By Sophia Moreno
Staff Writer, Tech Editor
Despite the recent attempts to increase student diversity with the removal of tryouts and other prerequisites in AP and Honors classes, Hispanic representation is still very scarce.
Every student should feel empowered to pursue accelerated courses whenever those opportunities arise. With this in mind, we must draw attention to increasing Hispanic students’ enrollment in advanced classes.
Growing up in Montebello, a multicultural neighborhood near East Los Angeles, I took advanced classes in elementary school, containing equally bright and determined kids from various ethnic backgrounds. When I arrived in TC, I was shocked to be the only Hispanic in all of my advanced and regular classes at Longden Elementary.
Although some people might say our community is diverse, according to the National Center of Education Statistics, there are roughly 16% Hispanic students, 1% African American students, 16% white students and 64% Asian students in TCUSD. Compared to other areas like Montebello and Alhambra our diversity is extremely low.
Beginning my first year of high school, I found myself experiencing the same sense of isolation I did in Longden. Even now, in my honors courses, I am the only Hispanic in my classrooms.
Just as many students before us have done, Hispanic students must reach out to each other and form communities to demand more support and recognition from the district. One way of reaching out is organizing gatherings with students who have similar academic expectations and interests. We, Hispanic students, must try and find community with others like ourselves.
In order to encourage other Hispanic students to take AP classes, major ways of increasing representation include empowering other Hispanic people to succeed and to create new clubs highlighting Hispanic culture and history. By joining those groups, a sense of belonging is formed, helping students feel welcome to join specialized classes. We also must call for visible presence, especially during Hispanic Heritage Month.
Most Hispanic parents, including my own family, might claim that their children do not need to excel in school as long as they help out with work at home and are able to earn money for the family. Others say their kid’s only purpose is to help out financially and with the housework. For example, a freshman I know takes days off of school to help with his step-father’s business. With the amount of time he spends skipping school, he does not have enough time or energy to pursue AP classes even if it is presented to him.
A study done by the Pew Research Center found that most 16- to 25-year-old Hispanic youth do not pursue education higher than high school because they need to aid their family.
Not only does our need to financially assist the family feed into the stigma around intelligence in Hispanic culture, but it also leaves us with low self esteem, causing discouragement to joining AP classes. Doubt starts to pile up when we are not uplifted by our parents and instead are expected to become yet another backbone for our family.
We must empower one another, and affirm that we do belong here. We worked just as hard as anyone else who can get into advanced classes and are still entitled to the same learning opportunities as other ethnicities. We all deserve a seat at the table of higher education.