Guest Column

By Gery Chico

Chicago Sun Times

July 4, 2005

We hear more and more reports about Hispanics now being the largest minority in the United States. We hear more discussion about Latino empowerment. To my way of thinking, empowerment is one of the most misused terms. For me, empowerment means simply this -- controlling one's destiny. The way you control destiny is by being educated.

For most Hispanics, there is little empowerment. Yes, progress has been made. More than 20 Hispanics have been elected to Congress. My friend Antonio Villaraigosa was recently elected mayor of Los Angeles, and many Hispanics have been elected to our own City Council. Although these milestones are welcome signs, they are not enough. We need more Hispanic public officials, both elected and appointed.

It goes beyond politics. We need more Hispanics owning major businesses, as judges, corporate executives in Fortune 500 companies, as bankers on Wall Street, as well as in our communities, as attorneys, accountants, teachers, professors and engineers. We need more Latino faces and names in the news and entertainment media: not just copy editors and reporters, but general managers and owners. One in four baseball players is Latino, but how many Latino coaches, managers, executives and owners are there in baseball? I could go on, but you get the point. Hispanics disproportionately are on the lower rungs of the ladder. Their incomes are modest (except for baseball players and some entertainers); their power over their own lives is limited.

The Hispanic community is more youthful than most others. While I'm proud of our powerful work ethic, we must channel that work ethic for manual labor to more thought-based employment, which is the foundation of an information age economy. Parents and families need to encourage their children to move up to the next rungs and aspire for more. My grandfather worked in a meat packaging plant, my father was a salesman, and my mother was a secretary. They urged me to go to college and to become a lawyer.

True empowerment comes from the ability to think independently, and from wealth. Both come from hard work, and both are founded on education. If Hispanic Americans are to become empowered, we must have a much greater commitment and devotion to the power of education. We need to pursue education in each and every Hispanic household.

Parents need to start by asking questions: How are you doing in school? What are you studying? What courses are you taking? Are you challenging yourself? Where's your homework? Have you finished your extra credit assignment? Have you researched universities and submitted your college applications? It's no excuse that you as a parent didn't attend college or you don't understand the process. Call your child's counselor or ask someone who's gone through the process for help.

Today's job market has few career opportunities for mere high school graduates. Only about a third of Hispanic Americans go to college. The percentage of Hispanics who complete a four-year college program is low. Between the ages of 25 to 29, nearly 37 percent of high school-educated Caucasians have finished a bachelor's degree, in comparison to 16 percent of their Hispanic peers.

Generally, Hispanic high school graduates start college later than other students. Often they have to work full-time to earn enough money to afford college. When they do go, most enroll in community colleges, and few community college students end up earning a bachelor's degree. Hispanics often have to juggle work, family (with young children) and school.

What can we do? Several things. Money is a major factor in causing Latinos to enroll in community colleges or to defer college. We can create more scholarships, more student loans, more work/study programs for college-ready Latinos, and universities need to just plain aggressively recruit them for college, as we have seen some more universities do already. We can help those who have young families by creating day-care programs on college campuses, providing affordable family housing on campus, and offering family assistance for college students.

Making higher education an expectation for our children will transform the Hispanic community. With a degree in hand, our children will truly have control over their own destiny, and the community will be empowered.

Gery Chico is senior partner at Chico and Nunes and former president of the Chicago Board of Education. E-mail: gchico@cnlawllp.com.

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