Lack of Ambition?

In a commentary written by Marisa Treviño in USA Today, Treviño adresses the issues of Latinas pursuing higher education by referencing statistical reports that reflect the "pathetic" educational future of these students and they're preformance compared to their peers of different races and Latino counterparts. She then delves into the efforts taken by many organizations such as Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE) and the National Hispana Leadership Institute that have both helped Latinas better prepare for college by improving their skills and lending financial support as well.

Where it seems that the Latinas are faring well with the added support, Latinos are still lagging far behind when pursuing higher education. As Luis Ponjuan stated, this comes from the lack of societal involvement with these young men's educational career and credits the interest in Latinas education to a long-running societal neglect that is now being acted upon.

I, as a Latino pursuing higher education, find this commentary as a major wake up call and I feel that there should be more involvement with Latino students to ensure the success of my people (pardon the heavy expression.) However, at the same time I feel that the involvement should not be heavily placed on outside organizations but an active involvement from within the household, and while there are many Latino parents that strongly encourage the need for education many that are immigrants from their home country spend a large majority of their time working to keep up with the bills of the house and leave alot of their children to take care of themselves and each other. I believe it goes without saying that children raising children will never fare the same results as each child having the chance to looked after by their actual parents, and if many of these children were enrolled in extra-curricular activities it would prevent them from watching t.v., playing video games, or even getting pregnant and spend more time and attention on their school work where it truly deserves to be.