Mentoring Program Helps Put Latina Students on Right Course

Ana Moscoso, 19, had SAT scores of nearly 1200 and a 3.8 grade-point average. Her parents--both factory workers who immigrated to the United States from El Salvador when she was 8 months old--had always pushed her to study hard.

Yet when it came time to apply to college, they had little advice for their daughter.

“My goals were, I just wanted to go to college,” Moscoso said. “I had always wanted to go to a four-year college, but I thought a two-year was just as good.”

But after joining a mentoring program for Latinas at Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles, where she received coaching and encouragement, Moscoso earned a coveted spot last fall at UC Berkeley.

In talking with other Latinas who had attended the prestigious university, Moscoso believed she could do it too.

“We got to talk to other Latina professional women,” Moscoso said in a phone interview from her dorm room at Berkeley. “And I realized, yeah, it’s a tough school. But I think I can do it.”

Started three years ago at Bravo, the mentoring program proved so successful it was expanded this year to San Fernando High School in the Valley and Roosevelt and Garfield high schools in Los Angeles.

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Known as the Latina Academic Mentoring Program, or LAMP, the program was designed to teach students to appreciate their cultural heritage, promote civic responsibility, provide career counseling and inspire them with a slate of motivational speakers, program Director Veronica Jauregui said.

But the overarching aim, Jauregui said, is to encourage Latinas to attend four-year colleges. The program so far has a 100% success rate. Jauregui said all 40 girls who graduated from the program over the past three years have moved to four-year schools.

“A lot of time, because of lack of exposure, they do not know they can go back east or to UCLA or Berkeley,” Jauregui said.

Jauregui believes so strongly in the program that she worked the first two years without pay.

She received enough money this year from the Community Health Foundation, a Los Angeles nonprofit organization, to pay herself and another staff member salaries under $20,000. Jauregui continues to run the office out of her home and uses volunteers for presentations and programs.

On Monday, 15 Latinas crowded into a half-circle in a conference room at San Fernando High during their lunch hour and talked about women, politics and how to change the world.

They rehashed their recent trip to Sacramento for Latina Action Day, where they rubbed elbows with Latino politicians, toured the Capitol and watched the Legislature in action.

At San Fernando High, where teachers invited about 20 students to apply for the program this year, participants are a mix of college-bound youths and girls at risk of dropping out of high school.

“The college-bound students tend to be more sheltered, and when they are exposed to the at-risk students, they become more aware of what the community is like.” Jauregui said. “They rub off on each other.”

The mentoring program at San Fernando High meets every Monday during lunch period. Each girl is assigned a mentor to work with.

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During the college application season, the mentors talk to their young charges about college possibilities, and help them with applications.

Jauregui brought two Latina speakers to the 30-minute lunch period Monday. Norma Cardenas, wife of Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), led a break-the-ice exercise to encourage the girls to talk about their impressions in Sacramento.

Then Maria L. Reza, an administrator for the Los Angeles Unified School District, talked to the girls about a career day many of them attended last week at CSUN.

“What the school tells us is, it is good enough just to graduate from high school,” said Sonia Hernandez, 14, a ninth-grader who attended Latina Action Day in Sacramento and plans to join the mentoring program.

Angelina Garcia, 18, an outspoken senior in white overalls and glasses, said the program introduces the girls to Latina women who are doctors, lawyers and teachers.

“They [the mentors] really make us think about higher expectations,” she said.

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Many of the girls said LAMP and the recent trip to Sacramento offer academic and professional encouragement that they often do not get from family, school or the community.

“I don’t think my father supports me,” one girl said.

“I think my parents support me,” added another. “But I don’t think the community does. And I don’t think the teachers think we can go that far.”

While praising the program, the girls said they believe boys at the school may need something similar.

“As Latinas, as women, we have already seen the inequality that exists,” student Nora Cadena, 18, said. “But the guys think, ‘We are guys. We will get what we want.’ ”

Reza and Jauregui preside proudly over the students, watching the younger ones coming up through the ranks as carefully as the seniors, who will soon head to college.

“Did you see her?” Reza said to Jauregui, referring to a girl who had been sitting on the outside of the circle, watching her outspoken peers. “She’s real quiet, but she’s picking everything up.”