Win the Green!

[crayzayjay]

22:42 05Aug2004 RTRS-Green card is ultimate prize on Hispanic TV show

LOS ANGELES, Aug 5 (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.

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Thursday, 05 August 2004 22:42:02RTRS [nN05572612] {EN}ENDS

[zebrathree]

Oh.

I thought this was a post about Lawn Bowls, probably one of the coolest sports of all time.

[crayzayjay]

Here you go

[SniperX13]

hey, at least they are trying to do it legally....

[blindside.AMG]

I'm wondering how the hell a television station has the ability to give away something like a green card legally?

[crayzayjay]

They dont give them a green card, they just have a "prestigious law firm handle their case".

It'd be pretty funny if the person that wins the show doesnt end up getting a green card

[kittedb18bt]

i would watch that, heck yeah.

[Raz_Kaz]

The thing TV comes up with these days

[psychobadboy]

That's horrible...not watching that.

[-Josh-]

They should use that show to round up the the millions of people who send letters or email or phone calls or whatever; and send them back to Mexico.