An Interesting Rant: Latin@ Uprisings in Education

Latin@s and Education; The hateful speech and harmful headlines would suggest that the two have nothing in common.  Luckily, we have history to counter the misguided sections of our population.  For example, one hundred high school and college students looked on with eyes and ears directed at Martha Villegas Miranda, this year’s Latin@ Student Alliance Latin@ Student Empowerment Conference keynote speaker, who reminded the students that their ancestors had always been educated.  She asked students what the most prestigious college in the United States was in their opinion. All of the students agreed on Harvard.  To the student’s amazement, Martha shared that the first university in the Western Hemisphere was in the Dominican Republic in 1538, which opened nearly one hundred years before Harvard had its first classes in 1636.  Clearly there has been a disconnect with our past.  Too often we, as Latin@s, are unaware of our connection to education. 

                

            Homework: Go and read about the Calmecac in Tenochtitlan or the first university known to human kind in Timbuktu in Africa (if you are asking yourself why I include Africa when I speak about Latin@s then please see the influence and importance of Afro-Latinos to begin to scratch the surface).  At any rate, after your research; you will find that the Latin@, has always been prone to intellectual thought and inquiry.  This fact becomes overshadowed when one turns on the corporate news stations and hears the harmful misconceptions as well as stereotypes forced on Latin@s. Let’s explore a couple of issues:

Currently, roughly thirty-two percent of Latin@ students age 18-24 in the U.S. attends a 2-year, 4-year, or vocational institution of higher learning, according to the PewResearch Hispanic Center.  First, we should be vigilant of the idea of cultural deficiency – which basically means considering a group (i.e. Latin@s) on a lower status when viewing them and their actions – in other words buying into the stereotypes that Latin@s are uneducated low-skilled worker-types whose status keeps them lower in the hierarchy of the US.  As an example; In the HBO movie Walkout (2006) Alexa Vega portrays Paula Crisostomo, the young Chicana student leader of the walkouts, who brings her principal a list of student demands for necessary changes of the school’s policy towards Chican@ students in East Los Angeles schools. The principal takes the list to the Chicano teacher Sal Castro who the former accuses as the mastermind of the plot and the author of the student demands.  The principal committed a cultural deficiency offense.  He did not believe the students could have the intelligence and sense to write a concise letter with student concerns and demand change.  In other words, because they were Chican@s they could not have informed actors to change their situation.

¿Me cachan? Do you get what I’m saying? Can you feel me?  However you say it, the message is clear.  If we take this deficiency model into account, we see that the institution has had a history of looking at Latin@s differently from their white counterparts.  Think about your own personal experience in an Anglo dominated school, have you felt the same treatment as your white counterparts? Look at your school, what are the percentages of Latin@ students and Latin@ teachers/administrators?  If the school is thirty percent Latin@, why isn’t it mandatory to have Latin@ studies programs?  The programs would benefit not only the Latin@ students, but also the non-Latin@ students who share a community with Latin@s. Below I have thrown down with some stats from the Illinois Interactive Report Card, based out of NIU: 

Latin@s	STATE (IL)	CPS (299)	Mendota (280)
Teachers	5.4%	15.3%	2.6%
Students	25%	44.3%	27.6%
Total Population of Students	2.1 million	400,931	627

¿Que piensen? What can we do about this? Educáte.

Let’s backtrack…So great we have thirty-two percent of Latin@s ages 18-24 are enrolled in some kind of post-secondary education/training. We cannot take students accomplishments of enrolling in these institutions away from them, No One has the power do this.  However, we should not expect anything less than educational success from a culture with a history of educated people.  On the other hand, according to the PewResearch Hispanic Center, “in 2010, only 13% of [Latin@s] 25- to 29-year-olds had completed at least a bachelor’s degree.”  We can conclude that although it is an achievement to graduate high school and earn one’s GED, but it is another issue when obtaining one’s Bachelor’s Degree, vocational certificate, etc. As it was explained to me, ‘If by 2050, Latin@s will be the majority, then how can we expect to lead a country if we only have 13% of our people holding only BA’s?’ Interestingly enough, just because we will be the majority does not mean we will be in power nor will this mean that we will finally have justice, just ask the South African apartheid survivors – they were also the majority of the population, but a minority in the sectors of power and decision making process.

Solutions? Thanks for asking…Many of our hermanitas/os need some help with their homework.  They could also use some positive educated Latin@ role models, mentors, or genuine listeners…Do any of you Latin@ college students or high school students know of where we can find some educated Latin@s who are attempting to better themselves, their families, and their communities? If you do...we got some work to be done in the community.  But who will listen to me? If we are still talking cultural deficient, than I’m just a ranting Chicano.  Although I am a Chicano with a couple good ideas, a lot of energy, y un gran compañera...  Oralé pues.