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Syracuse University News21 is a digital journalism team made up of current and former students of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the University of Texas at Austin. We are photojournalists, reporters and videographers documenting changes to the U.S. population, according to the 2010 Census. As part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, our team brings data to life by telling stories about the rising Hispanic communities in Allentown, Bethlehem and Reading, Pa.
By Kuan Luo
How Hispanics are changing the country … or not.
Basilio Bonilla is an unlikely poster child for education reform. His mother is Caucasian. His father, though Puerto Rican, was born in the United States and has never been to his native island. Yet Bonilla identifies as Latino and he's turning heads in his race for a seat on the Bethlehem Area School Board. Bonilla, 20, represents the cultural and political assimilation common among third-generation Hispanics. Watch the video to follow his campaign.
Juan Zabala moved to Reading from the Dominican Republic when he was 2. In the twenty years since, his family opened a restaurant and thrived as Reading declined around them. To try and save the city he loves, Zabala decided to run for mayor. Watch this documentary about his political – and personal – journey.
On the South Side of Bethlehem, the sounds of cars, music, and skateboards fill the air. Nestled between Daly and Steel Avenues, the skatepark serves as a place for local youth to skate and BMX. But you won’t find stereotypical blonde, shaggy-haired slackers here. Instead, the skaters are Hispanic kids from the neighborhood. Watch the video to meet Andy Vasquez, 23, a fixture in the skatepark.
Pennsylvania is far from traditional Hispanic strongholds like Texas and California, but a number of factors pull newcomers here.
In Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, Hispanic
entrepreneurs open small businesses so the
next generation won't have to work in them.
At its peak, Bethlehem Steel drew waves of Hispanics to labor jobs
in its boiling coke works. Decades later, these retirees remember
what brought them to the Lehigh Valley, and why they stay.
As the Hispanic population grows in the Lehigh Valley,
the African-American community finds itself in the minority, again.
Assimilation is twice as complicated for Lehigh Valley Hispanics who identify as LGBT.
The unlikeliest members of Bethlehem’s Hispanic community are the three older, white people you’re about to meet. Their paths wound through Colombia, a housing project, and a town in New Jersey burdened with racism. They shared their gifts of money, political clout, connections, and opportunity with a community of people who looked different and spoke a foreign language. But what they gave their Hispanic neighbors was no match for the friendships, new extended families, and sense of purpose they received in return.
Jeniffer Aguilar wants to be a typical American teenager. So why does she frighten so many lawmakers?
America’s public schools are on the verge of a major cultural shift. By mid-century, or even sooner, more than 50 percent of America’s youth will be minorities. But at one high school in eastern Pennsylvania, the future is already here.
With its new FM signal, Hola Radio broadcasts Hispanic culture to the mainstream
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Excerpt
Officer William Rodriguez, one of four Hispanic officers in the Bethlehem Police Department, finishes up an incident report after returning a lost wallet found in the middle of the street. Officers of the Bethlehem Police Department respond to an