ABSTRACT
The headline of a front-page story in the October 14, 2001, issue of the Arizona Republic read: “5 Key Factors Threaten Arizona’s Economy” (Wilson, 2001). One of the factors was said to be education of Latina/o youth. The article noted that Latina/os constituted 50% of the under-18 population in the state’s two largest metropolitan areas (Phoenix and Tucson), but that only half of Latina/o youth finish high school. That newspaper article touched on three points that are relevant for the present chapter. First, children and adolescents represent a larger percentage of the Mexican American population than they do in other ethnic groups in the United States. Data from the 2000 national census are summarized in Table 5.1 for four states that have sizable Mexican American populations: Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. The data show that between 33% and 38% of the Latina/o populations of those states are younger than 18 years of age, 13 to 17 percentage points higher than for nonLatina/o Whites and 5 to 7 percentage points higher than for non-Latina/o Blacks. Second, Mexican American youth experience significant problems, not only with school achievement, but in other situations as well. Finally, Mexican American youths’ success in school, physical health, use of drugs, involvement in crime, childbearing, and subsequent quality of work and family lives should concern everyone. For some, this concern might be framed in economic terms. For others, the concern is motivated by considerations of equity in psychological health, the distribution of social justice, and human welfare.
