Contents Page
 I – Introduction.
II – Review of the literature.
III – Facts on the levels of dropouts and violence in the Hispanic community.
IV -  Reasons for the levels of dropouts and violence in the Hispanic community.
V- Recommendations for action.
VI – Summary.
VII – References.

I - Introduction
 
    Carlos Garcia-Velasco is a friend and co-worker of mine in the University of St. Thomas kitchen. One day a few months ago his mother called and told him that his fourteen-year-old cousin, David Pritchard, was in the hospital. He had been walking down the street in his hometown of Jackson, Michigan, when another young Latino boy jumped out of a van and hit him in the back of the head with a crowbar, jumped back in the van,  which was being driven by his mother, and took off. There was no apparent reason for the attack. The local newspapers depicted the incident as gang related, but Carlos’ family knows that David had nothing to do with gangs. Carlos is a prolific poet and songwriter, and wrote this poem about his feelings.

 For David

 It could have been you
 so take a look around
 being in the wrong place at the wrong time
 especially being who you are
 and looking like you do

 They had crushed his skull
 she told me
 they rushed him to emergency surgery
 to remove bone fragments from his brain
 he will never be the same
 we will never be the same

 Just like that
 in a flash
 one blow and everything
 changes

 It could have been you or me
 or primo or tio or uno de mis sobrinos
 its hard because
 somehow the street becomes a part of
 our worlds
 what’s worse
 at times by choice
 a passage for the
 machismos

 You gotta be lucky coming up
 you know
 before you get your head straight

 He is only fourteen and its just
 the beginning
 one blow and everything…
 changed

 The kid who did it will be
 locked away too
 attempted murder
 and it could have been
 anyone of us

 25-life

    David is back at home now, he can walk, speak, and eat, but all with great difficulty and much reduced proficiency because of the permanent brain damage he has suffered. His mother has quit her two jobs and now takes care of him full time. His attacker is being tried for attempted murder, his mother as an accomplice to a felony. Carlos told me that what he means by “and it could have been anyone of us” is that he knows that he, or his other cousins or friends, could have as easily been the perpetrator as well as the victim in this, or any other, act of violence, given the common daily frustrations of being a Hispanic in the United States today.
    This paper will look at the intersecting variables of low incomes, high dropout rates, cultural values and violence in the Hispanic community. After a review of the pertinent literature and facts concerning these issues in the larger Hispanic community, it will focus in particular on two subgroups therein, the Mexican-Americans and the Puerto Rican-Americans. Recommendations for actions to address this issue both in and out of the classroom will be given. It is hoped that a thorough understanding of the causes of violence in the Hispanic community will better enable educators to work with the Hispanic community to create more healthy communities.
     Violence in the United States has recently become a hot topic. The school shootings of the past two years has highlighted a problem of epidemic proportions. Both statistically and anecdotally it can be shown to have increased in the past few decades. Of course, this problem affects the whole of United States society, but the Latino community is affected disproportionately. Pedro Nogera writes in Violence Prevention and the Latino Population, “both immigrant and U.S. born Latino adolescents have high dropout rates, high rates of incarceration, increased rates of smoking, drinking, substance abuse, lower rate of family formation and increased rate of dependence of government assistance programs.” Even though most students will probably not be the direct victims or perpetrators of violence, they could be affected by it in their families, classrooms and neighborhoods. This issue can have life changing effects for everyone it touches. For example, in the movie, My Family/Mia Familia, Jimmy Sanchez witnesses the Los Angeles police kill his older brother Chuco, who had been on the run for killing a boy who attacked him with a knife at a high school dance. This is a strong influence in Jimmy’s own later struggle with a life of crime and violence.
The problem of violence in the Latino community is interconnected with the problems of high school dropouts, other problems in school, and poverty. Latinos have an identifiably higher dropout rate. When looking at the dropout rate, it is important to differentiate between the status dropout rate, or what the U.S. Department of Education terms the complete dropout rate, which is the percent of people who are old enough to potentially have a high school diploma or G.E.D. who do not have one. It is cumulative so it is higher. That is, if a person drops out of school when they are 17 in 1989, they will be counted that year, but also when they are 27 in 1999 and still do not have a G.E.D. The annual dropout rate is the number of students in school who leave school that year. According to information from The Hispanic Population in the United States:March 1997 (Update) by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Minnesota Educational Overview 1994 by the Minnesota Department of Education Data Management, nationally the Hispanic status drop out rate is 45 percent, but in the Twin Cities it is only 24 percent. In Minnesota in 1990 Hispanics had an annual dropout rate of 9.3 percent.
    Other indicators point towards the difficulties Hispanics statistically have in school.The report Minority Youth and Education: A Profile of the Greater St. Paul Area concludes that “Hispanic children appear to be somewhere in the middle—less successful than Asians and whites, but more successful than Blacks and American Indians.” (Mueller x) This report also mentions another measure of the failure of schools to educate Hispanic students, which is course credits lost. “Credits may be lost for a number of reasons such as incomplete assignments, absenteeism, lack of effort, or failed tests.” (Mueller). In 1985 in the Twin Cities Hispanics lost 9.4 percent of credits attempted (Mueller).
    Pedro Antonio Nogera, in Violence Prevention and the Latino Population, says that the “increase in the number of violent crimes committed in predominately Latino communities and the steady rise in the number of Latinos convicted of violent crimes nationally, provide an indication of what can be expected if the tendency toward violence at the community level is not abated.” (Nogera) This reflects the increase of violence in U.S. society, but there is a larger percent increase for Latinos, with regional and national variation. (Nogera) Nogera states that violence in Latino community is a problem “primarily concentrated among young males generally between the ages of 16 and 30, primarily an urban problem, [and that] both victims and perpetrators generally from low income, economically depressed areas.” (Nogera) David Pritchard and his attacker fit this description all too well.
    Trouble with the legal system is not limited to Latino men. In her article, Latinas in Prison: Keeping Mother Child Love Alive, Deborah Prussel reports that Latinas are imprisoned at a rate four times that of white women. The number increased 71 percent from 1990 to 1998. Prussel states that this is for three reasons. First, tougher drug laws that disproportionately effect minorities, second, three strikes laws, and third, mandatory sentences for drug offenders(many of whom are “mules” carrying packages-possibly without even knowing they are drugs.) (Prussel)
    There are both cultural and economic reasons for these problems. For many Hispanics, supporting the family is paramount. Elizabeth Kurylo, in an article titled Hispanics look within to curtail Dropout Rate, writes that many Latino kids work 30 to 40 hours a week or take care of younger siblings. Often, staying is school is not a priority for them. This is especially so for young men, as there is a value of men having to provide the main monetary support for the family. The male to female ratio of Hispanics in workforce is 2 to 1. (Kurylo) For example, Wilfredo Nieves, Sr., a Puerto Rican immigrant in New York, dropped out of high school at seventeen to help his mother support the family. He was not drafted because he was considered the family’s primary source of support. (Nieves) School success is not always highly valued by parents. Some Latino parents work two jobs and don’t have time to help with or checkup on homework.
    Some Latino parents feel that it is enough for their children to learn English, get a H.S. diploma, and begin working, as they did. Of course there are some parents who do encourage their children to excel at school. Often, those Hispanics who do succeed at school report that their family’s support for their school work was tremendously important. There are also school factors which contribute to the high dropout rate. A curriculum that does not reflect Hispanic culture can have a negative effect on Hispanic students attitudes towards school success, as Lisa Delpit describes in Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. Language difficulties are often a factor, students with Limited English Proficiency have a higher dropout rates the lower their language skills are. (Kurylo) The teachers’ attitudes towards the students is also important. In the case of  migrant students, they are sometimes not “owned” by teachers, who view some students as “my” kids, but see the immigrant students as “those” kids. (Kurylo).
    Nogera addresses the relationship of violence and crime to poverty. “While the correlation between poverty and crime is high, in recent times there has been resistance to the notion that the condition of poverty itself is responsible for high rates of crime. … However, there is substantial evidence to support the notion that the lack of economic opportunities in many impoverished urban communities creates conditions that are conducive to the occurrence of crime and the development of an underground economy.” (Nogera) The report by Mueller shows that “there is great disparity by race in the poverty rate among children.” (Mueller Viii) In the Twin Cities in 1989, 24.1 percent of Hispanic children were in poverty, compared to 7.2 percent of white children.
    The way out of poverty traditionally has been education and employment, but this is not available to many young poor either due to “perception or sheer lack of opportunity.” (Nogera) Nogera identifies four choices that people in such a situation can take. They can conform  and take a dead end job, working long hours at minimum wage to support themselves and their family. They can escape this painful reality through drugs and alcohol. They can innovate, using crime or living a dual life half straight and half crooked to obtain the financial resources they desire but are unable to obtain legitimately. The possibility to earn much more in the underground economy than in the dead end job is a big lure to crime. The underground economy is prone to violence as a method of settling disputes. Finally they can rebel and take action for radical change of society.
    Poverty can also engender violence by simply irritating people. “The frustration and despair that fester in low income areas is often manifested through violence, which more often than not, is directed by members of the community at their neighbors and loved ones.” (Nogera). Police often treat minorities in a different manner than non-minorities. Sometimes they allow vices like drug trafficking and prostitution to occur in the barrio, as long as it stays there. Through racial profiling, minorities are often looked at primarily as suspects by police, and thus are not privileged to the protection of the police. Carlos told me that when he sees a police officer, even though he knows he is innocent of any crime, he is very careful not to do anything to make the police stop him.
    This can also create an atmosphere where minorities must protect themselves because they perceive that the police will not. Some Hispanics rely on an attitude of machismo to do this. For some, there is no perceived alternative choice, as Carlos notes, “what’s worse / at times by choice / a passage for the / machismos.” This cultural value of respect on the street has to be earned through a violent reputation. Carlos often was in fights to defend his perceived image. In the movie Dangerous Minds, Emilio Ramirez and Gusmaro Rivera, two promising students who the teacher Louanne Johnson has been working with, get in a fight with the school tough guy, Raul Sanchero, because of a challenge to their status. Eventhough they were doing well in school, wanted to stay there and succeed, and knew that fighting would get them expelled, they felt that they “had to” fight Raul in order to keep their pride.
     Nogera lists some recommendations for action to work against these problems. Many of them are already being taken by different groups, with very positive signs. We should introduce conflict resolution and violence prevention training into school curriculum.We should promote a culturally appropriate curriculum, as “respect of self is directly linked to respect of culture.”(Nogera) The emerging popularity of Latin music, as reported in Christopher John Farley’s article, “Latin Music Pops” in Time, is one positive sign of this happening. Hispanics should have a successful locally controlled commercial district. This can be fostered through low interest bank loans and tax incentive programs. An excellent example of this, as reported by Leonard Inskip in the Star Tribune, is the Mercado on Lake Street in Minneapolis, which will be a collection of 30 small businesses mostly run by Hispanics and created through “cooperation between immigrant churchgoers, the broad faith community, nonprofit urban institutions, city neighborhoods, federal and local government, lenders and philanthropic donors.” It will be an “ethnic small business incubator” and serve the “estimated 9,000 Hispanics, mostly recent immigrants, [who] live within two miles of the mercado at 1515 E. Lake Street.” (Inskip) Kerry McIlroy reports in “Latin America – Matters at Hand,” in George, that “Latinas are starting businesses at four times the national average.” This is good in many ways. It increases the welfare of the business owners, it creates employment opportunities for others, it creates hope and role models of people who succeeded for other people to emulate, it gives people pride in their community, and it creates a sense of ownership. The providers of various community and health services should coordinate their services.
    Nogera also recommends that Latinos work for political power. Perhaps this is the area where they are succeeding most notably. James Burnett, in his article “Latin America – Taking Sides”in George, writes that “Latinos are a crucial voting block in 11 states that account for a staggering 217 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to capture the presidency.  … ‘We don’t have an allegiance to either party,’ says Larry Gonzales of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. ‘Our allegiance is to the issues that affect our community.’” Brook Larmer, in “Latino America” in Newsweek, makes Latinos political power clear. “Latinos have long leaned Democratic (Clinton got 72 %), but their vote is alluring these days precisely because it is up for grabs. … Between 1994 and 1998, Latino voting in nationwide midterm elections jumped 27 % even as overall voter turnout dropped 13%. The 2000 presidential election may show even more dramatic increases: Latino leaders aim to register an additional 3 million voters by then.” They are taking advantage of the celebrity of prominent Latinos to do this, such as boxer Oscar Da La Hoya, who in “1995 set up a foundation to fund scholarships for East L.A. children,” according to Oscar Hijuelos’ article, “Latin America – Northward toward home,” in George. “He has also rallied Latinos to vote.” (Hijuelos) For example for Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, he did “two fund raisers, a public rally and several Spanish media spots. ‘He’s the reason I’m in the Senate right now,’ says Reid [who] won by just 428 votes.” (Larmer).
Finally Nogera recommends cultural action. The emergence of Latin culture into mainstream culture does much for this. “Thanks to the influence of the newly arrived and the children of the once newly arrived, a Latino presence is being felt in all areas of American life – in literature, music, popular entertainment, sports, and finally in the realm of politics. With a growing and increasingly confident electoral population, Latinos will greatly influence the political future of the United States.” (Hijuelos)
Interconnected variables of low education, poverty, and violence

1. Teaching procedures – lecture

2. Model or demonstrate - ?

3. Resources – overhead projector, notes

4. Evaluation Procedures – Question and Answer/Discussion period, 5 Jeopardy type questions

5. Summary – short verbal summary of problems, causes and cures of dropouts and violence in Hispanic students

6. Miscellaneous – The very nature of this type of information has strong, stereotypical qualities. However, there are actual differences in the statistics concerning dropout rates and violence discussed here, so it is valuable to have an understanding of them. It is of course necessary to not use this information as a basis to judge all, or any, individual Hispanic students. Still, this knowledge can enable teachers to better understand some students behavior, and thus have a better chance of helping the students to change them.

References:

Ambert, Alba N. and Melendez, Sarah E., Bilingual Education: A Sourcebook,Teachers
College Press, 1985. ISBN 0807728535.

Burnett, James, “Latin America – Taking Sides”, George, July, 1999.

Dangerous Minds, dir. Smith, John N., , Buena Vista Pictures, 1995.

Delpit, Lisa, Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, The New
Press, 1995. ISBN 1-56584-179-4.

Farley, Christopher John, “Latin Music Pops”, Time, May 24, 1999.
 
Fernandez, Joseph, “Lets keep Hispanics in Schools”
Dallas Morning News, September 6, 1994.
http://cgcs.org/services/onissues/oped20.htm

Garcia-Velasco, Carlos, Mexican-American cook at University of St. Thomas Food
Service.

Hijuelos, Oscar, “Latin America – Northward toward home,” George, July, 1999.

Inskip, Leonard, “‘Mercado’ on Lake Street is a model of community cooperation.” Star
Tribune, July 6, 1999.

Kurylo, Elizabeth, “Hispanics look within to curtail Dropout Rate”
http://www.latinolink.com/news/news98/092/ndro.htm

Larmer, Brook, “Latino America”, Newsweek, July 12, 1999.

McIlroy, Kerry, “Latin America – Matters at Hand,” George, July, 1999.

Minnesota Department of Education Data Management, Minnesota Educational
Overview 1994 550 Cedar Street, St. Paul, MN 55101

Mueller, Daniel P. and Cooper, Philip W. Minority Youth and Education: A Profile of the
Greater St. Paul Area. Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Office of Research and Statistics, St. Paul, MN 1986.

My Family/Mia Familia, dir. Nava, Gregory, New Line Cinema, 1995.

Nieves, Wilfredo Jr., Puerto Rican-American cook at University of St. Thomas Food
Service.

Nogera, Pedro Antonio, Violence Prevention and the Latino Population
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/pedro21.html

Prussel, Deborah, Latinas in Prison: Keeping Mother Child Love Alive
http://www.vistamagazine.com/maymom.htm

Reed, John and Ramirez, Roberto R. The Hispanic Population in the United States:
March 1997 (Update), U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau July, 1998. P20-511 www.census.gov/population/socdem/hispanic/cps97

The Urban Coalition, Census Project, Profiles of Change: Communities of Color in the
Twin Cities Area,August, 1993.