Dropout Rates of Latinos in U.S. and Their Effect on Gang Violence or Vice Versa

Dropout rates of Latinos in U.S. And their effect on gang violence (or vice versa)

Hispanic gang violence and high school drop-out rates

Hispanic teens have the highest dropout rates of any demographic group in the United States. Gang membership amongst Latino adolescents is also increasing, rising 50% from 1999 to 2002, according to one estimate (MacDonald 2004). While rates of juvenile delinquency and gang affiliation have always been highest amongst the children of recent immigrants, the most sobering aspect of recent findings is that risk of becoming a gang member increases rather than decreases, the longer a Hispanic family remains in the U.S. (MacDonald 2004). Dropout rates for second-generation Hispanic students are higher than that for first-generation Hispanic youths, who tend to be less immersed in gang culture "a growing gang culture that offers them an identity and an outlet for their alienation, according to researchers" (We were pretty much invisible, 1998, Washington Post).

Jefferson Senior High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District has a 58% dropout rate. The population is 90% Hispanic and has one of the worst drop-out rates in the nation. "Students say the gang problems divert teachers from teaching" (Hispanic-dominated L.A. school grapples with worst dropout rate and gang problems, 2008, Immigration watch). Even when Hispanic families leave the Los Angeles area to escape gang violence, the violence springs up elsewhere, given the nation-wide outreach of some of the major, Latino-affiliated gangs (We were pretty much invisible, 1998, Washington Post).

Latino's high drop-out rate and gang violence are clearly interrelated but in terms of causality, one seems to feed the other. A lack of a sense of a future within legitimate institutions such as schools causes students to turn to gangs instead to find a sense of place, identity, and empowerment within American society. Gang membership also contributes to the high drop-out rate because student's activities in gangs draw them away from school. In the short-run, gangs seem like a more attractive option than struggling to barely get by. A lack of educational assistance increases the frustration level if the student's English language skills are not strong enough to remain competitive with his classmates.

The reason that second generation students are more apt to join gangs may also have to do with the fact that they are even more 'placeless' within American society -- they are neither first-generation immigrants with a strong sense of a homeland, nor are they fully assimilated into America. They can 'taste' the American Dream but not fully experience it. "Immigrants who arrive as adults to escape poverty tend to view their lives here as an improvement over what they left behind, but their children often compare their circumstances to those of other Americans and find themselves lacking" (We were pretty much invisible, 1998, Washington Post). Gangs which offer a hybrid identity between Hispanic and Anglo culture may seem on the surface to be an ideal way to fulfill the adolescent need for a sense of secure identity and self-esteem.