Analysis Of Chamblee Charter High School

Imagine you are a person of mixed Latino race living in the United States and you are preparing to fill out a census form. None the choices accurately display who you are racially. This is a problem for many people of Afro-Latino descent. An Afro-Latino is defined as any person who is of both Latin and African descent. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines Hispanic or Latino as “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.” But what about those who are both Black and Latino/Hispanic? In the 2010 Census Bureau report it shows that only 2.5 percent of the 54 million Hispanics living in the United States also identified as Black, but this is likely an undercount. This small percentage are the voices of the Afro-Latino community pushing to be visible and represented in the population. Because of this, census forms should be changed to include Afro-Latino as a race.

One urban problem these immigrants face when arriving to Los Angeles is having a lack of education, and not being able to become educated properly. According to “5 Challenges Facing the Hispanic/Latino Community in the U.S.”, by Elias Moitinho, “Hispanics/Latinos have low levels of educational attainments” where “the high school dropout rate among Latino youths (17%) is nearly three times as high as it is among white youths (6%) and nearly double the rate among blacks (9%).” This issue facing Hispanic immigrants as they settle in Los Angeles can be related to poverty where “reportedly, 5 million Latinos (one-third of their total number) are living in poverty in the state” of California (Palash Ghosh). Considering how poverty is relevant to Hispanic immigrants, this leads to fiscal problems where services such as public education lack funding, resulting in an education crisis. Another urban problem is the issue of transportation use. Hispanic immigrants require transportation to get to their locations such as work, and many rely on public transportation due to their economic conditions. These immigrants reply on “a diverse transportation network” that is “especially important for those without cars, which includes…17 percent of Latino… households” (Manuel Pastor). Another urban challenge immigrant Hispanics face is settling in areas

Employment challenges and economic disparities amongst Hispanics in the United States has been an ongoing battle, social policies along with institutions continue to perpetuate poverty among Latinos’ and African Americans. According to Liu (2011), Labor market segmentation by race/ethnicity, gender, and national origin has been recognized as a prominent feature of urban labor markets in immigrant gateway cities across the United States. A direct example of this would be when Cubans’ immigrated to Miami in the 1960’s, at first, they were welcomed by the Americans with open arms until they realized they could be in competition for employment as the Cubans were not leaving to go back home. This created many issues especially when it came to welfare,

In Linda Chavez’s, “Hispanics and the American Dream” she starts by showing the growth of Hispanics in America and how they are depicted. She sees them as a valuable part of society that is steadily climbing to new heights on the socioeconomic ladder, yet the population perceives them to be the lower end and will likely remain that way. She goes on to prove this assumption by the way Hispanics are shown in the media, which states that poor and Hispanic goes hand in hand when thought of. What is failed to be seen is that most Hispanics are steadily in the middle class, but this varies within the group just as it does with all races. The analysts take into consideration the immigrants who have just entered America, legal or illegal, which in turn causes the balance to shift towards the poor side of the spectrum. Our overall perception of Hispanics plays a role in their place in society.

In addition, the factor that might play an important role in Latino’s wealthy is English language proficiency, about one in ten South/Central Americans and around one in five native Mexican adults do not speak English very well. Moreover, the differentiation between generations in Latinos plays an important role because second and third generations do better than the first generation or recent immigrants. The reason is language and experience in the labor market as well as educational achievements. The early the exposed to the U.S., the better they fare. “Latino men earn wages are about 60 percent of the wages earned by whites and 90 percent of those earned by African American”. Also, the origin between Latinos is important as researchers show that “Over 55 percent of the Latino labor force is foreign-born with less education and lower earning that natives”. that South/Central Americans and Puerto Ricans do better that Mexicans. In fact, Mexicans represent the 58.5 percent of Hispanics, but they tend to have less education and is the group with the fewer earnings salaries (Fry, R., & Lowell, L.,

"You know, 20 years ago when I started in this business, I never had to have discussions with the computer folks. My, how have times changed! Today, about 90% of my equipment located within the facility can be managed via my laptop and Web browser. Whenever I plug my laptop into the telephone looking jack in the wall, my operating system says that I'm now operating at 10 megabits. Then, whenever I browse to my equipment, I cannot retrieve any data. After going back and forth with the HVAC support techs, they determined that my connection needed to be 100 megabits. They said it must be my network

I decided to interview my aunt, Evert Landa, because she graduated from John Marshall High School which is located near Belmont Senior High the school I graduated from. I was curious to discover how similar our experiences were because she attended high school from 1996 – 2000 while I started high school a decade later 2010 – 2014. Both schools are located in a predominantly Hispanic and Latino community while also being diverse. However, as I interviewed her, the experience she had in high school was completely different from the one I had in high school; moreover, we also compared the experience that her daughter is having in high school to ours. The school system has undergone changes in terms of segregation, the way teachers lecture, and

“Hispanics in manufacturing, wholesale and retail, and transportation industries have been particularly hard hit”. (Gonzalez, 2002)

Miss Kane’s first grade class at Lutie Lewis Coates Elementary School (also known as Coates Elementary) has twenty students and seventeen of them are considered English Language Learners (ELL) (E. Kane, Personal Communication, October 4, 2016). This is very frustrating for both Miss. Kane and her students because it is very difficult to communicate with many of her ELLs. Out of Miss Kane’s twenty students eight students are Hispanic, five Indian, five Black, and three White. Miss Kane’s class is very diverse and this allows students to feel more accepted because not all students are similar. Coates Elementary as a whole is very diverse: Asian 28.86%, Black 18.26%, Hispanic 37.32%, and White 12.08% (Fairfax County Public Schools, 2015). Miss Kane’s classroom reflects similar diversity as Coates Elementary does. Both Miss. Kane and the Coates staff really show their appreciation for diversity and attempt to treat all children equally giving all students equal opportunity. Coates Elementary is a Title I school; about fifty percent of students receive free and reduced lunch (Fairfax County Public Schools, 2015). This school was placed in the center of poverty and many of these students who participate in the free and reduced lunch program are English Language Learners.

The Latino minority was now the majority. Of these new citizens, many are immigrants in search of affordable housing. For a typical immigrant, jobs are scarce and lead most of the residents in my city to settle for minimum wage jobs resulting in a low median income. The low socioeconomic status of the citizens played a pivotal role on the education of the children who grew up in this oppressed neighborhood. There was a staggering drop of 28.8% of students who graduated high school and/or pursued higher education from 1990 to 2010. This drop was result of the low expectations the education system primed on the students from a very young age. Since many come from immigrant parents their first language might not necessarily be English. Tracking then took place, separating the few who were fortunate enough to have prior knowledge of the “native language” and those who need extra help and were held back for their inability to speak English. Ramon and Hunt touch on the topic of schools lack of support, specifically schools under LAUSD; my home district. The education received at schools like mine were not up to par in comparison to schools white and Asian Americans attended; it did not provide the same highly certified teachers or varied class selection (Ramon, Hunt 387). Lack of support puts many at a disadvantage including myself who had to persist regardless of all the barriers tunneling my

Fortunately and unfortunately, I am a product of charter schools. I attended Achieve Charter Academy from fifth grade to eighth grade. I joined the first year that it opened, leaving all my elementary friends right before graduation. Over the course of the four years I was in multiple advanced courses and performing well. By eighth grade I was in geometry that counted towards high school credit, and feeling good about my academic path. I am grateful of this, but it did not prepare me well for the future years to come. The way we learned was very basic. There was not as much rigor as there would be in a class of that extent. I was never really challenged during the course of the year. I entered high school with high hopes. Unfortunately the

Racial discrimination among Hispanics in the United States is on the rise along with stricter immigration laws, inadequate education for ESL classes, as well as they are prey to healthcare disparities. Data shows that many states in the United States are implementing tougher immigration laws for their individual states. Also, due to education cuts and kick-backs, English as a second language classes are becoming fewer in many school districts. Finally, health care disparities among Hispanics are on the rise due to lack of insurance, language barriers, and not enough medical resources to meet their needs.

The neighborhood of Flatlands, on central Brooklyn, is a densely populated community, which contain an estimated about 206,963 people. As suggested by the following data, this community is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse in the Brooklyn county; for which 59.6% are Black, 29.2% are White, 2.6 %are Asian, 7.1% are Latino, and 1.5% belong to other racial identity (possibly the recent influx of Orthodox Jews). Due to so richly diverse composition, and the fact that, 39.0% of the local residents are foreign born, 21.9 % of the households in the area speak another language than English at home. The housing in the area is mostly composed by homeowners and co- owners whom represents 60.6 %, while the other 39.4% represent Renters and people that do not pay rent but are not owners. Flatlands is a middle-class community, were the median household income ranges around $61,786 and $62,862. Also, 63.7% of the adults are part of the labor force and only 6.0% of the families live below the federal level of poverty. Concerning the levels of education attainment, 37.9% of the adults have a high school diploma, and 22.3% has a college degree. If we take into account the higher and superior education and compare it to the rest of Brooklyn (high school: 26.91% and College:19.36%), we can say that Flatlands has the highest level of education attainment in the borough.

My data analysis of racial demographics in the school district shows that the area is uniquely isolated – surrounded by communities that don’t look similar. At Palos Verdes Peninsula High, there are two primary ethnic groups that attend school – white students and Asian students. Combined, they make up over 75% of the high school population, while white students represent the largest overall at just over 40%. The third largest ethnic group represented is Hispanic or Latino students, of which there are only 262. This equals about one-tenth of the high school. The district overall has even higher percentages of white students, totaling almost 48%. Only 12% of the district’s students identify as either Hispanic or

Spanish was my first language growing up but when I began to speak English my Spanish accent transpired. I was placed in bilingual classes to assist me in pronouncing English words. Recalling on those memories had me wonder if they were my first experience feeling different. It wasn’t until I got to middle school and high school that I became aware of race separation because students grouped culturally and linguistically. I was not well informed of the purpose of the L.A. riots until I saw the police brutality video. It became evident after 9/11 and the Arizona SB 1070 act that race and racial profiling became a great issue. Throughout this paper my hope is to understand ideas surrounding race and gender issues on the basis