December 2, 2008 4:25 PM
Is Latino culture putting a low emphasis on education?
On Monday, Ernesto Caravantes, author of the controversial book "Clipping Their Own Wings: The Incompatibility Between Latino Culture and American Education," stopped by the Rocky editorial board, along with former Gov. Richard Lamm, to argue that Hispanic families were putting other cultural considerations ahead of education. "I felt that is was high time that Hispanics put education ahead of all those other considerations, because unless Hispanics want to graduate from four-year colleges and universities in the same numbers as the rest of the groups in America, all of society will suffer," he said when interviewed in the Rocky studio.Caravantes' point is basically this: that it's up to Latino families to tackle the problem of educational underachievement. In the P.R. for his book release last year, he claimed, "Hispanics are lagging behind as a result of ignorantly and stubbornly adhering to cultural aspects that do not place education at the top of its values hierarchy and instead, are clipping their own wings by refusing to assimilate into the American educational system."
What do you think? Watch the video and log your own sentiments below.
December 3, 2008
9:21 AM
Juan Sanchez writes:
Ernesto,
Solid point and within reality.
One needs to look further into detail. "Hispanic Incompatibility" is a resulting effect of the past opportunities afforded to our Hispanic Grandparents and Parents. Who told them that education should have a primary or hold principal consideration when they were trying to survive?
The Hispanic educational environment has changed. Improved conditions and opportunities afforded to us by our Hispanic ansestors should now be extended to our future generations.
Ernesto, you are right. Education is and should be at the highest peak of priorities, but I am not sure we are in the minority.
It is not that they don't believe in education. I believe other factors play a role, like economic conditions and social environments.
Thanks for reading my comment,
Juan Sanchez
University of Colorado Denver Student
Denver, Colorado, 80211
December 3, 2008
1:04 PM
Aliza Hausman writes:
Is it really a part of Hispanic culture not to value education or is it a Hispanic American cultural problem? My family in the Dominican Republic is highly educated. They valued education before they arrived in America and they brought these values with them. Both my parents emphasized education as important. But what I found in the New York City public schools that I attended was that most Hispanic students thought that becoming educated was a negative thing, it was called "acting white."
December 3, 2008
2:58 PM
R.N. writes:
Mr. Cervantes's arguments are intentionally designed to incite reactionary comments--the kind that will most assuredly guarantee a fizzled out, polarized debate. As such, this type of polemic will never advance 'Hispanics'--his purported objective-- but rather fragment all sides into warring factions. Outdated thinking, if you ask me.
For instance, why is Hispanic 'organic' culture, for Cervantes, situated as a diametric opposite to higher education? Silly. That assumes that higher education is mutually exclusive and/or non-compatible with cultural organicism.
What's ironic is many in higher education today will often IMMERSE themselves in studying organic cultures abroad, as in Tibet, Mexico, South America, Africa. And it's mostly those individuals who COME FROM highly educated, middle-class, competitive, dominant-culture families that do this! Go figure.
My take on this is that a naturally occurring 'recycling' or 'hybridization' process is continually at work. I think Latino culture CAN and SHOULD exist alongside and within this supposed elite, higher educational process. The thinking that cannot see the two co-existing--the kind of thinking Cervantes has got down--actually only underscores and re-establishes the exclusiveness and inherent superiority of the latter.
December 21, 2008
11:42 PM
S.D. Velasquez writes:
Although there are those Hispanic families that instill a lifetime love for learning in their children, I agree that the vast majority do not. I was raised by American born migrant farm workers who worked each day to support the family. As I grew up in East Los Angeles, CA, I too dreaded the daily toil of the classroom. I did not work with the goal of going to college, and my parents never once suggested that I attend. After joining the Army (a path that most of my friends followed) I began to see that some training would be necessary to earn a living. I eventually went to college and became a math teacher, and went on to earn my M.A. in Educational Admin. Over the past years teaching largely urban Hispanics, I have conducted informal surveys of my students. Almost all of them tell me that their parents expect them to get a job after high school and raise a family.
Like my family did, they are told that college is for "white people". Even today, my own father still refers to me as a "white boy" because I graduated from college! The ignorance factor has a greater consequence that one might expect. It is high time the that we stand up behind new
Hispanic leaders like Ernesto Caravantes, and take part in the "American Dream". Not just Hispanics,
but all who wish to elevate themselves, and in so doing, elevate us all.
S.D. Velasquez B.A., M. A.
Algebra Teacher in California
Proof that (negative) Culture can be overcome!
December 21, 2008
11:43 PM
S.D. Velasquez writes:
Although there are those Hispanic families that instill a lifetime love for learning in their children, I agree that the vast majority do not. I was raised by American born migrant farm workers who worked each day to support the family. As I grew up in East Los Angeles, CA, I too dreaded the daily toil of the classroom. I did not work with the goal of going to college, and my parents never once suggested that I attend. After joining the Army (a path that most of my friends followed) I began to see that some training would be necessary to earn a living. I eventually went to college and became a math teacher, and went on to earn my M.A. in Educational Admin. Over the past years teaching largely urban Hispanics, I have conducted informal surveys of my students. Almost all of them tell me that their parents expect them to get a job after high school and raise a family.
Like my family did, they are told that college is for "white people". Even today, my own father still refers to me as a "white boy" because I graduated from college! The ignorance factor has a greater consequence that one might expect. It is high time the that we stand up behind new
Hispanic leaders like Ernesto Caravantes, and take part in the "American Dream". Not just Hispanics,
but all who wish to elevate themselves, and in so doing, elevate us all.
S.D. Velasquez B.A., M. A.
Algebra Teacher in California
Proof that (negative) Culture can be overcome!