Legislators and state officials extolled the
power of education to a group of
120 students participating in the Chicano Latino
Youth Leadership Project at the state Capitol on Wednesday.
High school juniors and seniors from across the
state gathered in Sacramento for a weeklong leadership program that included
meetings with lawmakers and mock policy debates.
Prominent Latino officials, like Anna
Caballero Secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and
Housing agency and Diana Fuentes-Michel executive director of the
California Student Aid Commission, encouraged the students to seek higher
education.
Caballero told the students her success would not
be possible without education.
"Education is what opened the door to
opportunities in my life," Caballero said. "To become a lawyer, to
have my own business, to become the mayor of Salinas, to be elected to the
state Assembly, and now to be appointed as a cabinet secretary to Gov. Jerry
Brown."
More than 90 percent of the 3,800 students who
have participated in the 31 years of the program have gone on to attend
college. Alicia Vidales-Vera, a 17-year-old student from Wasco., hoped to
become one of them.
Vidales-Vera's parents are farmworkers, who she
said had to drop off her and her four siblings with a babysitter every day at 4
a.m. to get to work on time. Their struggle to support her family inspired her
to apply to the program, she said.
"I am a first-generation college bound, and
I am inspired to attend a university," she said. "Without the support
given to me by my family and friends, I would not be here today."
Speakers encouraged all students, including those
who are undocumented, to apply to college
"There is a place for you in our
institutions of higher education of California and the California Student Aid
commission will help you get there," Fuentes-Michel said.
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento,
told the students that their success was not only important to their futures,
but to the state's future as well. The Department of
Finance projected that Latinos will become the largest ethnic group in
California by 2014.
"When we now reemerge with a Latino
plurality in our state, and as the secretary said, on our way to a Latino
majority in this state, the future is here standing behind me," Dickinson
said.
PHOTO: Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Program
coordinator Diana Vasquez introduces student speakers at a press conference at
the state Capitol on July 24, 2013. The Sacramento Bee/Annalise Mantz.
Read more here:
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/07/ca-officials-encourage-latino-students-to-pursue-higher-education.html#more#storylink=cpy
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