Blog Post #4

Last week Julian assigned us in small groups. He gave us all a scenario and asked us what we would do in that situation. I thought this activity was interesting because I got to hear what my classmates would do in that particular scenario and we all had similar responses. Then we finally had our debate on Affirmative Action. This was my first time participating in a debate in any class so I found it a bit scary at first. It enjoyed hearing both sides hoping I could finally pick a side in this controversy. Of course, this issue should be fixed from its roots and that is in the k-12 educational system. I really hope Common Core works because it is unfair for minorities to be put into an education system that will work against them and this disparity needs to stop. It has been decades since the Supreme Court ruled desegregation in schools and the statistics of minorities in higher education have not gone up much since then. I understand that Affirmative action is not a solution but I see it as a temporary solution while lawmakers come up with one. Minorities have been waiting a long time for help in the K-12 education system and higher education. I think waiting for the solution and watching the minority in higher education stats stay very low is like criminal act by the government and society. It is better to have a temporary solution because there might not be a solution to the problem any time soon.

For this weeks readings we had three articles to read. The first two were about Latinos in higher education. The article by Sylvia Hurtado had many interesting statistics that were not very shocking. Hurtado mentioned that a way to diminish the negative Latinos stereotype is to have large Hispanic enrollments to provide more opportunities for whites to interact with Latinos and promote cross-cultural awareness. This would work with all of the other minorities in this country but unless we can get them in higher education, I do not see this happening. The second article by Vasti Torres was mostly about how Latinos feel like they need to adapt to American cultures and maintain their ethnic culture. I was not surprised to hear that 11 percent of Latinos have a bachelor’s degree compared with 28 percent of non-whites. I have many older cousins that graduated from high school but not one graduated from college. A few of my cousins went to college for a few semesters but never finished. I know a lot of people that I graduated with in high school that did not continue their education after high school. Luckily for me my close three friends are in college studying to be RNs. My friends are my support group and we encourage each other to work hard to reach our goals. The third article was about Asian Americans in higher Education. It was disappointing to read that although Asian Americans are “the model minority” with 51.1 percent of them enrolled in college, they still face many barriers in the work force and even at school. It seems like all minorities will face some sort of barrier in their lives to prevent them from succeeding. Although it is unfair I think that is what makes minorities in higher education very special people because they are able to overcome many obstacles and reach their goals of earning their degrees.