By: beverly j. irby & Rafael lara alecio  (Page 4/12)

Other markets have stepped up their appeal to Latinos. Grow (2004) indicated that in 2003, Procter&Gamble Co. spent $90 million on advertising directed at Latinos for 12 products such as Crest and Tide. This amount represented 10% of its ad budget for those brands and a 28% hike in just one year. Proctor and Gamble’s advertising to Latinos increased significantly after 2000 when the company hired a 65-person dual language team to target Latinos. Interestingly, Gregory (2005) reported that Proctor and Gamble added three scents to Gain detergent based on the fact that 57% of Latinos describe themselves as avid scent seekers . In 2004, Gain's sales growth was in the double-digits among the Latino market, outpacing general U.S. sales (Grow, 2004). A few companies have even gone all-Spanish. Many of those include supermarkets such as Kroger and HEB. The supermarket industry has determined that Latinos spend more money and time in grocery stores than any other ethnic group (Reveron, n.d.), partly due to the family connections that food represents to Latinos.

In the political arena, the Latino population's influence is growing. President Bush even opened the past election year with a guest-worker proposal for immigrants that analysts took as a play for the Latino vote. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Mexican-American, delivered a first-ever Spanish-language version of the Democrat's rebuttal to the 2004 State of the Union address (Grow, 2004). More recently demonstrating the Latino’s growing political clout, Los Angeles elected the first Mexican-American mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, in 133 years. Noting more Latino presence, President Bush recently appointed Alberto Gonzalez, a Mexican-American from Houston, as Attorney General, and Carlos Gutierrez as Secretary of Commerce. Both powerful appointments are poised to shape the future of the American society.

Latinos in the U. S. have helped create a new societal model; one more like a salad bowl instead of a melting pot. As the years progress and the children of the immigrants position themselves in the work world and in the political arena, major shifts in society are imminent. Up and down periods are expected with fast-growing Latino populations. An example of such a period has already occurred in former California Governor Pete Wilson's 1994 political effort known as Proposition 187, to ban social services to undocumented immigrants. Other efforts such as English-only laws, Proposition 227 in California and Proposition 203 in Arizona, have limited or prohibited schools and government agencies from using Spanish. Such English-only laws have passed in some 18 states. Most of these efforts have been ineffective as school districts continue with a variety of types of bilingual education programs. Such efforts are likely to be promulgated as the Latino presence maintains and even increases. A final and more recent example, is the Minutemen Project, a seemingly supportive project collaborating with the border patrol to better protect the U.S./Mexican border; however, some from the news media have questioned the motive of such projects.