10 FORDHAM

Fordham’s New York

The girls pile into a classroom on the third floor of Keating Hall in clusters of three and four. Laughing and teasing in a mixture of Spanish and English,

the middle- and high-school students carry some of the energy of the Bronx’s Latino neighborhoods onto Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus.

The adolescents chat with Fordham undergraduates about homework and life in college dorms, their families, boys, and what sort of work they might do when they grow up. Before long they settle at desks and turn their attention to three young professional women, visiting speakers who begin to explain how they navigated the sometimes-rocky shoals of life as a young Latina in the United States.

“Dream beyond your ten blocks,” Pilar Larancuent, a youth development coordinator at a New York City social service agency, tells the girls. “You are more than what you are fed by the entertainment media.”

Each Wednesday during the school year, the teenagers visit Fordham to meet with college students through a program called Mentoring Latinas. It pairs the girls with Latina college students, paid mentors to whom the girls can relate and on whom they can rely for support and encouragement. The goal is to expose young Latinas from the Bronx to worlds beyond their neighborhoods, in hopes of increasing their educational aspirations and opening doors for academic and career success.

The odds are against them.Compared to the general population, fewer Latinas finish high school or enter college; they are twice as likely to be pregnant in their teens or early 20s; and they are at considerable risk for domestic abuse. Young Latinas have high rates of attempted suicide and are more likely than the general population to live in poverty. Hoping to mitigate some of those pitfalls, Mentoring Latinas builds on social science research that suggests young women who have consistent mentors fare better than their unassisted peers.

“So many girls in the Bronx don’t see the opportunities ahead of them,” says Maipelys Alberto, who runs the social media initiative at El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan. “There are plenty of girls with dreams, but they need to take those first steps.”

For Jennifer, an eighth-grader at MS 45 on Belmont Avenue—just a few blocks from the Rose Hill campus—the program has been an edifying experience. “I learned that being Latina doesn’t stop you from being someone in life,” she says. “I used to think because I am Latina I wouldn’t get as many opportunities as everyone else.”

The program has attracted substantial philanthropic support—donations from AT&T, Walmart and the New York Yankees, among others—and sparked more than a few academic papers. Mentoring Latinas operates on dual

tracks, as a social service enterprise and an academic research project. While building relationships between and among the girls and their college mentors, Fordham faculty members assess the impact of the program.

The weekly meetings sometimes feature speakers like Larancuent and Alberto. Sometimes they include outings to museums or Broadway shows. Other times students simply visit Fordham’s William D. Walsh Family Library or do their homework together. The primary function is to build nurturing relationships.

Angelina Guarino signed on as a mentor because she knew firsthand how difficult it can be for young first-

generation Americans to make the leap to college. “My parents never did that,” said Guarino, whose parents are from Colombia. “I wanted to do whatever I could to help.”

The Fordham junior, an art history and anthropology major, said many families encourage their daughters. “It’s fine to say, ‘Go to college; get an education.’ But if you don’t see anyone around you doing it, it is not a realized goal.” By fostering a friendship with her mentees, Guarino is able to show that college and other goals are within reach.

Mentoring Latinas By Eileen Markey | Photos by Chris Taggart

Role Models Help Bronx Girls Prepare

for College and Career Success

11SUMMER 2011

“It’s been fun to be there for them, to offer advice,” said Guarino, who has talked with the girls about respectful and healthy romantic relationships, and about family dynamics. “Sometimes it’s about bringing issues to light that kind of go unspoken. Not everyone has sisters.”

Ellen Silber, Ph.D., who directs the program, founded Mentoring Latinas through the Institute for the Education of Women and Girls at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., where she taught French literature and women’s studies. The program began, in 2003, as a series of leadership seminars for girls in a few Westchester middle schools. But when Silber and her staff realized the substantial challenges facing Latina girls, they narrowed the program’s focus and began recruiting mentors.

“This is a seriously at-risk population,” Silber said. “The lack of role models is very important. Only one in ten Latinas has a parent who went to college. What is built into the middle class, you can’t take for granted here.”

When Marymount College closed, in 2007, Silber brought the program to the Rose Hill campus, where it operates under the auspices of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS). Througout the year, Sandra Turner, Ph.D., GSS ’75, associate dean of GSS, and Fordham faculty

members run focus groups with mentors and mentees, asking them about their self-esteem, their attitudes toward school and their motivation for being in the program. While quantifiable results are hard to come by, Turner said girls often credit their mentors with bringing out positive attributes and inspiring them to succeed.

“This program helps girls to get ahead and get into college,” she said. “I think there is no question it makes a difference in their lives.”

The mentors too are affected by the partnership. One striking aspect of Mentoring Latinas is how many of the mentors themselves were mentored as teenagers—and how many of them credit that relationship with their beating the odds against them to even enter college.

“When I was in high school, I had a mentor. I wanted to have the same relationship and trust that I had with my mentor,” said Silvia Marte, a Fordham junior. “I learned how to be more dedicated, how to go for what you want in life—even if your friends are doing other things, to not let that influence you. I want to teach my mentee never to be afraid to be successful.” —Eileen Markey, FCRH ’98, an urban affairs and public policy reporter, is a frequent contributor to this magazine.

Club Amigas: By linking Bronx girls with college students, a Fordham mentoring program hopes to improve Latinas’ graduation rates, which are disproportionately low nationwide. The groups meet weekly throughout the school year, and the Fordham mentors foster friendships with the middle- and high-school students, introducing them to worlds beyond their neighborhood while helping them shape and realize their academic and career goals.