A new report from Nielsen finds U.S. Hispanic consumers to be highly engaged in their usage of smartphones, online video, and social networking. The study indicates Hispanics are more likely to watch video online on their mobile, and outperform other ethnic groups when it comes to mobile downloads of music and photos.

Nielsen finds that Hispanics are heavy phone users, sending and receiving some 941 SMS text messages per month – more than any other ethnic group. And they make 13 calls per day on their mobiles, which is 40 percent more than the average U.S. consumer.

Hispanic video viewers are 68 percent more likely than non-Hispanic White viewers to watch video on the Internet, and 20 percent more likely to watch video on their smart phone.

U.S. Hispanic consumers are also increasing its presence in social networking services and blogs. They are also more likely to have a personal blog than the average consumer.

Additionally, Hispanics are more likely to post links, articles, and videos (21 percent), and more likely to have one or more social networking profiles.

Although Hispanics are less likely to have Internet access at home than the average U.S. consumer (62 percent  vs. 76 percent), home broadband use is up by 14 percent, which is higher than the 6 percent growth rate of the general market.

A recent report, released by Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit advocacy and research group, shows that only 16 percent of California Latinos have college degrees compared with 39 percent of all adults in California.

A focus on education is especially timely for Latinos given the younger age of that population, says an article in the Los Angeles Times. The median age for Latinos nationwide is 27 versus 40 for the entire population. In California, the median age for Latinos is 27.

The article mentions that ‘the college gap is especially significant in California, where 38 percent of the population is Latino as well as half of all grade-school students. About 75% of the students in the Los Angeles Unified School District are Latino.”

Although the article indicates that graduation rates are declining for Latinos and the gap seems to be increasing between Latinos and other groups, the researchers mentioned several programs that are helping Latinos succeed in college, such as the University of California Puente Project.

The mission of the Puente Project is to increase the number of educationally disadvantaged students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities, earn college degrees, and return to the community as mentors and leaders of future generations. To accomplish this, counselors, teachers and mentors work together to provide students with the necessary tools to successfully transfer to four-year institutions. Through the Puente Project, Latino students persist at greater rates than other students, transfer to four-year institutions at higher rates than other students, and graduate at similar rates to white students (86 percent vs. 83.9 percent).

Source: Los Angeles Times, Report details Latino education gap in California and nationwide, April 10, 2012.

The study entitled “The Economic Impact of the Landscaping and Lawn Care Services Industry on U.S. Latinos” examines the landscaping and lawn care industry’s impact upon Latinos. The report was conducted for the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce by the Inter-University Program on Latino Research. The research show the vital role that the landscape and lawn care services industry plays in providing entrepreneurial opportunity, jobs and income to U.S. Latinos.

Among the study’s key findings are:

• The total household income of households with at least one worker in the landscing industry totals almost $75 billion. Latino households with at least one worker in the industry obtain more than $18 billion in household income.

• The landscape industry in the United States employs almost 1.6 million workers and generates almost 959,000 jobs in other industries. In total, Latinos account for more than 830,000 of the workers in both categories.

• For Latinos, the landscape and lawn care industry is an important source of employment. The share of Latino employment in the industry is 2.6 times higher than the national average.

• The landscaping and lawn care industry provides disproportionately more income to Latino households than the overall economy provides to Latinos.

• The landscape and lawn care services industry provides a strong source of entrepreneurial opportunity to Latinos. The proportion of businesses owned by Latinos in the industry is almost double the national average for all industries with Latinos accounting for over 16 percent of the business owners in the industry (versus 8.6 percent of the businesses nationwide).

California, Texas, and Florida account for one-third of all the Latino workers employed in the landscape and lawn care services industry.

Source: IUPLA, Landscape & Lawn Care services industry offers entrepreneurial opportunity for U.S. Latinos, November, 23, 2011.

A nationwide survey conducted by The Pew Hispanic Center found that Hispanics in the United States haven’t fully embraced the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino.” Fifty-one percent said they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin, while only one in four preferred a pan-ethnic label.

Although a large number (69 percent) of the respondents indicated that Latinos in the U.S. have many different cultures rather than a common culture, they did expressed a strong and shared connection to the Spanish language. More than eight-in-ten Latino adults said they speak Spanish, and nearly all (95 percent) felt it is important for future generations to continue speaking Spanish.

When asked about sharing a common identity with other Americans, about half said they consider themselves to be very different from the typical American. And just one-in-five said they use the term “American” most often to describe their identity.

The survey, When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity  reports that, “regardless of where they were born, large majorities of Latinos said that life in the U.S. is better than in their family’s country of origin. Also, nearly nine-in-ten (87%) say it is important for immigrant Hispanics to learn English in order to succeed in the U.S.” Most Hispanic immigrants also indicated “that if they had to do it all over again, they would come to the U.S.”

Looking at language use patterns, the report found that most Hispanics use Spanish, but that use of English rises through the generations.

When exploring the respondents' social and political beliefs and attitudes, the report found that:

• Hispanics, more so than the general public, believe in the efficacy of hard work
• Levels of personal trust are lower among Latinos than they are among the general public;
• Religion is more important in the lives of immigrant Hispanics than in the lives of native-born Hispanics.
• Latinos’ political views are more liberal than those of the general U.S. public.

Source: Pew Hispanic Center, When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity, April 4, 2012.