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| Green Card Is Ultimate Prize on Hispanic TV Show |
| 2004-08-07 |
| Fri Aug 6, 2004 08:06 AM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some TV shows offer an extreme makeover, others a bid for pop stardom. But the hottest reality show in the U.S. Hispanic market is offering the ultimate prize -- a potential green card to immigrants desperate to pursue the American dream. "Gana la Verde" ("Win the Green") has attracted big audiences and hundreds of contestants willing to eat burritos crammed with live worms, jump off high-speed trucks or wash sky-scraper windows in exchange for a year's legal help in speeding up their visa or green card cases. The show, run five times a week on small Spanish-language television channels in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston and Dallas, was the brainchild of Lenard Liberman, executive vice president of the independent TV and radio company Liberman Broadcasting. "When you are in the Hispanic market, you realize that immigration and legal status is the number one issue ... They want to be able to earn a living and not have the pressure of wondering if they are able to stay or not," Liberman said on Thursday. "We could do a show and give the winner a cash prize, or a toaster oven. But I thought, what would be the ultimate prize for someone living in the United States as an immigrant? ... To have a prestigious law firm handle their case would be something invaluable," he said. The show started running on July 1 and Liberman said it had been consistently No. 2 in prime-time Los Angeles Spanish language stations. "The response has been outstanding. We have a waiting list. We get letters in the mail, hundreds if not thousands of phone calls, and had people flying in from places like Chicago who want to be in the show," he said. An estimated 2 million immigrants, most of them Latino, live and work in California and millions more are trying to extend or alter their visas to remain in the country legally. "It is a sad commentary ... You can't really blame the program makers," said Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition which campaigns for positive Hispanic representation in the U.S. media. "But how humiliating it is, and how desperate do people have to be, to get something that is so necessary to your life and to the future of your children. It is heart-wrenching," he said. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #4 Isn't that what is taught these days in public schools? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-08-07 7:37:28 PM |
| #3 Speaking of "sad commentary", we have the tale of California Alternative High Schools... CAHS targeted Hispanic immigrants, charging students between $450 and $1,450 for a course school officials said would lead to a valid diploma and help the recent immigrants get into college, find better jobs and get financial aid. The Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs investigated after getting numerous complaints that "graduates" from CAHS courses couldn't get admitted to vocational programs or were fired for not having a valid high school diploma. Investigators said the inaccurate lessons that were taught include: There are 53 states in the United States, but that the "flag has not yet been updated to reflect the addition of the last three states" - Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico. World War II began in 1938 and ended in 1942. There are two houses of Congress - the Senate and the House, and "one is for Democrats and the other is for the Republicans, respectively." |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-08-07 7:17:27 PM |
| #2 Sick capitalistic nonsense...things like this make marx look good...only up to a point that is... |
| Posted by: borgboy 2004-08-07 7:08:28 PM |
| #1 "It is a sad commentary ... You can’t really blame the program makers," Why not? |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2004-08-07 6:23:10 PM |