Latino Honor Students Serve as Role Models by Making the Grade

The $600 in college scholarship money that Mission Bay High School senior Ricardo Munoz received last week means a lot to the Golden Hill resident, who has maintained a B-plus average while working almost 48 hours a week to help support his mother and younger brothers.

But equally important to Munoz was the recognition accorded him and 36 other Latino seniors from San Diego city schools by the Assn. of Mexican American Educators (AMAE) at its San Diego chapter scholarship awards banquet.

“This is the first time that I have been recognized for who I am, a Hispanic American,” Munoz, who will attend an engineering technical institute next fall, told the Harbor Island gathering. “Being a Mexican-American should not make me any less of a person.”

The sight of so many outstanding Latino students and teachers in a single room moved Elizabeth Pacheco from San Diego High School to tears when her name was called. And Hoover High graduate Nohemi Contreras admitted surprise that there were so many of her peers with grade point averages hovering around the straight-A mark along with successes in music, athletics and community work.

Highest Dropout Rate

At a time when studies continue to show that Latino students have the highest dropout rate and take fewer college-preparatory classes than students from other ethnic groups, the accomplishments of the 37 honored last week provide evidence that more than a few Latinos do enjoy academic achievement and serve as role models for others in the Latino community.

Latinos now comprise 20% of the enrollment in San Diego schools and the students themselves realize their symbolic role within the community, and they are painfully aware of the stereotypes that exist regarding Latinos and success in education.

“I was so happy to see everyone at the AMAE conference because all I ever see about my people are the movies with (Latinos as) gang members,” said Irma Veronica Jaramillo, a senior at University City High whose family this month qualified for amnesty under federal immigration reform. “It was so nice to see people doing well and from my culture.”

Interviews with a cross-section of the students awarded $10,000 in total scholarships revealed no single answer as to why they have enjoyed solid academic achievement in contrast to many of their peers. But most cited parental support, self-discipline, and encouragement from certain teachers as central to accomplishments, little different from those key attributes that point to success for any ethnic group.

“My mom never got through elementary school and my dad didn’t graduate from high school until completing night courses in his 30s,” said Martin Villafana, an A-minus graduate of Morse High School who is headed for an electrical engineering major at UC Santa Barbara.

“So they impressed upon me to use what you have, that education is right in front of you so use it,” Villafana said. Villafana’s family emigrated from Guanajuato in central Mexico and while they have achieved a measure of economic security, his parents have scrambled to provide a good study environment in a home where each room is shared by at least three people.

“I’m the role model for my brothers and sisters, my dad told me that, and I want them to follow in my footsteps,” Villafana said.

His good friend and academic competitor, Fernando Benitez, is graduating from Morse with a straight-A average and will attend UC San Diego, also in electrical engineering. “My parents (who emigrated from Tecate) have really had to struggle in life and they told me to work hard so I wouldn’t have to go through what they did,” Benitez said.

“That was a major factor. It helped me in self-discipline, like not feeling good about not turning in homework on time.”

The father of Alex Gradilla told his son to concentrate on education and get into college. “I’ve never had to have a job, even though we’re not wealthy, because they wanted me to put all of my energy into getting the best education,” the UC Berkeley-bound Gradilla said.

“They definitely have been a strong influence on me. My mother would never let me run with the (street) movement because she said that would bring me down in the long run. My parents wanted me to depend on the family, my friends and church for support, and not a gang which would harm my aspirations.”

Paying Back Hard Work

Gradilla’s Hoover classmate, Nohemi Contreras, felt an obligation to pay back the hard work of her older 10 brothers and sisters who sacrificed so she could excel. Contreras entered Hoover in the 11th grade from Tijuana, moving out of English-as-a-second-language classes within six months to graduate later this month with honors.

“I lived in Mexico and saw the economic depression, how hard you have to work just to go to school and so I must pay back my family now with a good education,” Contreras said.

Alfonso Aceves is graduating from San Diego High five years after coming to America alone, as his parents remain in Mexico. “But they told me to be a good student and my guardian (who Aceves lives with) pushed me a lot, telling me not to waste my time but do well in school, to learn English.

“I never stopped to think about bad influences . . . I just thought about schoolwork,” said Aceves, who will attend community college in electrical engineering and music.

The parents of several students made pacts with their children to provide them with some spending money and not require part-time jobs if they promised to buckle down in their studies.

“My guardian said I didn’t have to work and I think that was really helpful,” Aceves said. “I know some kids have to work to support themselves or their family but I think it really hurts your time to study.”

“My dad told me that it was more important to study than to work and that really made me feel that he cared about what I was doing in school,” Benitez of Morse said. “It really makes you feel good when your parents are behind you.”

Jaramillo of University City has had to work, tending tables at a restaurant during the evenings. “I would have liked to study more because when you get home after work, you are so tired it’s almost impossible to get your mind set on school work,” she said. “If I didn’t have to work, I could have had a 4.0 (‘A’ average).”

Little Spare Time

Mission Bay’s Munoz expressed similar feelings. In his case, not only does he manage a fast-food restaurant after school, he must commute daily to Mission Bay High from his center-city neighborhood. His typical schedule calls for school in the morning and early afternoon, followed by work until midnight, and study until 3 a.m.

“To tell you the truth, it didn’t leave me a lot of spare time,” he said. “I don’t recommend work unless you have to, but I must help pay the bills and rent for my family,” Munoz said.

The achievements of these students has made them conscious both of their status as positive role models and of criticism that their success comes at the expense of their culture.

“You see your own people all the time (in Golden Hill) and you can come to think that (the lack of achievement) is the way it should be, and you don’t open your mind to other ways it can be,” Munoz said of other students who haven’t done as well as he has. “I try to tell friends at school that school and doing homework is going to get me ahead, and that they have to work harder, and challenge counselors to put them into higher classes.

“I’ve been in classes where I’m the only Mexican and that shouldn’t be.”

Added Villafana, “Too many don’t want to dream, but are happy to be a mechanic. I find English my hardest subject but because of that I enjoy it is the most, especially since it involves discussing a lot of different topics.

“I’ve had friends tell me that they will never be able to do what I do even though they are as smart as I am . . . sometimes Hispanics stereotype themselves.”

Jaramillo admits to anger sometimes when thinking about other Latino students. “So many just don’t care to the extent they should, and that is sad for me because my own people are capable of doing much better.”

‘Wanted to Yell’

Hoover’s Contreras told of seeing a group of Latino students laughing while being counseled on ways to develop better study habits.

“I wanted to yell at them, ‘C’mon guys, you can be motivated!’ because it kills me to see this. But I don’t have a good answer for why it happens.”

Benitez believes that too many Latinos “have been conditioned not to do well”, partly because of economic circumstances but also because some teachers do not expect them to try and therefore have low expectations for them.

Hector Rios of Clairemont High, another Latino bound for UC Santa Barbara in engineering, tutors in the AVID program at his school, which is designed to spur more minority students to attend college.

“I guess I am used as a role model and there is nothing bad about that,” Rios said. “I do try to reach out to Mexican kids and tell them that if I can do it, they can do it, and that nothing should stop them. In the long run, I’ll be able to teach my children the value of education and then they will grow up doing well in high school.”

Both Munoz and Joe Martinez, a Harvard-bound graduate of Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista and one of 20 Outstanding Hispanic Scholars named nationwide, have tutored at Sherman Elementary School, which is 80% Latino in enrollment.

“The students really do look up to you and that really impacted me, it was the first time that I started to see myself as a role model, that as a Hispanic student getting awards, these fourth and fifth graders were really relating to that,” Martinez said.

Munoz attended Sherman as a younger student, and his youngest brother is there now.

“If I had had a person (like myself) to look up to when I was there, I think I would have realized sooner the benefits that can come from education,” Munoz said.

Hoover’s Gradilla downplayed any positive influence he might have on other Latino students, saying that he would not consider himself typical. Yet Contreras said that Gradilla caught her eye soon after she arrived at Hoover last year.

“I think he helped influence me to work harder,” she said, “even though I didn’t know him personally. But I knew he was doing well and that he was Hispanic and I wished I could do as well.”

Most of the successful students have at least one parent who speaks only Spanish and most of the students have tried to remain bilingual.

“In this country, both languages are useful but you have to learn English to be successful, especially in school,” Benitez said.

Only From Education

Gradilla is among several who studied Spanish in school even though his mother speaks it at home. “I didn’t want to just know the slang, I wanted to learn it all properly since it is a matter of etiquette in speaking it correctly to my grandmother.,” he said. “I haven’t lost contact with my heritage.”

The bottom line for Jaramillo and her colleagues is that good times--a good career and good salary--will come only from education.

“If you are going to be happy ultimately, you have to study now,” she said. “Knowledge is the key to anything and we’ve shown that Hispanics are capable of that just like everybody else.”