Reading the opinion piece titled “Latino students refuse available help” published in the Feb. 5 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner, put me in a position of dissonance. The topic chosen makes sense while its information is sub-standard and incomplete. I am amazed that a college newspaper would base an opinion piece on one article. This article shows the level of ignorance your staff is maintaining regarding Latinos and education.
Let me educate you: First of all, not all Latinos can accept financial aid. AB 540 students are residents without citizenship. With over 1,000 of these students on campus they are not able to receive aid. There are a little over 8,600 Latinos on campus. Even if only half of the AB 540 students are Latino that would equate roughly 6 percent. Not only do you disregard basic figures, but you disregard where many of our Latino students come from.
Many of our students come from schools that are under-funded and inadequate. These schools do not explain adequately the function of financial aid. Here on campus, we have received the HIS grant totaling $2.5 million to remedy what the school lists as five major problems with the campus concerning Latino students.
If the federal government and the campus sees young Latinos drifting away because this campus and our education system is failing Latinos, what are you looking at?
Understanding the background and complexity of this issue would do your staff some good. Your job is to inform the student body, not mis-inform them.
– Al-Karim Shivji, co-chairman of the Chicano and Latino Studies Student Association
