CNN Explores Hispanic Heritage in Prime Time, Online This Week

Below are excerpts from a CNN Press Release announcing programming for Hispanic Heritage Month:

CNN’s Uncovering America programming initiative continues this week across the network’s multiple broadcast platforms and digital services with dynamic, original reporting on the challenges faced by Hispanic communities in the United States and the growing influence of Hispanic culture upon politics, daily life and business in America. This latest installment – The Hispanic Experience Today – coincides with events across the nation for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Online, CNN.com offers in-depth coverage and users’ reflections on being Hispanic in America. Through i-Reports, users can submit videos, still photos and text of their experiences. Many viewers’ personal reflections are posted at www.CNN.com/UncoveringAmerica.

On television, CNN’s American Morning on Wednesday, Oct. 3, will feature Cuban-American actor Oscar Nuñez from NBC’s The Office, who will talk about the changing images of Hispanics in media. American Morning is anchored by Kiran Chetry and John Roberts and airs Mondays through Fridays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. (ET).

On Out in the Open, the network’s nightly issues broadcast, anchor Rick Sanchez will interview guests and moderate debates on the hot topics of English as the official national language in America, jobs and immigration. Tonight, Sanchez reveals his undercover investigation about life as a day laborer. Reporting on the informal economy surrounding day laborers, Sanchez shows first-hand how they negotiate for wages, the kind of work they perform and their hopes for the future.

For Wednesday, Oct. 3, Out in the Open broadcast will focus on enforcement at the U.S.-Mexican border. Sanchez will moderate a spirited debate on proposed recommendations on the subject of whether a border fence is a sensible means of addressing illegal border crossings and other immigration issues. Out in the Open airs each weekday from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. (ET).

On Anderson Cooper 360°, special correspondent Soledad O’Brien files, “Return to Hidalgo,” a report on one of the nearly empty Mexican villages on the road from Mexico City that are being rebuilt with U.S. dollars sent home from undocumented workers. But with increased border enforcement, the population of Hidalgo has begun to swell with returning workers from America. O’Brien reports on both sides of the border for a look at the changes that means for the American cities that they left and the Mexican ones to which they’ve returned.

Also on Anderson Cooper 360°, correspondent Ed Lavandera will report about children of Mexican workers attending the Yuma Union School District in San Luis, Ariz. Each weekday, children who were born in America but still live in Mexico return for a better education in violation school district boundary rules. Lavandera talks to people on both sides of the issue, including an “attendance monitor” who tracks down the kids who are attending public schools for free in Arizona.

For Anderson Cooper 360° on Thursday, Oct. 4, correspondent Harris Whitbeck reports on the issue of cross-border adoption in which the owner of a Guatemalan adoption agency stands accused of coercing Guatemalan parents to allow their babies to go to wealthy American adoptive parents. Recently, Guatemalan officials claimed the man paid women to become impregnated with Anglo sperm to make babies even more desirable to prospective American parents.

For the Uncovering America initiative, CNN Newsource has produced minibiographies on notable Americans of Hispanic ethnicity that are currently airing on television affiliates across the country. The profiles will also be available to users as streaming video at www.CNN.com/UncoveringAmerica. The profiles include:

• César Chávez, a Mexican American farm labor leader and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient who worked to secure civil rights for farm workers;
• Ellen Ochoa, NASA’s director of flight crew operations and America’s first female Hispanic astronaut;
• Dr. Antonia Coella Novello, MD, a Puerto Rican pediatricn and nephrologist who served as the first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General during the Clinton administration;
• Legendary Afro-Cuban American salsa singer Celia Cruz; and
• Mexican American middle weight boxing legend and Olympic gold medalist, Oscar De La Hoya.

CNN en Español, CNN’s 24-hour Spanish-language news network, will also air profiles of Hispanics who have “made a difference.”

• Anchor Claudia Palacios interviewed Atlanta-based Dr. Jorge Simons, who treats and counsels drug and alcohol addicts;
• correspondent Cristina Puig interviewed Peruvian-American soccer star and trainer Teofilo Cubillas;
• correspondent Karina Coronel interviewed American theater legend Mauricio Marcel, an Argentinian-American now based in Washington, D.C.;
• Patricia Pedraza profiles entrepreneur Salomon Paniagua, who began his career as a busboy and now owns a chain of diners in Queens, N.Y.;
• and Nazeli Nazar interviews Laura Trejo, the first female Hispanic politician to be appointed to senior levels of city government in Los Angeles and now serves as the general manager of the city’s Department of Aging.

On Monday, Oct. 15, CNN en Español will begin streaming its news and public affairs program, Encuentro con Daniel Viotto, on CNN.com Live which each night at 8 p.m. (ET). Guests will be newsmakers, business leaders and politicians from the Latino Diaspora.