Ivan Lucero, 28, was expelled from his Bronx high school when he was 18, still in the 10th grade. Brian Harken for The New York Times.
Note: this was supposed to be a piece of commentary attached to a somewhat personal entry regarding the article at this link that someone deleted before I could post. The links at the bullet points are lifted directly from that entry.
Edit: The individual’s whose name was withheld, Informate, has decided to repost her work. Read it here.
The New York Times is supposed to have one of the most educated comment sections for a paper of its size, yet I make an effort to avoid the comments because of “informed” liberal commentary like this which I find more harmful and offensive than straight forward racism that liberals love to mock. While I never doubted that I would someday attend college, the collegiate experience always seemed like a privilege and not a right. For a comparison many of my non-Latino friends at my university are from affluent backgrounds, these wonderful and very intelligent people never once doubted their place at an institution of higher learning. This luxury and psychological advantage, yes it is a very real thing, is something that I heartbreakingly realized was unfathomable and unavailable to millions of young brown kids like me at colleges and schools across this nation. It’s thousands of little factors akin to this, combined with many recent tragic statistics, that converge to produce the problems that ignorant people of all ideological backgrounds attribute to some negative cultural trait.
- More Latino children are living in poverty — 6.1 million in 2010 — than children of any other racial or ethnic group.
- Latino families accounted for the largest single decline in wealth of any ethnic and racial group in the country during the recession.
- The United States is bringing back slavery for Latinos.
- Children whose parents are undocumented or who lack legal status themselves face “uniformly negative” effects on their social development from early childhood until they become adults.
- More than 21 percent of school children are Latino while Latinos only compromise 7 percent of teachers. No other racial or ethnic minority group has such a wide disparity. Where are the role models?
- And EVEN when Latinos succeed in prestigious professions like law, they STILL face an astounding amount of racism and discrimination in their professions and in their communities.
I can draw from many personal experiences but I’ll let the article, the statistics and the comments speak for themselves. Also, read this wonderful post by Political Prof regarding immigration. Let me reiterate, Mexican culture is not the problem. The problems are deeper and more engrained in our society than many of us (liberals included) are comfortable or willing to admit. With that said, Brown pride forever.
