ABSTRACT
The words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor speak directly to the mentoring of Latino Leaders. This chapter focuses on understanding the differences among cultural groups and whether mentoring relationships that are successful for Latinos have a different structure than those for non-Latinos. One way of conceptualizing Latino cultural values is to consider Relational Cultural Theory (RCT), sometimes referred to as the Stone Center relational model. Latinos are often viewed as collectivistic due to the strong importance put on the needs and objectives of the whole community (or organization) rather than on themselves. In sum, considering Latino cultural values and the challenges of cross-cultural relationships, it is important that mentoring programs consider providing more structure, guidelines, and training to both mentors and protégés. Although there is a range of different types of mentoring relationships, both formal and informal mentoring are commonly understood as developmental relationships that involve both career and psychosocial functions.
