Chicano and Latino community characteristics and issues

Chicano/Latino Community

According to the NHLBI Information Center, there has been a great increase in the Latino population of Washington DC over the years from 1980 to 1990. Specifically, the population group doubled in the area, raising from 3 to 6% of the population in the area. Currently the Latino population features as the largest cultural and linguistic minority in the city. The majority of this population originate from Central America, with other large percentages of Mexican origin, an a third percentage identifying themselves as Hispanic, but not from South American or Mexican origin.

In terms of education, a large percentage of the Latino community has not finished high school. Specifically, 36% of adult Latinos residing in Washington have less than a high school education. 19% did pass high school successfully, while 23% have a tertiary education that includes a bachelor's or advanced degree. Concomitantly, the majority of Latinos work in the service industry, and fall in the middle to low level income groups. Forty-four percent of Latinos are in higher-level occupations such as professional, managerial, or technical positions, while only 5% of households fall into the higher than $100,000 income category.

Language is a substantial barrier to providing the Latino population with a high-quality education and subsequent high-income occupations. Most of the Latino population in Washington - 83% - speak a language other than English, with 40% not being very proficient in the language, and 30% living in households where the English proficiency level is so low as to be linguistically isolating from the rest of the population. This has significant consequences for education in the Latino population.

The same is true of the Latino population in Texas. According to leading educators, this population is increasingly segregated into poor school districts. This then creates a cycle of poor schooling, resulting in poor job prospects and further poor schooling prospects for future generations. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that teachers in these poor districts are often new and unprepared for the challenges presented by this particular community. The language barrier offers a further obstacle to quality education for the Latino community.

In response, the "Great City Project" has been launched in order to address problems of economic disadvantage and the low level of teaching quality to the community. The Project is a collaboration between Texas a&M's College of Education and the Houston school system. Teachers are trained specifically to teach in economically disadvantaged schools where the need is the greatest. Satisfactory results have been reported for the project, including the 90% five-year retention rate for teachers in the inner city of Houston.

Certainly the rest of the United States can follow such examples of excellence in providing the Latino community with the education that is the right of every American. It has been seen above that the language barrier, the cycle of poverty, and the lack of teaching resources conspire to the lack of education for the Latino community in the United States. This growing population group surely has much more to offer than service industry work.

Once again, the Texas community sets an example not only in leadership, but also in the possibilities of uplifting educational opportunities for the Latino community. Indeed, the Texas program is driven by the Latino community itself, with intellectuals setting examples in leadership and education that can only be inspiring to their peers and to future generations. At Texas a&M, a university research center has been proposed that would serve to not only honor the contributions of Latino leaders to the culture, but also to educate and inspire future generations of this population.

Another issue within the same category is the fact that many different cultures exist within the Hispanic community. As seen above, the name "Latino" refers to many different population types, all of which are predominantly Spanish speaking. This issue is not to be overlooked in the education effort. Education should therefore focus not only on empowering the Latino learner in terms of language, but also in terms of culture. Each representative culture within the community should therefore be recognized, in the same way as the cultural groups within the United States are recognized in education. Particularly, preliminary university entry information should be provided in such a way that families can avoid the confusion and anxiety usually experienced concomitantly when first attending a university. This in itself will give the university setting a more user-friendly atmosphere.

Another issue is the possible desegregation of Latinos from the poverty-focused schools they are obliged to attend because of a lack of resources. Scholarships can for example be offered to deserving students, particularly once they reach the tertiary education level. Such programs can however only work if quality education is ensured from as early as the primary level of schooling.