Published: October 8, 2009

Now in its second year at Fordham College at Rose Hill, Mentoring Latinas is the brainchild of Ellen Silber, Ph.D., who started the project seven years ago when she was a professor of women’s studies at Fordham’s now defunct Marymount College. She was working then on a leadership program for middle school girls of all ethnicities, when she uncovered an alarming neglect toward the development of young Latina girls.

“If you read literature on Latinas, they have the highest high school dropout rate in the country. They have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country, at twice the national average. They have the highest [rate of] substance abuse,” Silber said. “The superintendent with whom I started this program in Westchester said to me, ‘They just disappear. One day they’re not in class anymore.’”

And yet, Silber discovered, these problems and these girls, were being overlooked.

“Here is a population of girls that really has a need, and it isn’t just a need for tutoring. And you don’t see people saying, ‘We have to meet this need’. Society has reflected back to them a very negative image,” Silber said. “They need to feel better about themselves, and how do you do that?  You need a role model who is similar to you, but different from you in that she’s older, she’s been through certain things and achieved certain things and so if you are 13, and she’s 20, you see somebody like you, who has achieved all the things people say you can’t.”

This is the intent Silber’s current endeavor, Mentoring Latinas, a program of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSSS) which is under her direction at the Rose Hill campus. The program selects Latina college students to serve as role models and mentors to young Latina students from one of two schools in the neighborhood, M.S. 45 and New World High School.   Each mentor meets on campus weekly with two girls from the school of their choice, and while the program is meant to foster an interest in continuing their educations, they aren’t limited to just academic worries.

“They talk about whatever they want to talk about,” Silber said. “The mentors might help with homework, but they’re also certainly going to talk about boys, or they might talk about clothes or hair or whatever. We don’t have a curriculum in the traditional sense.”

Another key element of Mentoring Latinas is the work they do to stop dangerous negative stereotypes from hurting the girls’ self-worth and preventing them from pursuing their future goals. This year, 18 women have been selected as mentors, all of whom are paid for the time that they put into the program. About a third of these mentors are returning from last year.

During the rigorous application process, which includes two essays, outside recommendations, and an interview process with Silber and her staff, students were asked to identify some of the major issues that Latinas have to face, and the girls reflected an image that they have had to fight all their lives.

“They just came out with it. They said ‘they think we’re not going to do well, and they think we’re going to get pregnant and that all we want is to get married.’”

The mentors, many of whom grew up in the very neighborhood they now work, then set forth to give back to their community.

“If you’re a Latina and you’re a student at Fordham, you did something right,” Silber said. “You did many, many things right. First of all, you did well in school, but you also learned how to resist those stereotypes. And you learned that a stereotype is a social construction. It’s not a reality. The way that society constructs an image of you doesn’t have to apply to you.”

During a focus group in April 2008, mentees were asked to reflect on how the program had affected their lives.

“I really do my reading now,” read one response. “I’m reading a book about Germany and the Jews, and it reminded me that I’m afraid my mom will be deported. I want to continue my education so I can help my mom. She doesn’t speak English.”

When asked to provide what she had learned from her mentor, one student said, “I didn’t think of college before; my mentor got me thinking about it.”

Another answered, “My mentor talks about my future,” perhaps something that no other role model in these young girls’ lives has ever done.

The ultimate goal of Mentoring Latinas is to expand the program where necessary, but of course, this is much easier said than done. Although the program has reportedly been extended to four middle schools, a community college and a four-year college, lack of funds has prevented Mentoring Latinas from coming to Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC).

However, both Silber and Sandra Turner, Ph.D., associate dean of the Graduate School of Social Service who works as a liaison between Silber and GSSS, are working to remedy this.

“Ideally, we’d have the program here as soon as next year,” Turner said. “I spoke to Father Grimes and Dean Greif about it last year, we even have a middle school picked out. In the future I’d like to be able to measure our results and [see] if it’s been effective.”

Many students at FCLC expressed regret that they hadn’t been given a chance to participate, or in some cases even heard of the program.

“I didn’t even know that program existed, but if it did [come to FCLC], I would definitely love to be involved in it,” said Kelsey Garcia, FCLC ’12. “I believe that I would have benefited from a program like this and that it is important to recognize the unique, special situation of the Latina.”

“I would definitely do it, since I want to become a teacher anyway, but I’d

like to see it become an extension of SOL (Student Organization of Latinos)” said Jaylene Vega, FCLC ’13. “I think a lot of people would love to get involved.”

“I actually think this is a great idea and wish that it was also offered at Lincoln Center,” said Francine Plata, FCLC ’12. “I would love to be part of a mentoring program; it would be great to inform high school students of the advantages a college education has.”

“I am the oldest in my family and the first to go to college and graduate high school and I really wish I’d have had someone to talk to and look up to like a big sister who could have helped me apply to college and understand me,” said Sharai Marie, FCLC ’12. “I know how hard it can be transitioning to new schools and environments and needing someone to talk to and help you get through it.”

“This idea is very simple: you need mentors, you need mentees, you need the office to work it all out and you need the money,” said Silber. “In terms of money, it’s possible that in some places the mentors would be volunteers and they would get social service credit. It seems to me that this program would work anywhere in the country where there is a college or a university and a Latina community.”

While there is no concrete sign of when or if this program can come to fruition at Lincoln Center, there is no doubt that there will be many eager mentors if the funds and organization necessary to establish the program fall into place.