The Associate Press reports:

“Richard Fry, a senior research associate at the center, said some of the Hispanics who did not finish high school are immigrants who may not have had any educational training in the United States. For these students, it takes time to learn and access information about earning a U.S. educational credential.

According to the report, the longer foreign-born Latinos without a high school degree are in the United States, the more likely they are to earn a GED.

But Fry said a puzzle still remains: Hispanics born in the United States who drop out of high school are also unlikely to have a GED. The report found that only 21 percent earn the credential.”

There are several reasons people can point to for our lagging GED attainment including poverty and the immediate need to work, a lack of information about GED tutoring programs, ineffective community outreach for high school dropouts, and misplaced cultural priorities. But I think it’s time we start taking our educational destiny into our own hands instead of waiting for the schools, our leadership, and others to come to the rescue. I have flipped through a GED test book, and anyone who speaks English or who has a working knowledge of English should be able to pass this test. People can request GED sample tests online, and most public libraries have sample test booklets.

If we don’t commit to helping high school dropouts attain GED certification and continued education in vocational programs, we could face more trouble in the future. Overall, our high school and college completion rates have improved for all Americans. But at the bachelor’s degree level, just 13% of Hispanic adults have completed an undergraduate degree, while 17.5% of black adults and 31% of white adults have earned bachelor’s degrees. Asians blow everyone out of the water. For adults of Asian descent, 50% of them have earned bachelor’s degrees. We have to stop being comfortable with being last in terms of educational attainment, and that change starts at home.

The propaganda machine tends to make it appear like we are unwilling to assimilate and learn English, but the empirical evidence once again shows otherwise. English is the language of power in this world, and Chinese will probably become an even more important language in business and commerce in the future. I don’t think that anyone has anything to worry about Latino Americans not acquiring the English language. After a few generations, most of us cease speaking Spanish altogether, which probably isn’t a good thing considering globalization.

As the Latino population ages, they speak much less Spanish. Among the US born children of Mexican immigrants, English is the dominant language spoken at home. Conversion to English as the dominant language is usually complete by the third generation, and a minority of fourth generation Latinos speak Spanish fluently. Added to the English dominance, Latinos are now considered part of the mainstream by Nielson media research. These stats certainly reveal that the market is there for English language Latino themed films. There is also evidence suggesting that we favor the adoption of English to become part of American society. Hopefully, Salma is successful in this effort to expand the Latino film genre. I like her, and I know that she is going to be a very busy woman with this new goal and her new baby. Sometimes motherhood expands a woman’s multi-tasking capabilities. I am optimistic that she will tackle these endeavors with passion and creativity.