Title: An Invisible Minority: Mexican English-Language Learners.
Abstract: Ever since the founding of this country, equality, freedom, and justice have been the underlying values of America's political and educational systems. Thomas Jefferson, founder of the University of Virginia, believed in intellectual freedom and in education of the citizenry as means of preserving the new republic. More than 150 years later, higher education policymakers in the United States began to incorporate these values into their admissions decisions by including ethnic and racial diversity as a stated goal, not only for the purpose of redressing past injustices but also to prepare citizens to be successful in an increasingly multicultural society. Diversity initiatives, in the form of affirmative- action measures, resulted in an immediate increase in minority enrollment throughout the country; minority enrollment reached its peak in the mid 19705. In the 19805, affirmative action was undermined by increasing tuition rates and decreased federal and state spending on financial aid. In the 19905, court decisions in California and Texas favored white plaintiffs who claimed reverse discrimination. Again, fewer blacks and Latinos enrolled in college. For example, after the Hopwood decision, Texas A&M University eliminated affirmative action in the state, affecting a nearly 20 percent decrease in the enrollment of blacks and Latinos. Minority parents may have assumed that the university no longer cared about diversity and/or that support and retention programs had been eliminated (Finnell 1998). Ironically, as our country's population has become increasingly diverse, our colleges and universities have become increasingly homogeneous, i.e., whiter (Orfield 1998). This is due in part to todays acrimonious anti-immigrant political climate and in part to admissions and financial aid policies (Niskey 2007). Those American ideals of equality and justice seem to have faded away. As white students continue to dominate this nations university campuses, the future appears bleak for minority groups, especially blacks and Latinos. As a group, Hispanics are the least educated minority in the country (Gandara 1995): They have the highest high school dropout rates of all minority groups (Llagas 2003). Yosso (2006) describes the societal inequalities and educational limitations for Chicanas/-os in the educational pipeline: Of ioo Chicanas/-os who enter elementary school, 44 will graduate from high school, 26 will enroll in college, and only seven will earn a bachelor s degree. Let me clarify the terminology used to describe the ethnic group under consideration in this article: The terms Hispanic and Latina/o are misleading in that they can refer to a white, highly educated Cuban in Miami as well as to a black, working-class Puerto Rican in New York City and a brown, Mexican- American migrant worker in rural Texas. Yet those are the labels most commonly used to identify a person from a Spanish-speaking country. Chicana/o specifically denotes someone of Mexican origin and has political connotations (Acuna 2004, Yosso 2006). It typically refers to an individual in the United States who is a second- or third-generation immigrant who is dominant - that is, more proficient in English than in Spanish. Because this article focuses on a group of students who have spent most, if not all, of their lives in Mexico, I call them Mexican. They are in the United States legally. Individuals of Mexican origin make up the majority of the Hispanic group. Soon, their numbers will overtake those of all other minorities in this country. Although they have been the subject of a considerable number of education research studies, one group of Mexican students has been overlooked almost completely: those who enter U.S. high schools as sophomores, juniors, and seniors and who are not proficient in English. These English language learners, or ELLS, are not eligible for Advanced Placement courses, nor are they considered for recruitment by U. …
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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