Latino leaders emerging at Marymount

National Catholic Reporter, March 29, 1996 by Rosemary Johnston

LOS ANGELES -- When Amelia Hernandez was 10 years old, she began working as a housekeeper with her mother in the tony coastal community of Palos Verdes. From the home of an employer, a nurse on staff at nearby Marymount College, Amelia could see the verdant campus. One day she pointed to the site of the Catholic junior college and said to her mother, "Mama, someday I'm going to school there."

Born in Mexico 21 years ago, Hernandez took to heart her father's advice, "Echa le ganas" -- "Give it all you've got." After two years at Marymount College, Hernandez was able to study abroad for five months before transfering to a four-year degree program at Loyola Marymount as a junior. She is majoring in political science and preparing for a career in law.

Hernandez is part of a growing cadre of Latino students, many of them from Catholic elementary and secondary schools, who represent the first generation in their family to attend college.

Loyola Marymount, which boasts the largest number of minority students of any Jesuit university in the country, has developed a number of programs to assist minority students in making the transition from home and high school to campus life. In the tradition of eastern Catholic colleges, where previous generations of European immigrants were groomed for leadership roles in U.S. society despite a hostile, anti-Catholic environment, the, Los Angeles school is among those serving as a jumping-off point for Latinos preparing to move into the mainstream. Today, hostilities against immigrants are again in the forefront, although opposition is based mainly in differences in culture, race and class rather than religion.

The student worker program, a campus work program open to students part time during the school year and full time during the summer, plus an array of scholarships and loans, has enabled Hernandez to meet the $20,000-plus tuition and room-and-board costs at the school. This aid is particularly critical for Hernandez, the second oldest of five children, because her father, a former chef and tree trimmer, is on sick leave, and her mother is now a full-time homemaker, caring for Amelia's 18-month-old sister.

A graduate of a science and math magnet school in the working-class suburb of Harbor City, Hernandez has been active in a Latino Christian Life Community on campus and in MECHA, an organization for Latino students.

College as attainable

Ruben Solorio, 21, a sophomore in the campus apartment adjacent to Hernandez, is a transfer student from Santa Clara, another Jesuit-run university in northern California. Solorio grew up in east San Jose where he attended Most Holy Trinity Elementary School and Bellarmine Prep, a high school operated by Jesuits.

His father was born in Jalisco, Mexico; his mother came to the United States from Michoacan, Mexico. The couple settled in San Jose where Ruben's father works for a waste management company and his mother is an administrative aide in the Eastside Union School District.

"College was expected of me at Bellarmine," Solorio explained in the tidy living room of his campus apartment. "The priests there made me see it was attainable." A leader in campus ministry activities at Bellarmine, Solorio now leads a Latino Christian Life Community, one of two such groups that meet weekly on the Loyola campus for prayer and scripture study. "The CLC helps me to stay focused and lead a moral life," Solorio said. "It's like a miniparish for me and the other members."

Like Hernandez, Solorio has participated in the student worker program and received other financial aid to attend Loyola. A communication studies and Spanish major, he plans to return to the Bay area after graduation for a career in international business or perhaps teach Spanish at Bellarmine.

A spiritual struggle

Ana Tellez, a 20-year-old sophomore from Castro Valley High School in northern California, is the leader of the other Latino Christian Life Community. The daughter of Nicaraguan immigrants, she joined two cousins already enrolled at Loyola Marymount. Tellez's father, a devout Mormon, is a janitor at a Mormon temple. in the Alameda area. Her mother is a homemaker.

A Spanish and French major interested in a teaching career, Tellez credits Loyola's "academic persistence program for helping her make the transition from high school to college life. The program provides peer counseling to minority students.

Receiving the sacrament of confirmation in her freshman year ended a spiritual struggle for Tellez who had considered joining the Mormon church in high school Sharing with members of her extended family during visits to Nicaragua in high school convinced Tellez to remain in the Catholic tradition.

"My parents always emphasize the importance of education," Tellez said. "A college education is an opportunity to get ahead, and I think more and more Latina women are being encouraged to become independent."

For Simon Maldonado, a 22-year-old senior majoring in international business with a minor in Hispanic business studies, Loyola Marymount's campus provided an inviting community, combining academic discipline and a vibrant church life. A commuter student who attended Guardian Angels Elementary School and San' Fernando High School, Maldonado said his parents emigrated to the United States from Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1968, "back when California was a very welcoming place."