What Values Are Cell Phones “Installing” In Latino Teens?

By Ray Salazar

When I taught seventh grade a year and a half ago, some of my twelve-year-old students had fancier phones than I did. I should not have been surprised.

According to a recent report released by Mobile Future and the Hispanic Institute, Latino teens lead other groups with cell-phone use.  In a July 15 article, NBC Latino cited the report’s key finding about cell phones: “Ninety percent of Hispanics, ages 18-29, have cell phones. Hispanics actually lead whites in using mobile phones to access the Internet, 40-34 percent.  At 45 percent, they also lead both whites, 24 percent, and African Americans, 44 percent, in sending and receiving instant messages.”

Based on my seventh graders, those percentages will rise quickly as those students enter adulthood.  Our Latino young people are connected.  But what values are we “installing” in them?

Despite the fact that my Latino students had these high-tech gadgets, they struggled to communicate–with me, their parents, each other, and, probably, themselves.

What teenager wouldn’t want a fancy phone? It plays music. It takes pictures. It connects them to the Web. It does everything. It does everything for them. So we have a population of low-income Latinos growing up with a sense of entitlement I had only witnessed while teaching affluent students a few years back.

I’ve been in education for seventeen years. I remember the struggles of my Latino students at an alternative high school in 1995. They just wanted to survive, get their diploma. They were scared about what came next. At another Southwest Side Chicago high school about ten years ago, the Latinos knew they were better off than those living in more low-income Latino neighborhoods. But I don’t remember the arrogance–the “booshwazee” attitude.  But back then, cell phones weren’t as popular.

The housing boom helped many families leave low-income Latino neighborhoods around the time my wife and I did ten years ago.  They, we, moved more Southwest in Chicago or to the suburbs.  The housing crisis now, however, has these same families who “got out” struggling in a lifestyle that is difficult to stay in.  Many of them are, once again, low-income with an upside down mortgage or foreclosed home.

I see how exhausted some of the parents are on report-card pick up days.  When they see a string of Ds and Fs, I’ve heard more than one parent say, “But Maestro, we give him everything.” The student usually sits there silently or looks away or rolls his eyes.  The student does not recognize he is not giving anything in return. One young woman I had as a student in seventh grade was planning her quinceañera. I told her she swore so much, she was probably going to let an F bomb slip out when she welcomed her guests. She joked: “I’ll be like, ‘You’re all bitches.’ ” We laughed.  She was a lot quieter after that conversation.  She ended up failing seventh grade.  But I’m almost sure she kept her phone.

There’s another type of rebellion Latino parents are facing, which they might not even see.  Teens (and pre-teens) hide in their closets to text, talk, or Facebook all night. They keep passwords from their parents. I wonder if the parents ever read the texts. Parents will say there’s trust. But there’s also the unknown. Who’s texting? At what time? What kind of pictures are they sending? How many contacts do they have? How many Facebook friends?  Who’s Rooster?

When parents don’t instill the value of responsible communication at home, it makes my job as a writing teacher much harder.

I know most parents’ intentions are honest: we want to give our children what we did not have. But with these new objects and opportunities, we must give them the values to be responsible with the phones and with themselves. I struggle with this as a father; I think about it every day.  My seven-year-old son wants to know when he’ll get a cell phone.  “When you graduate from college,” is my response so far.

Parents see giving children everything as an investment in the future, but my concern is that the teens are growing up with the idea that opportunities can be bought, assumed. And like many in my generation, the next generation of Latinos will grow up in extreme debt buying cars, TVs, phones that distract us from problems and possible solutions.

I understand how necessary it can be to silence the conflicts in our lives like we can silence our phones. We can reject our calls–kindly even, with a text. So I think many parents who are struggling with house payments and car loans want to silence the challenges of adolescence. “It’s so I can call you anytime,” the mother says. But the kid may not accept the call.

We can, however, intervene.  We can set boundaries on our children’s cell-phone use and our own (I have to regularly remind myself to put the phone away while driving).  We can take away our kids’ phones away at night. We can get their passwords. We can sit next to our teens and review their posts and texts and teach them to respect themselves. We can make them get summer jobs–even if they don’t get paid–so they earn their cell phone instead of expecting it like an allowance.

We have to question the values we are instilling in our Latino young people when their cell phone use is higher than their high-school and college graduation rates.

• Do you think it’s acceptable to have full access to your teen’s cell phone?  Why or why not?
• What values are you instilling at home?  Do you know if your children are accepting these and demonstrating them outside of your home?  How do you know?