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By Michel Leidermann
In 2008 about 1,500 Latino students will graduate from high school in Arkansas according to the estimates made by the Interstate Commission on Higher Education. According to the report, Latinos comprise 5% of the graduates from public high schools in the state.
The number of Latino graduates is up because of their traditionally large families. That and the arrival of more immigrants will make Caucasian students the minority in secondary schools in the United States in a decade, while the number of African American students continues to decline.
The United States still does not understand that one of every five children is the child of immigrants. These numbers mean that Latinos will be the ones to fill the jobs left by retiring Baby Boomers; they will also be the ones to keep the United States competitive in the global economy.
According to a report from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation published in April 2007, it is estimated that around 2020 the pool of labor workers in the United States will grow because of immigrants.
A larger percentage of Latino students leave high school or graduate without sufficient credits for admission into higher education institutions, according to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Nationally, Latinos are graduating at a rate of 53% while the total percentage of high school graduates is of 70%.
Latinos have the lowest university enrollment rates between the ages of 18 to 24 according to Census data: 25% compared to 33% of African American Non-Latinos, 43% of White Non-Latinos, and 61% of Asians.
A lack of knowledge about the higher education system and the customary obligation to help their families prevents many high school graduates from continuing.
Without a parental legacy of higher education, many students often feel obliged to work in order to help their families.
That feeling of commitment is especially present when parents struggle to learn English and depend on their children for translation and to help navigate the way of life in the United States.
Often times, children of immigrants feel tied to the expectations and demands which set their families apart from the rest of American society.
Latinos usually graduate with enough credits to enroll in universities but they are not all legal residents. The lack of “legality” forbids them to qualify for federal aid and educational loans.
Close to half of the immigrants in Arkansas are illegal but ¾ of the Latino children in the state were born here and are citizens, according to the Rockefeller Foundation.
Even with the students’ hesitation, the University of Arkansas as well as Arkansas community colleges are heavily recruiting Latino students promoting their “open door” policies and individual attention to first generation college students.
Some campuses even offer a fully paid first year of school to those students who are children of immigrants under the federally funded program “College Aid for Immigrants.” Parents no longer have to move constantly to follow harvests because there is a good rotation in the chicken processing plants, these jobs provide stability which keeps them from moving, therefore making students eligible for the program.
The real question is whether the children of immigrants will break away from the past and take advantage of the opportunities education offers them in order to succeed and better aid their families.
(Translation by Rosario Guerra)
