In 2012, 15 percent of Hispanic male high school students –– that’s 889,000 boys –– dropped out, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That same year, 15 percent of college enrollees (2.4 million students) were Hispanic, but the overwhelming majority of them (61 percent) were female.
To address the dropout rates and raise the bar for academic and professional achievement, two professional educators, Fort Worthians Brian Renteria and Serasin Garcia, co-founded Men Advancing New Opportunities, or MANO, a Latino male mentoring group.
“Being that we’re both Latino males, we often talked about the trends we were seeing,” Renteria said. “We looked around and saw assistance programs for African-Americans and females and realized Latino males were not being supported in the same way.”
Garcia noticed the Fort Worth Hispanic Women’s Network had already proven to be successful at mentoring Latinas and providing some of them with college scholarships.
“We figured if they could do that so could we,” he said.
MANO has been active for one year, and last March it received nonprofit status. Rather than choosing programming themselves, Renteria, Garcia, and several volunteers reached out to the community for ideas. In the spring of 2014 at Rose Marine Theater, MANO held a plática (Spanish for chat) with several college professors. The public forum covered the challenges facing young Latinos, touching on self-identity, education, and fatherhood, Renteria recalled.
Afterward, audience members were invited to offer input.
After taking in the feedback, MANO directors planned two annual programs. Held at J.P. Elder Middle School in Fort Worth’s North Side, the Father’s Day Fun Run attracted around 150 participants, Renteria said. The goal of the race, he added, is to celebrate the role of the father in the Latino community. Programming will be developed to complement the event in the future.
Last week, Camp MANO was held at Tarrant County College’s Trinity River Campus. Hosting the event on a college campus was intentional, said MANO board member Alexander Montalvo. The idea is to get 30 or more 7th and 8th graders thinking about and discussing higher education, along with topics like leadership and cultural awareness, through workshop activities and lectures by prominent Latinos.
“There have been a lot of meetings leading up to this moment,” Garcia said. “But this is what we’re all about.”
The camp is the first step in a broader year-round mentorship program. Project Caballeros involves volunteerism, workshops, and guest lectures.
To fund and fuel MANO’s programs, Renteria and his colleagues rely on a growing network of volunteers and in-kind donations from local businesses and colleges. He does not want to take on too much too soon, though.
“Ideally, we’d like to see the [Fun Run] grow,” he said. “You have other runs that are well-recognized, and we want the family fun run to be one of those. One of the things that has helped us to be successful is [our] methodical approach to growing. We’re looking forward to partnering with other organizations. The direction we go is going to be something the community will dictate. We are setting ourselves up to be a vehicle for the community to realize its dreams.”
A large part of MANO’s work will be undoing Latino stereotypes portrayed in the media and pop culture.
“The Latino male is now the gangster or drug dealer on TV,” Renteria said. “I’m not saying we’re 100 percent above those influences, but it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that behavior becomes expected. It’s little things like that that play into the psyche of the young Latino male. If there’s no one there to present another storyline and path, perhaps they won’t have the vision to become a physician or engineer.”
Jonathan Perez, a volunteer who organized the Fun Run, sees the need for MANO’s programs nearly every day.
“I work in higher education,” Perez said. “I see a lot of Latino students come in looking very lost. [Hispanic females] are doing well in college, but males, we’re falling off.”
Like many of MANO’s volunteers, Perez has overcome obstacles on the path to higher education and gainful employment. His father, he said, struggled with drug addiction when Perez was a kid. Perez dropped out of school his senior year. His grandmother’s dying wish convinced him to complete his GED and enroll in college. Last year, he returned to Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School to speak to the student body. Many of the kids MANO is helping are facing those same kinds of problems, he said.
“I talked about my journey,” he recalled. “The last day I walked out of that high school was when I dropped out. The first day I walked back in was to empower these young students last year.”
Wow, another Hispanic group biggie-backing on the Black experience–looking for federal grants no doubt.. Mr. Brown, you should write an article on the privileged white male, because you know we have privilege running out of our ears.
Singling out Hispanics or any group for special attention is RACISM. If the object of this group is to set themselves apart, ITS WORKING–but not the way they think.
I can’t speak for Hispanics, Latinos, Latin males or Gringos (these four are convenient concoctions, too–vague and fuzzy for me–Maybe you can define each for me, but I do know a lot about Mexico and Mexicans.
As long as you and others set them up as a special group they will never assimilate. Check it out: they shop in the same stores, go to the same dances and trash out neighborhoods like the one I live in, and when this is brought to their attention, they call it racism.
My next door neighbor is a naturalized American citizen, so I asked her how it felt to be an American; she answered, “I’m not an American, tu eres”. She’s been here for 30-years and still refuses to speak English, and story repeats itself over and over again.
So the question for the two individuals who set around talking to each other is: how are these young people going to succeed academically if the only language they know is Spanglish. They must be literate to succeed and willing to assimilated. And until that happens they’re wasting their time.
Bobbie Lee, you are right about one thing. You do not speak for Latinos. But you also do not speak for decent Americans who do not share your small-minded views. The Latino men in this article are far more articulate and have a far greater grasp of the English language than you do or ever will. They are also working to improve the community for all people, Hispanic or otherwise, while you have only managed to post an ignorant comment on my story.
Mr.Lee does make two good points. Without proper language skills, the young Hispanic men that are the targets of this program will continue to languish behind those of their hermanas and the population in general. There is also a full article that should be written on the idea of assimilation and the immigrant community. You cannot have a shadow society that lives in the spaces between the American experience. Assimilation can be done without losing your identity and culture. Indeed, it MUST BE done. The gentlemen who are behind this mentoring effort are shining examples.
Sadly, the rest of Mr. Lee’s rant is filled with the vitriol that works well with a large percentage of the population being courted by a certain billionaire and those of his ilk.
If the goal is greater academic and career aspirations, then language – ENGLISH language skills – are foundational. The ability to speak Spanish is merely the differentiator from our mono-linguistic saddled neighbors come job interview time
Edward Brown, as a hispanic, I will state this on behalf of most Latinos, that just because someone disagrees with your views doesn’t make the opposing side any “less significant” or “more narrow minded” as your view. Aprende como sacar to cabeza de tu osica. Porfavor, actúas como un bebé, una persona mal educada. Solamente porque otra persona no persigue tus propios ideas, no significa que esos personas son menos de idiotas que tu.
I find it hysterical how you authors have an elite attitude, it’s extremely disgusting. I keep coming on FWWeekly, to see if someday, miraculously, the extremely biased, pseudo-intellectuals at FW Weekly will start posting real news, as opposed to poorly composed opinions labeled as “news”.
I guess the liberal agenda is to lower the standards for anything, hence FW Weekly’s various authors having a revolting bias, and people who automatically label independents, moderates, republicans, etc. as being narrow minded.
Even the folks at For worth architecture dislike articles from here, like some of them stated. I wouldn’t quote things from FW Weekly because they make me sick.
Sincerely- Un hispano, que sus ambo padres son de Guatemala
Peckerwoods are Peckerwoods are Peckerwoods…it’s not just Anglos who suffer from this revolting, self entitled, stupidity. My experience in Mexico and Central America is that 99% of the middle-class and rich natives there are as hard hearted as an anvil. The arrogence and self-satisfied sense of Hooray for me….screw you is much worse than here in the states. Anyone who has visited any time at all south of the Texas border is aware of that. That you are bi-lengual is really not a big deal, that you are a self-satisfied jerk is nothing surprizing either. Get over yourself, my bird-dog
Roxy smells better & is way more generous than you and any other Guatemalan Peckerwood. Grow up, amount to something, go to confession, get a life, Senor hammer-head, Peckerwood.
I’ve got a bird-dog smarter and I’ll bet smells better than the Peckerwood who commented up at the top of this comment roll. He hasn’t learned how to not be a hammer-headed, Tea-Bagging jerk. He’s trashing out this splendid piece of Mr. Browns, nothing new from those entitled half-wits. You don’t know shit from Shinola Bobby boy, you’re a self-entitled dick-head. Your comment is working, but not the way you figured…what do you eat? Your Mama have any brats that weren’t spit-wads? You’re disgusting, you any kin to Dick Cheney or that half-wit ,ambulance-chasing lawyer we’ve got for Governor?
I applaud your efforts. It cannot stop. I though when I was in college (70″s) that our generation of Chicanos was going to be the last that would required help to get more educated. Boy was I wrong. I found out its a continuing fight to tell these young men not to give up …to motivate them to continue their education in the face of overwhelming odds. Educators in general are a special breed. My respect goes out to them.
I thought about commenting on Bobby Lee’s post, however, I decided he is not worth my time or frustration. Instead, I’d like to say thank you to the two men who imagined this program and worked hard to bring it’s existence to life. I’d also like to say thank you to the volunteers and board members for helping build, shape, and mold this program. As a mother of four boys I feel like this type of program can only HELP our community. In the world that we live in, filled with negativity and trashy role models, what boy, or even girl, couldn’t use some positivity in their lives? Keep up the good work MANO. May your organization continue to grow and be successful.
My hat is off to you good gentlemen Mr. Renteria and Mr. Garcia, God bless you and keep you. You restore my faith. You’re on my prayer list.