League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) hosted the State of Latinx America Conference on February 13-14, 2019. LULAC members from across the country gathered for their annual conference, awards ceremony, and a day of advocacy on Capitol Hill, celebrating 90 years of advocating and advancing the rights of the Hispanic population. The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) and LULAC have partnered on media diversity initiatives in the past. This conference was an opportunity to highlight telecommunications policy priorities that the organizations share. On February 13th, NHMC spoke about the urgency of addressing hate speech online and started by highlighting NHMC’s long-time commitment to this work. In essence, she explained that eliminating online hate speech remains a concern with offline consequences for the Latino population regardless of whether they have access to the internet. On February 14th, NHMC presented on the digital divide and the increasing importance of access to high speed, reliable internet for Latino communities. When Latinos fall on the wrong side of the digital divide from a young age, it triggers a domino effect: the homework gap leads to the achievement gap, which leads to the wage gap, and then the wealth gap. Ms. Ryan also emphasized the importance of developing connectivity solutions at both the federal and local levels.
