November 19, 2006

Sur Centro, Los Angeles – Parents, students, teachers and community members gathered on November 18, 2006 for the Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E) Scholarship Dinner and Awards Ceremony. Being the first event of its type, the organizers believed that “the event was attended by over 130 people and was a great success.” A.R.E. established the scholarship fund in order to provide scholarships specifically to AB540(undocumented) students.

The event’s keynote speaker was Dr. Adriana Barrera who is the Senior Vice Chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District. She stated that “citizenship status should not any stop students from going to community college.”

Latinos are the largest ethnic minority in the United States and also the fastest growing segment of the US population. In LAUSD, Latinos represent over 70% of the student population. Yet, Latinos rank among the lowest in high school graduation rates and among the lowest in attending four year universities. To add insult to injury, a large segment of the Latino community, AB540 students, are not able to receive federal financial assistance due to their undocumented status. The Association of Raza Educators has started a fundraising campaign to challenge this discriminatory paradigm and hopes that others across the country will duplicate this example.

According to Ron Gochez, one of the organizers of the event, “This event demonstrates the self-determination of the Raza community. OUR community was able to organize this event to raise money for OUR students. We proved that as a community, we can be self-sufficient as long as we are organized. This event acknowledged our students’ accomplishments and at the same time exposed the contradiction that regardless of citizenship status, our parents DO pay taxes and we CAN go die in Iraq but as straight A students, we CANNOT get federal financial aid. The event was a tremendous success!”

The event also included live entertainment by Ballet Folklorico de Santee and a very moving father and daughter duet by the Maldonado family.

Awards Ceremony

Six distinguished individuals were honored for there commitment to excellence in academics and activism. Monica Torres was recognized for being the Most Improved Student of the Year. Beatriz Rafael won the Student Leadership Award and Vicente Jimenez was honored with the Student Activist of the Year award. Yohanna Hinojosa was named Student of the Year. Also honored were Nasario Vasquez for artist of the year and Jacqueline Bispo for teacher of the year.

Not to be outdone, the students of MEChA and Somos Raza from Santee Education Complex, surprised the organizers of the event by presenting them with recognitions for their “unconditional support”.

A.R.E member, Erika Coronado stated, “It was beautiful to see students, parents and teachers come together to help raise money for this cause. The students really took ownership of this event.”

By the end of the event, over $3,000 was raised and will go directly to scholarships for AB540 students. A.R.E promised to continue organizing fundraisers in the near future in order to meet their goal of raising $10,000 by March, 2007. Scholarship applications will be made available in February, 2007.

If you would like to make a donation or want more information about A.R.E and the scholarship fund, please contact A.R.E at: razaeducators@aol.com