Youth

Just down the dirt road from several small adobe houses, past a cat keeping silent watch under a street lamp, past two lounging dogs, 16 students line up outside their one-room concrete school.

The tiniest kid holds the Mexican flag. It’s early March, and during a weekly patriotic ceremony the teacher tells her students about Mexico’s beloved former president, Benito Juarez, whose birthday is later in the month.

“He was an Indian from Oaxaca and a sheepherder just like you,” Maria Gloria Martínez says. “Imagine that, one of you could be president.”"*

Juan says he isn’t nervous, but his yawns give him away. He yawns a lot. A sure sign of stress.

“You have been accused of fighting,” says Zack Cazares, an Adamson High School assistant principal. He alternates between Spanish and English. A tape recorder runs.

Juan glances at his mom, trying to read her reaction. She hardly ever wears makeup. But today she does. Sheer plum lipstick and a little blush.“*

A big challenge facing North Texas’ public schools is immigration — particularly teens from rural Mexico. Most speak scant English, some had interrupted schooling back home and some want to work. Often, they are here illegally. Still, the courts say schools must educate them. Since DFW has become one of America’s new arrival capitals, the entire region shares an interest in their success. The News followed about 60 new immigrants and their teachers at DISD’s Adamson High last school year, and met with many families, to learn about their challenges at school and home.”*

the vox collective this week launched a public service announcement campaign seeking to inform Hispanic parents about the dangers of marijuana use among teenagers and urging them to talk to their kids about the risks of drug use. The campaign was created for the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, in conjunction with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. “*

Hispanic high school students use drugs and attempt suicide at higher rates than their black and white classmates, according to a new federal survey that shows a continuation of a troubling trend.

“It is disheartening that we aren’t seeing progress among Hispanic teens for certain risk factors,” said Howell Wechsler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a prepared statement.

The study is the latest in a series of surveys of U.S. high school students every two years. The new report noted black and white students are reporting less sexual activity that in years past, but there was no decline among Hispanics. Experts have not been able to find a clear explanation for that.”*

link to CDC

When his family first moved to Middletown from Puerto Rico, John Cordero struggled with school and was one of few Hispanic students.

“Before I got off the bus, I would start crying,” he said. “Elementary was kind of a lonely time. I didn’t have anybody to turn to except my parents and my grandfather.”

Eight years later, John is graduating with honors and has formed a group at Middletown High School, Latinos Unidos, dedicated to helping other Hispanic students succeed in school.”*

With the increase in the nation’s Hispanic population, policymakers must address the “opportunity gap” as an education challenge, says Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University.

“The opportunity gap [is] the gap in the opportunity to attend well-funded schools that can offer a good education,” he said in a recent radio interview on National Public Radio. “Latino students in this country are more segregated now than any other group and are more likely to go to schools that have very few resources, and not surprisingly have some of the highest dropout rates in the country.”*

Many researchers believe the U.S. Latino population will triple in size and account for most of the nation’s growth from 2005 through 2050. Much of that increase is attributed to young Latinos who are struggling with their self identity, aspirations, hopes and dreams. How can marketers understand Latino youth when these young people are still searching for their role in American society? Will future Latinos be integrated into the mainstream as many generations of immigrants have done before them or will they cling to their cultural heritage as their parents have in the past decades? No one knows for sure.

In an effort to reach marketers targeting this fast growing ethnic group, The Intelligence Group recently released the third annual edition of its subscription based study of Latino youth. The 2008 Latino Lifestyle Study was designed as a forecasting tool for marketers looking to understand the 14 to 34 year old Latino consumer.”*

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Jalisa interviewed Katy Hernandez, a Latina student who moved to the United States from Mexico ten years ago and now attends Concord High School. Katy talked about what life was like in Mexico and how she has balanced the two countries’ cultures.”*

Perhaps a record number of Latina teenagers in Minnesota are getting pregnant today, and community leaders are working to reverse it.

Minnesota’s teen birth rate increased 7 percent between 2005 and 2006, according to the St. Paul nonprofit Minnesota Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Prevention and Parenting (MOAPPP). The organization reported that this increase is more than twice the increase at the national level.

Among Minnesota’s Latina teenagers, however, MOAPPP reported a considerable 13 percent increase in the teen birth rate from 2005 to 2006.”*

Reflecting an increased effort by the Girl Scouts to attract young Latinas and their mothers, the Spanish Trails Council in Montclair is offering a bilingual camp for the first time this summer.

The one-day “Las Divas de Hoy” will be held twice over the summer. Many of the planned activities are the same as other Girl Scouts camps — painting nails, crafts and fashion shows — but there will also be salsa dancing and flower arranging.”*

It had all the lip-biting drama of a traditional spelling bee, but with a major dose of español.

As if spelling obscure, multisyllabic words in a single language wasn’t difficult enough, 25 students from schools in Houston and Mexico competed Saturday in a bilingual spelling bee.

That’s right: English and Spanish.”*

“Leadership and Change” was the theme for the final session in the Hispanic Futures Conference series for Austin school district students.

The final event of the year for the series was held on the Austin Community College Eastview Campus at 3101 Webberville Road, on May 31. Students from all Austin high schools and middle schools, and their parents, are invited to attend the conference and experience the infinite possibilities and the infinite combination that the students will face in Texas by 2015.”*

Durham Judge David Q. LaBarre recently ordered a second trial over whether or not a twelve-year-old Hispanic boy should be forced to travel, against his will, to Colombia, South America. The judge will decide whether or not Alejandro Ramirez will be forced to visit relatives there. Alejandro is an unconditional Lawful Permanent Resident of the U.S. He has a “green card” issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He will become a full-fledged U.S. citizen a few months from now.

Alejandro’s relatives in Colombia have threatened to keep him there if he visits them. The boy has made it known in both newspaper interviews and on television that he doesn’t want to travel to Colombia because it is too dangerous for him. He has lived in the U.S. with his mother, stepfather, and grandmother for the last six years. He is a honors student at the James E. Shepard Magnet School in Durham.

There is an official U.S. State Department Travel Warning in effect for Colombia. Kidnapping, narco-terrorism and lawlessness are rampant there. Kidnappings for ransom are common in Colombia. Both guerilla armies and common criminals use kidnapping as a major source of income. The kidnappers often kill their victims and then ransom the dead bodies of their victims back to their families.

Two law enforcement experts, an FBI agent stationed in Colombia and a colonel from the Colombian army and DAS (Colombian FBI), have testified that travel to Colombia would be life-threatening for Alejandro. The case has received media attention in Colombia, making Alejandro known to the many kidnappers there. Despite this expert testimony and the official U.S. government Warning, LaBarre has ordered another trial over whether or not Alejandro should be recklessly endangered by being forced to travel to Colombia. LaBarre also ruled that the official U.S. government Warning and Alejandro’s green card are not “objective evidence.”

Last August, a very expensive and tumultuous big show trial was held in the Durham court over the issue of forced travel to Colombia. A previous judge on the case, Craig B. Brown, publicly announced his intention midway through the trial to force Alejandro out of the U.S.

Brown made his decision known before the trial was finished and without hearing all of the testimony. He made his decision public in the course of an interview published in the Durham Herald-Sun newspaper. This was the first publicity the case received. Subsequently, Brown retreated from his decision and resigned from the case. He felt the sting of mounting public criticism of his handling of the case and of his decision. He was also informed of an investigation by the NC State Bureau of Investigation that was ordered by the Judicial Standards Commission.

Alejandro’s mother, Claudia P. Krehbiel, filed suit in late April in federal court against LaBarre, Roy Cooper (NC Attorney General) and other state officials. The federal lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting LaBarre from forcing Alejandro out of the U.S. against his will. If the permanent injunction is granted by the federal district court, it will be a landmark decision of national importance to all immigrants, particularly to those who have green cards.

The federal government has granted Alejandro his status as a Lawful Permanent Resident. As a Lawful Permanent Resident, Alejandro is legally entitled to remain safely in the U.S. and under the continuous protection of U.S. law. The federal lawsuit alleges that North Carolina lacks the authority to revoke or infringe Alejandro’s Lawful Permanent Resident status because federal immigration law supersedes state law. Mrs. Krehbiel said: “What good is a U.S. government green card or U.S. citizenship if a state court judge can take them away from you on a whim, without even a trial by jury?”

The lawsuit also asks for a federal injunction against anymore expensive big show trials in the state court over this issue. Mrs. Krehbiel said: “My husband and I have already had to spend everything we had saved for Alejandro’s college education defending his life and trying to keep him safely in the U.S. North Carolina, of course, has unlimited financial resources to finance its effort to railroad him off to Colombia. We hope we can avoid yet another expensive kangaroo court trial in state court.”

Even in life-threatening cases, children in North Carolina are not allowed to have their cases heard by juries. Every accused murderer, rapist and thug is entitled to a jury trial, but not mothers and their innocent children.

Alejandro’s family recently made complaints against Judge Brown to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The complaints allege that Brown willfully violated Alejandro’s constitutional rights. The willful violation of a person’s civil rights under color of law (while acting as a government official) is a serious federal offense. Judge Brown recently resigned from office, stating his intention to retire because of stress and chronic ill health.

Mrs. Krehbiel said: “I really hope we can win the permanent injunction in federal court. It will set an important national precedent. If we do win the injunction, then it will help make it clear to everyone that us Hispanics aren’t cheap, expendable goods to be treated like dirt by North Carolina.”

The complete text of the federal lawsuit and other additional information is available at: www.savealejandro.com

Contact:
Claudia P. Krehbiel, Director
Concerned Mothers of Durham Inc.
P.O. Box 51183
Durham, NC 27717
919-302-3479
support@cmothers.com
support@cmothers.org

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, today released Overcoming Language and Cultural Barriers Using Evidence-Based Practices—a transcript of a panel discussion on the use of evidence-based practices in the juvenile justice system. Expert panelists focused on Latino youth who have benefitted from evidence-based practices and how changes in juvenile justice policies, practices, and programs could ensure fairness and improved outcomes.

Barriers such as cultural and linguistic discrepancies surface in every step of the juvenile justice process through interactions with law enforcement, courts, jails, and probation and threaten to unfairly impact Latino youth in the juvenile justice system. Inaccurate information also distorts realities in the juvenile justice system. For example, Latino youth are often counted as “White” in profile data rather than Latino or Hispanic, making them invisible in the system. Juvenile justice systems must find more effective ways to treat its youth. One way they can become more effective is by assessing whether their services address the cultural needs of Latino youth.

NCLR produced this transcript in collaboration with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative. The initiative seeks to create successful models of juvenile justice reform through targeted investments in key states. As a key partner in the Models for Change initiative, NCLR is committed to educating the public, policymakers, and juvenile justice systems personnel about the challenges that Latino youth and their families encounter when getting involved with juvenile justice programs.

Visit www.nclr.org/content/publications/detail/52033/ to download a copy of the transcript. “*

I would like to commend Gov. Easley for supporting our students in North Carolina who are living in our state but are without proper immigration documents. I have the privilege of working with these students every day in the high schools of Buncombe County.

In addition to being the coordinator of the Migrant Education Program, I am one of the advisors of the AIM Club. AIM stands for Action, Inspiration and Motivation. This chapter was founded in 2004 for migrant and Latino high school students with the support of the N.C. Migrant Education Program. There are many other clubs across the state that have a longer history than ours. Our stated goal is “to get students, parents and school personnel to take action that will inspire students to become motivated to stay in school and graduate.” We have also been working hard to educate these families about the importance of higher education and the process to follow to pursue a degree at a community colleges or university. We have taken trips to UNC Asheville, Appalachian State, and A-B Tech.”*

Smith-Cotton High School junior Ceci Perez and senior Cecilia Sotelo shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with a list of extracurricular activities to include on their high school resumes.

Perez could include the A+ program, which offers scholarships to students who serve as teaching assistants; foreign language club; pep club; student council; class secretary; Future Teachers of America; and soccer. She was recently elected to be a senior class officer.”*

Nine undocumented students at Postville High School spoke with The Gazette on Wednesday. Out of concern that they could be arrested and deported, they asked that their names not be printed.

Four were from Guatemala and five were from Mexico. All were children when their parents decided to immigrate illegally and settle in northeast Iowa.

Six of the nine said one or more of their family members was detained in the May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant. All said their family has either discussed leaving Postville or made the final decision. “*

University of Arizona assistant professor Julio Cammarota has conducted what the book’s publisher say is one of the most extensive studies on Hispanic youth.

Cammarota, who teaches at the UA’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the Mexican American Studies and Research Center, wrote the book based on his observations and extensive interviews of youth living in “El Pueblo,” which is the name he gives to the barrio area along the California coast where he conducted his research.

The book, titled “Sueños Americanos, Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities,” is published by The University of Arizona Press.

“In my research I found that education is a primary route to rewarding employment and economic security,” Cammarota said. “And that education is particularly significant for the future prospects of children who are ethnic minorities, were born into disadvantaged economic circumstances, or are dealing with language barriers.”"*

“We wanted to provide options for parents and families into Mansfield city and we want to start it early,” Nash said. “We visited a Spanish immersion in Indianapolis. They have a wonderful program there. Indianapolis has many, many magnet schools and they’re all doing very well. They run between 70 and 85 percent free-and-reduced lunch and they run 75 to 80 percent minority.”

Martin said as students progress, the next grade will be added to the program, until the school is operating K to 12.

“We’re trying to make it a total Spanish immersion,” the superintendent said. “The teachers will be speaking Spanish. The kids will be speaking Spanish. We won’t understand what they’re saying, but they’ll understand it.”"*

hree aspiring journalists received scholarships Friday night at Riverside Community College, part of the celebration of the 20th Annual Scholarship Dinner sponsored by the Inland Chapter of the CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California.

Scholarships were awarded to:

Upland resident Dianalicia Castillo, a sophomore at the University of La Verne. She is a communications major with an emphasis on broadcast journalism. The National Merit Scholarship winner has worked as an anchor for the college’s radio and television programs.”*

So did you know this? If you didn’t, perhaps you could send it to someone you know to help spread the knowledge and please tell them about HispanicTips.

View more “Did You Know?” facts in our “Did You Know?” section

Educators and business professionals hope to use their own stories of struggle and success to motivate male Latino students at Rialto Unified School District’s inaugural Latino Male Youth Summit.

The Saturday event, to be held at Wilmer Amina Carter High School, will include workshops and panel discussions on navigating high school and preparing for college.

Speakers will include Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto; state Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Anthony Monreal; and San Bernardino City Unified School District Superintendent Arturo Delgado. The keynote speaker will be Manny Medrano, journalist and legal correspondent for ABC News.”*

Three bright aspiring Miami entrepreneurs garnered the opportunity to train and compete at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) Foundation Regional BizFest in Sacramento, CA in September. These three students were part of an introduction to business training funded by Ford Motor Company Fund. The USHCC Foundation holds similar trainings throughout the year and throughout the country to help Latino youth turn their entrepreneurial ideas into profitable business ventures through hands-on practical business training.

Held April 28-May 2, 2008 in Miami in partnership with the Cuban American National Council (CNC), the course featured 25 students representing the Little Havana and Hialeah Institutes, managed by the CNC. During the three-day program, participating students developed a viable business idea and a detailed executive summary on their idea. The executive summaries were then evaluated by a panel of judges and the three strongest ideas were given the opportunity to train and compete at the upcoming Regional BizFest in Sacramento taking place during the USHCC 29th Annual National Convention and Business Expo. The three finalists are Tasharia Spivey, Keishla Torres and Roberto Garcia all from Little Havana Institute.

“We are proud to have these talented young adults join us in Sacramento, they truly are outstanding aspiring entrepreneurs,” said Shana Mosher, Senior Director of Program Operations. “Not only was this an opportunity for bright Latino and minority youth to learn the essential steps of opening their own business but with the collaboration of local community based organizations like the CNC, it helps open their eyes to the resources and support services that are available to them in their own community.”

“Education is a top priority for Ford Motor Company Fund. We are proud to support USHCC Foundation because of the innovative programming it provides Hispanic youth,” said Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services. “We also are pleased to see a partnership form between the USHCC Foundation and the CNC, both organizations with which Ford Motor Company Fund has longstanding relationships.”
“*