at a border crossing, hoping that our “papers” were correct even though we had attempted to do everything “by the book.”)
Good question. I used the “contact us” form on the MATT.org site to ask them from whence they derive their funding. We’ll see if I get a response.
Thanks for your comments!
Information about MATT co-founder Mr. Sosa…..
MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Sun, May. 07, 2006
FLORIDA CITY
Website’s goal: cross-border dialogue
…Founders want the site — MATT.org, for ”Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together” — to be ”a people’s think tank,” a place where users can pinpoint problems at the grass roots level and devise new solutions.
”We’re joined at the Rio Grande, and we’re going to be joined forever. So why can’t we work together to solve our problems?” said co-founder Lionel Sosa, who unveiled the site before a group of Harvard social scientists on Friday, Cinco de Mayo.
”Up until now, the main reason for Cinco de Mayo was to sell more beer,” said Sosa, who is also founder of the largest Hispanic advertising agency in the United States. “But now there’s a real reason for Cinco de Mayo to be celebrated in the U.S. this year, and that’s to bring people together.”
The idea for MATT.org was born last year over dinner and cigars in San Antonio, Texas, where a dozen Mexican-American businessmen met to brainstorm alternatives for a cross-border networking group, Sosa said.
Current events soon overtook that plan, as immigration rallies erupted across the country.
Yet for all the simmering tensions that the protests exposed, they also unleashed the vast, untapped energy of a broader Mexican and bicultural community in the U.S., Sosa said.
‘We thought, `Let’s go after that first, and the business part will come later,’ ” Sosa recalled. “Let’s take that energy that’s on the streets and put it somewhere that’s productive.”
As a result, MATT.org’s dozen wealthy Mexican-American benefactors
— whom Sosa declined to identify, saying even he didn’t know all their names —
have funded a $3 million media campaign to run TV, radio, print, bus and billboard ads across four states until July 4…..
TIME Magazine……..
Posted Saturday, Aug. 13, 2005
Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican immigrants, Lionel Sosa was expected to learn a trade, defer to gringos and vote Democratic. But he was so impressed at age 13 by Dwight Eisenhower’s version of the American Dream during a televised speech at the 1952 Republican Convention that he decided he wanted to be a rich businessman–and a Republican.
Two decades later, as a struggling ad-agency owner, Sosa helped U.S. Senator John Tower win his 1978 re-election bid with 37% of the Hispanic vote; no Republican in Texas had ever won more than 8%.
Soon clients like Bacardi rum, Dr Pepper and Coors beer came seeking his advice on how to woo the Latino market, eventually turning Sosa & Associates into the largest Hispanic advertising agency in the U.S. At one point it was billing more than $100 million annually.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan reached out to Sosa, who created gauzy, feel-good ads that focused on the candidate rather than the issues, promising Latinos that Republicans shared their values of family, personal responsibility and hard work. “It’s an insight Ronald Reagan gave me,” says Sosa, who has worked on six presidential campaigns.
“He told me Latinos are Republican. They just don’t know it yet.” With Sosa’s help, George W. Bush snared an estimated 40% of Latino voters in 2004, a huge jump from Bob Dole’s 21% in 1996.
Semiretired, Sosa, 66, now spends most of his time painting and writing (his latest book, Think & Grow Rich: A Latino Choice, is due out next year), but if he gets the call in 2008, he’ll be back on the stump.
Nice job unearthing the articles above- thanks!!!