*This was reported and written by NewsTaco’s good friend Patricia Guadalupe. There is a load of good information here. Community colleges are great for Latinos, but (there’s always a but) there are some caveats: make sure the college has transferable credits, and make sure there are completion programs in place to help Latino students, as Patricia writes, “finish what they started.” VL
For many college-bound students, decision time is right around the corner. The month of March is when many institutions of higher learning start sending out their regular admission notices on who they have accepted for the new fall semester. It can be a stressful time for some who are trying to decide among the many choices of where to spend the next several years after high school.
Latino students are joining their peers in greater numbers in pursuing higher education, with more and more Hispanic students finishing high school and continuing their studies.
And where are many of them going? Many education advocates say community colleges can be a hidden gem in academia, provided it’s a good program that focuses on completion or a transfer to a four-year college.
Born in the early part of the twentieth century, George Washington Gómez is named after the American rebel and hero because his parents are certain their son will be a great man too. George, or Guálinto as he’s known, grows up in turbulent times. His family has lived for generations in what has become Texas. “I was born here. My father was born here and so was my grandfather and his father before him. And then they come, they come and take it, steal it and call it theirs,” his Uncle Feliciano rages.
The Texas Mexicans’ attempts to take back their land from the Gringos and the rinches—the brutal Texas Rangers—fail. Guálinto’s father, who never participated in the seditionist violence, is murdered in cold blood, and Feliciano makes a death-bed promise to raise his nephew without hatred.
Young Guálinto comes of age in a world where Mexicans are treated as second-class citizens. Teachers can beat and mistreat them with impunity, and most of his Mexican-American friends drop out of school at a young age. But the Gómez family insists that he continue his education, which he will need in order to do great things for his people. And so his school years create a terrible conflict within him: Guálinto alternately hates and admires the Gringo, loves and despises the Mexican. Written in the 1930s but not published until 1990, George Washington Gómez has become mandatory reading for anyone interested in Mexican-American literature, culture and history.
By Patricia Guadalupe, NBC News (4.5 minute read)
