mexican college essay

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Earth Day Isla Vista – Celebrating Through Music, Nature, and Fun

In photos: men’s basketball: gauchos vs uc davis, art as a weapon against invasion – film reminds us of…, opportunity for all uc office of the president yet to make…, the top boba places in isla vista – a journey into…, getting kozy: isla vista’s newest coffee shop, a call for natural sustainability: the story and mission of the…, tasa night market 2023: fostering community and featuring budding clubs at…, in photos – daedalum luminarium, an art installation, creating characters we love: the screenwriting process in our flag means…, indigo de souza and the best-case anticlimax, a spectrum of songs: ucsb’s college of creative studies set to…, nature in i.v. – black mold, southern california is in super bloom, from love to likes: social media’s role in relationships, the gloom continues: a gray may, the rise of ai girlfriends: connecting with desires and discussing controversy,…, letter to the editor: dining hall laborers have had enough, do…, is studying abroad worth it for a ucsb student, workers at ucsb spotlight: being a writing tutor for clas, the immense struggles of first-generation latino college students.

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Imagine being tasked with setting the precedent of success for your entire family at 17 years old. No matter the personal cost, it is now your responsibility to lift your family out of poverty. This is the crucial promise many first-generation Latine college students make when they head off to higher education. Once they reach college, however, these students only uncover a disheartening reality. They were set up to fail from the start.

Stricken with discouragement when comparing childhoods with their wealthier peers, these first-generation Latine students recognize that university was not intended for them. Since the inception of higher education institutions, and up until a couple of generations ago, there was no reasonable path for these students to even attend university, and the few lucky enough to enroll could only do so under the demeaning conditions of systematic racism.

From K-12, Latine students are at a disadvantage. Born to immigrant, working-class parents, Latine children begin their educational journey with a lack of socioeconomic privileges that their peers have become accustomed to by pre-school. Often, neither parent in the household speaks English fluently enough to teach their child(ren) the language. Spanish is all these kids know, as they suddenly enter an environment where they will be excluded because of the simple fact that they speak a different language that isn’t English. Thus, a striking 82 percent of all students K-12 situated in California English language learning programs are Latine. 

Any English learned at school then becomes a tool for the parents and family as these students commonly become a resource for translating, whether spoken in a movie or present in billing letters. It is important to note that a large portion of Latine parents did not make it past high school due to a lack of educational resources in their home country, so it is particularly difficult for them to learn English upon reaching the U.S.

Many Latine children are familiar with poverty. Representing 17 percent of the American workforce , Latine families are actively working to improve the lives of their children but can commonly only do so through exhausting manual labor. In agricultural, construction, or housekeeping occupations, the Latine population composes over half or close to half of the labor force . However, the unreliability and unlivable wages of these jobs severely limits the financial capacities of these working families.

As a result, Latine children in California K-12 schools account for 71 percent of all economically disadvantaged students and 73 percent of all homeless students. Considering that these same Latine children make up over one-half of all California students, it is an unfortunate reality that poverty strikes these children at disproportionately high rates.

When looking at Latine high school seniors graduating and potentially enrolling in the University of California (UC) or California State University (CSU) system, only 44 percent would even be eligible to apply. In order to qualify for either of these public institutions, a series of A-G courses must first be completed in high school, but the low-income school districts where these students are from are not sufficiently informing or preparing them for the admission requirements of higher education. 

Getting into a four-year university is simply not a possibility for a majority of first-generation Latine. Out of 1,391,503 Latine undergraduates in California, 72 percent enroll in community colleges optimistically planning to transfer after two years. However, after six years, only about a third of these students actually end up enrolling in four-year colleges or universities while the rest drop out or postpone their education indefinitely. 

The good news is that Latine students who are lucky enough to attend a major California four-year institution do tend to be first-generation. In both the UC and CSU system three out of four Latino students are the first in their family to reach higher education, which is over double that of other races. This luck has a limit though, as these students will face certain struggles the rest of the student body does not.

First and foremost comes the stress of paying for higher education, and Latine communities are granted less state and federal financial aid when compared to other races. Furthermore, expected contributions from parents and family members are significantly lower. On average, families of Latine students are expected to pay $5,911, compared to $13,319 for white families .

To make up for a lack of family funds, a majority of Latine students find employment to cover tuition and the cost of living. At the expense of academic performance and social participation, about 32 percent of all employed Latine students are working full-time with the rest being employed part-time. It is discouraging that so many of these Latine students must work long hours while trying to maintain a reasonable commitment to school, and this stress contributes to higher dropout rates.

Each year, the amount of Latine students entering higher education rises, so it’s not all bad news. However, proportional to the number of other races, Latine are at a severe disadvantage on all academic grounds, especially those who desire to be the first in their families to attend college. Without proper accommodations and consideration, beginning from grade school, Latine students will commonly find themselves unable to reach any adequate mantle of success for their families and will continue in poverty.

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Essay on Mexican Culture

Students are often asked to write an essay on Mexican Culture in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Mexican Culture

Introduction to mexican culture.

Mexican culture is rich with history and color. It comes from ancient civilizations like the Aztecs and Mayans. Today, it’s a mix of those traditions with influences from Spain and other countries. People in Mexico are known for their love of family, music, and food.

Festivals and Holidays

Mexico is famous for its lively festivals. One of the biggest is the Day of the Dead, where families remember loved ones who have passed away. They decorate altars and graves with bright flowers and offer favorite foods.

Traditional Mexican Food

Mexican food is known worldwide. Tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole come from here. Corn, beans, and chili peppers are important ingredients. Meals are often shared with family, making eating a social event.

Music and Dance

Music and dance are key parts of Mexican culture. Mariachi bands play guitars, violins, and trumpets. Folk dances tell stories of Mexico’s history. The colorful costumes and lively rhythms are enjoyed by people of all ages.

Art and Craft

Mexican culture is a tapestry of traditions that celebrate life. It’s a blend of history, art, food, and music that brings joy to people and makes Mexico unique.

250 Words Essay on Mexican Culture

Mexican culture is a rich blend of native traditions and Spanish influence. It is known for its colorful art, lively music, and strong family values. Mexico’s history shapes its culture, from ancient civilizations like the Maya and Aztecs to the Spanish conquest.

Traditional Food

Mexican food is famous worldwide. Tacos, enchiladas, and tamales are just a few examples of the tasty dishes. Ingredients like corn, beans, and chili peppers are common. Families often gather to enjoy meals together, making food a central part of social life.

Festivals and Celebrations

Mexicans love to celebrate. One of the most famous events is the Day of the Dead, when people honor their loved ones who have passed away. There are also colorful parades, dances, and music. Christmas and Cinco de Mayo are other big celebrations full of joy and traditions.

Music and dance are vital in Mexican culture. Mariachi bands play lively tunes with violins, trumpets, and guitars. Folk dances tell stories of Mexico’s history and people. Young and old enjoy the rhythms and movements that make up Mexico’s musical heritage.

Family Values

Mexican culture is a tapestry woven from history, food, celebrations, music, and family. It is a culture full of warmth, color, and life, inviting everyone to experience its beauty and traditions.

500 Words Essay on Mexican Culture

Mexican culture is a rich and colorful tapestry woven from a history that goes back thousands of years. It includes the traditions of the ancient Maya and Aztec civilizations, as well as influences from Spanish colonists who came to Mexico over 500 years ago. Today, Mexican culture is known around the world for its vibrant music, delicious food, and festive celebrations.

Mexicans love to celebrate, and they have many festivals throughout the year. One of the most famous is the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, which is a time when people remember and honor their loved ones who have passed away. During this festival, families create altars with photos, candles, and flowers, and they might also visit the graves of their relatives. Another important celebration is Mexican Independence Day on September 16th, which marks the day Mexico began its fight for freedom from Spain.

Music and dance are at the heart of Mexican social life. Mariachi bands, with their trumpets, violins, and guitars, are a common sight at parties and celebrations. Folk dances, such as the Jarabe Tapatío, often known as the Mexican Hat Dance, tell stories through movement and are performed wearing traditional costumes. These art forms not only provide entertainment but also help to pass down history and traditions from one generation to the next.

Art and Handicrafts

Family is a very important part of life in Mexico. Many generations often live in the same house or neighborhood, and they support each other in daily life. Respect for elders is a key value, and children are taught to listen to and learn from their parents and grandparents. Family members celebrate important events together, such as birthdays and religious ceremonies, which helps to strengthen their bonds.

Mexican culture is a beautiful blend of history, art, food, and family. It is a culture that is both ancient and ever-changing, as new generations add their own stories to the rich tapestry that has been created over thousands of years. Understanding Mexican culture can help people from all over the world appreciate the diversity and depth of human traditions.

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I’m a First-Generation American. Here’s What Helped Me Make It to College

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My father is an immigrant from Mexico who decided to sacrifice his home to give me a better life. He grew up with the notion that the United States had one of the best education systems in the world and he saw that education as my ticket to participate in the pursuit of happiness.

When he moved to America, he chose Flushing, Queens, in New York City—which this year became an epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis—because the public elementary school was highly regarded for its academics and safety. But navigating the public school system was extremely difficult, marked with constant reminders that the system was not designed for students like me. These difficulties and inequities have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis and will continue to impact students if they remain unaddressed.

My father always lived with the fear that if people found out I was the son of a Mexican immigrant, I would be ostracized in the classroom. From the first day of elementary school, he prayed that no one would bother me for being Mexican American, and that I would learn English quickly so I could defend against attacks on my identity. I have gone through all my academic career fighting the stereotypes that Mexicans are all “lazy” and “undocumented.”

I have experienced an interesting duality as a Mexican American, one that has played a formative role in my education and development. I have two languages, two countries, two identities. I learn in English but live in Spanish. I am Mexican at home but American at school.

I first became aware of this code-switching in middle school. The ways I interacted with my white, wealthy peers were far different from with my Latinx friends. I understood that English held more power than Spanish. Many people associate an accent or different regional variants of English to be unsophisticated, so I worked to be perceived as “articulate” and “well-spoken” at my local elementary and middle schools. In fact, it was my attention to coming across as “articulate” that helped me get into the high school that I attended.

I wanted to attend a high-achieving high school, but I did not perform well on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) and therefore failed to be admitted into one of New York City’s specialized high schools. But the principal of Millennium High School, a selective public high school in Manhattan, offered me a spot—and gave me a shot. Principal Colin McEvoy saw more than the student who failed to get into a SHSAT school. He saw a well-spoken kid who was determined to find a school that would have the resources to achieve his goal of graduating and going to college. My father had sacrificed everything so I could go to college, and I saw Millennium as the means to get there.

Not every student can have the same opportunity I did, but every school community and educator can take certain steps to support students who feel at odds within a system that was not designed for them. Here are three steps that will help students like me:

1. Play an active role in their students’ lives outside of academics. While this is important during “normal” times, it is even more important now during the global pandemic when students are worried about their family, cut off from friends, and unsure what the future holds. Each student should be assigned a teacher who also serves as adviser, an additional adult figure in their life to help guide and assist them—even if this is done virtually. At Millennium, each student in the beginning of the high school experience is assigned an adviser and meets in advisory class three days a week to complete college-preparatory activities and check in with their adviser about academics and their personal life.

2. Acknowledge how political developments may affect students. Schools should provide students who may be affected by a policy decision with the tools to protect their education. I have many friends who have been affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy and had to go through the complex process of ensuring they could study in the country without their parents. This June, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind DACA, but immigrants’ fight for protection under the law is far from over. It is important for teachers to understand how politics can impact the well-being of students—and how the fear of those impacts often take a toll on students’ academics.

3. Offer guidance on how to apply to college and options aside from college. My former high school requires every student to meet with the college guidance counselor at least twice, once each in their junior and senior years. As the first in my family to apply to college, these meetings were essential for me to figure out the application process, as well as for navigating financial aid and scholarships. It was only with this guidance that I applied for a Posse Foundation scholarship and earned a full scholarship to Middlebury College—opportunities that I would not have even known about otherwise.

As the COVID-19 vaccine gets rolled out more widely, there remain a lot of unknowns in higher education and in many families’ financial futures. Educators can help students explore alternate opportunities during this difficult time, including community college, internships, apprenticeships, gap years, or service-learning options.

Students of marginalized communities are both fighters and academics. Going through the American education system is difficult, and there are active ways that schools and educators can help their students navigate it. This is not a matter of doing the work for the students but acknowledging that there are several challenges present in students’ lives—challenges that may be exacerbated during a pandemic—and helping them navigate them.

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College Essay: A Mexican education system teaches a valuable lesson

When I arrived in Mexico City from my home, Minnesota, two years ago, I was petrified when I saw a place that looked hopeless. No trees, roads built out of sand and the buildings looked old and close to collapsing.

I decided to take my first trip to Mexico when I was 15 years old to see how my parents had lived in a little village in Tlatlaya. I was super excited to see how my parents’ lifestyle was back then. When I arrived to my parents’ village, it was way worse than I expected. There were no trees, it was a desert with no hope and the people looked exhausted.

During the last week of my month-long trip, I had the courage to examine how my cousin’s high school system worked. When we arrived, I noticed that it was difficult for most of the students. There were students who didn’t have enough money to buy their notebooks and they didn’t have the resources to find a place where they could obtain free notebooks. I saw most of the students struggling to sharpen their pencils with a knife in order for the lead to come out. There were students with bloody and cut hands from the knife. In my country, I have a computer lab, library and teachers who will give you a free notebook.

“I’ve lost all hope in trying hard in school,” said David, my cousin who attends school in Tlatlaya. “There’s not many opportunities for us.” He said kids in this village don’t have school materials and lose interest in school. When we got done talking, he said to me, “Have you ever lived in a place where you don’t have many opportunities?”

My parents didn’t have many educational opportunities growing up in Tlatlaya, either. My parents stopped going to school after eighth grade. My mom went to Mexico City to clean houses for rich people. My dad started working for companies that build houses.

During my flight back to Minnesota, I reflected on what my cousin had told me that last day in Mexico. He reminded me that during my freshman year, I did not really care about school that much and did not try to get good grades. I realized that I had not been taking advantage of all the opportunities around me, including an afterschool tutor program that teachers would organize for students who needed help.

When I started my sophomore year, I put more effort in trying to attain help after school from my teachers. After I failed to get a “B” in geometry, I went to check in with my teacher during lunch a few times a week to try to figure out what I could do, and I ended up with a “B.” At the end of my sophomore year, I received the opportunity to get my first job at Target as a cashier, in order to contribute to my college fund. I also got involved in College Possible, a program that helps kids go to college.

I will go to college to become a businessman in order to go back to Mexico to help families in need and send their kids to school. I know I’m going to face obstacles in life that are going to hold me back from accomplishing my goals. My parents’ and cousin’s situations inspire me to overcome challenges and take advantage of all the opportunities along my way.

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a nonprofit program of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas, uses the principles of strong writing and reporting to help diverse Minnesota youth tell the stories of their lives and communities.

Being Latina and the struggle of the dualities of two worlds

Reflections on why our identities can help create a better world for all of us.

A few days ago, I attended a Zoom presentation organized by ASUN entitled “What does it mean to be Latinx?” Every time I witness the complexity of identities in the Latinx community in the United States, I am amazed. Amazed that we are always perceived as a homogenous group, when in reality, we couldn’t come from more different backgrounds, and we couldn’t have more different and complex identities. Also, the challenges we face are as different as each of our stories. So, in the spirit of Hispanic Heritage Month, please indulge me in letting me tell you my story.

There is a well-known character in Mexican history that invokes both love and condemnation from most Mexicans. Her name was Malintzin but history knows her as La Malinche . Her story is similar to that of U.S.A.’s Pocahontas ; the beautiful indigenous woman who abandons her tribe to help the white man. (The legends omit how she became the property of such White men, but that’s another story). 

La Malinche was a Nahúatl woman who was given to Hernán Cortés as a slave. Due to her upperclass education, she spoke two languages, an ability that made her very useful to Hernán Cortés in communicating with the indigenous people as he went about conquering Mexico. On one hand, she was intelligent and, clearly, resilient. But on the other hand, she helped Cortés begin the Spanish colonization of the Nuevo Mundo. This duality is what gives her such a complex identity. And this duality is one that follows me.

When I was in high school, several of my classmates would sometimes call me Malinchista . As you can imagine, that was NOT a compliment. By definition, a Malinchista is “a person who denies her own cultural heritage by preferring foreign cultural expressions” (I’m not making it up; look it up).

In my early teens, I discovered American football. While switching channels on the television, I stumbled across a game being played in several feet of snow. I had never seen this! The game was being played in Minnesota. That year, the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl, and I became a die-hard fan of Roger Staubach and “America’s Team.” This marked the initiation of my love for all things American. I learned about Formula 1, Sports Illustrated and Tiger Beat. Yes, Tiger Beat introduced me to the American darlings of my generation. My bedroom walls were covered with pictures of American teen idols I had never seen before in my life (in the 1970s, Mexican TV programming didn’t broadcast many American TV shows; I only remember Dallas and The Partridge Family , which of course, I loved).

I also loved English-language songs. I used to spend my money buying cancioneros , books similar in format and quality to comic books, for people who were learning to play the guitar. The cancioneros had the lyrics of the songs along with the music notes. I literally used these cancioneros to practice my English. I would translate each word of the songs, and then I would play the records over and over until I memorized the lyrics and could actually follow the singer pronouncing the words. Do you know how hard it is to sing at full speed: “Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall?”

By the time I was in college, I had already spent time in the city of Dallas (and yes, I made the pilgrimage to Irving, Texas and the Cowboys’ stadium) – and perfected my English. I started studying English when I entered first grade. By middle school, my parents were paying a private tutor. In Mexico, English was accepted as the lingua franca needed to succeed in the world, and my parents were going to make sure I learned it. (My dad had taught himself English, and he shared my enthusiasm for English language magazines, although not for the Dallas Cowboys.) Learning a second language allowed me to learn about, navigate and integrate into a different culture. And, unlike La Malinche , I did this of my own volition.

When I made the decision to come to the United States to study, my father told me, “If you ever decide this is not for you or things don’t work out, come back home.” But I was not turning back. In my mind, America was the best place in the whole world (my small world, at least). I had spent a semester in an exchange program at the University of Oklahoma, and I knew back then I belonged in the United States. One of the things that caught my attention early on was the fact that people could wear their pajamas to class (I know you’ve seen it), and nobody blinked an eye. One could wear her hair in blue spikes or wear slippers to the grocery store, and no one would say a thing. To me, that was amazing! People didn’t bother you, judge you or care what you wore. I felt America was the place where not only public services worked, but where you could be yourself and you could be free to be whomever you wanted to be. There was a sense of freedom that was refreshing.

However, for a long time I felt like I didn’t belong here, and I didn’t belong in Mexico, either. Navigating two worlds was not precisely difficult  but sometimes unsettling . You spend your time “live switching” from English to Spanish to Spanglish and back again. You mix Cholula with Five Guys hamburgers. You watch American soccer but listen to the Mexican commentators (otherwise it’s like listening to golf announcers). And you truly think Mexican soccer fans are like the old Oakland Raiders fans, only worse. Women in Mexico are as rabid fans as many men, but, at least back in my day (I feel ancient now), you didn’t see many women go to the stadiums. As a woman, I never felt safe. I only went to a match if my male friends went with me. This is one of the most striking differences between the U.S. and Mexico: American soccer fans are so mild-mannered in comparison!

Another striking difference I noticed when I first came to the U.S. was that I was not getting cat calls out when I was out walking in the streets. In Mexico, everywhere I went (since I was a preteen, for goodness’ sake), I would be subjected to cat calls and whistles – and the harassment only got worse the older I got. My experience as a woman was of always being on high alert. But when I came to the U.S., I felt respected. I could exist without being harassed continually. Women here seemed to have a voice and the same opportunities as men to grow and pursue their dreams. I felt free to pursue a career and to not be expected to only dream of marrying and having children. Although, over the years, I’ve come to realize there still is much room for improvement.

Back in the 1500s La Malinche did what she could to survive (did I say historians think she died before she was 30?). History asked her to do a task she didn’t want, and she did her best. I am sure she considered her options and bought time, respect and the right to live in the best way she could. She used her skills to earn a place in history, and although her role continues to be debated, I cannot blame her. Did I turn my back on my country? Or did I look for a better life? My circle of Latina friends in the U.S. is full of intelligent, professional women who left their countries and built a better life ­– a different life – here in the United States. They all miss their families, and they all support their biological families in many ways. What they can do from here, however, is more than they could have done had they stayed in their countries of origin.

Being Latina in America is both an honor and a challenge. We struggle with the dualities of our worlds. We struggle with the adjectives that define us. We are a complex mix of races, traditions and experiences. We care for our people, and we work tirelessly to do what must be done to help each other. The complexity of our identities can help us create a better world for all of us, a world where our differences are not viewed as a threat but as an asset. A world where we all thrive. ¡Sí, se puede!

By: Claudia Ortega-Lukas Graphic Designer & Communications Professional

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Hardcover ISBN: 9780804768603 Paperback ISBN: 9780804768610 Ebook ISBN: 9780804780551

This collection brings together a group of important and influential essays on Mexican history and historiography by Eric Van Young, a leading scholar in the field. The essays, several of which appear here in English for the first time, are primarily historiographical; that is, they address the ways in which separate historical literatures have developed over time. They cover a wide range of topics: the historiography of the colonial and nineteenth-century Mexican and Latin American countryside; historical writing in English on the history of colonial Mexico; British, American, and Mexican historical writing on the Mexican Independence movement; the methodology of regional and cultural history; and the relationship of cultural to economic history. Some of the essays have been and will continue to be controversial, while others—for example, those on studies of the Mexican hacienda since 1980, on the theory and method of regional history, and on the "new cultural history" of Mexico—are widely considered classics of the genre.

About the author

Eric Van Young is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. His works include The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Struggle for Mexican Independence, 1810–1821 (Stanford University Press, 2001; recipient of the Bolton-Johnson Prize).

—Alan Knight, St. Anthony's College, University of Oxford

—Susan Deans-Smith, Bulletin of Spanish Studies

—R. Douglas Copy, Canadian Journal of History

"Van Young's work is characterized by a zeal for theoretical reflection and a determination to allow primary sources to speak for themselves, although always under the narrator's gentle, ironic and skeptical prodding. . . This is a beautifully written and intellectually sparkling collection of essays. Van Young invites us to share his epistemological anxieties, urging scholars to be rigorous and skeptical in the interrogation of primary sources, in the selection of disciplinary boundaries and methodologies and in the consideration of the spatial context in which histories are told. Writing Mexican History will become a standard work for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates embarking upon independent research in Mexican and Latin American history.—Guy Thomson, Journal of Latin American Studies

— History in Review

—William F. Connell, The Americas

—Margaret Chowning, University of California at Berkeley

—Gilbert M. Joseph, Yale University

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Race and Ethnicity — Mexican

Essays on Mexican

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Mexican Culture: a Rich Tapestry of Tradition and Diversity

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126 Hispanics Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best hispanics topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on hispanics, 📌 most interesting hispanics topics to write about, 📃 interesting topics to write about hispanics, 🔍 simple & easy hispanics essay titles.

• Gender Roles and Family Systems in Hispanic Culture In the Hispanic culture, amarianismo’ and amachismo’ are the terms used to determine the various behavioral expectations among the family members.
• Hispanic Culture in “Como Agua Para Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel The subject matter of the book is Hispanic culture and traditions, particularly the cuisine and the family traditions in Mexico. They have a special term “machismo” which is associated with the responsibility of a man […]
• Assessing Learning: Hispanic Lessons and Assessments Assessment is a vital activity in the process of learning in the modern educational framework and it is through assessment that the learning of the content is evaluated and central changes in the process are […]
• Asian American and Hispanic Identities in the US This is especially true of immigrants from Laos, who may not feel a strong sense of belonging to the greater Asian American group because they come from different cultural and historical backgrounds.
• Cultural Empowerment in the Hispanic Community In the case of the Hispanic community prone to obesity, the use of cultural empowerment tools might help identify and incorporate positive elements in the culture.
• Preventing Obesity Among the Hispanic Population The first factor within the dimension of relationships and expectations is associated with the perception of health-related values, beliefs, and attitudes that create a basis for an individual to engage in healthy behaviors.
• Epidemiology: Type II Diabetes in Hispanic Americans The prevalence of type II diabetes in Hispanic Americans is well-established, and the search for inexpensive prevention methods is in the limelight.
• Obesity Among Black and Hispanic Adults In conclusion, obesity is a health issue that is likely to be faced by black and Hispanic adults following poverty, lack of health education, and cultural beliefs.
• Type 2 Diabetes in Hispanic Americans The HP2020 objectives and the “who, where, and when” of the problem highlight the significance of developing new, focused, culturally sensitive T2D prevention programs for Hispanic Americans.
• COVID-19 Among Hispanics in the United States Since the findings demonstrate that the condition is significant for the selected population, it seems reasonable to conduct another study to investigate the epidemiology of COVID-19 among Hispanics living in the United States.
• Expanding Knowledge of Hispanic Culture In a family, the men are the ones who are expected to provide for that family and as well be the individuals in charge of that family.
• Hispanic Patients: The Cultural Differences Due to the processes of economic development of the United States, the import of foreign labor into the country is growing.
• Obesity in Adolescent Hispanic Population According to Kemp, “the percent of Black and Hispanic teens with obesity increased significantly over the past decade, but the prevalence of obesity remained unchanged for non-Hispanic White adolescents and young children, according to data […]
• Reduction of Obesity in the Adolescent Hispanic Population According to Kemp, “the percent of Black and Hispanic teens with obesity increased significantly over the past decade, but the prevalence of obesity remained unchanged for non-Hispanic White adolescents and for young children, according to […]
• Child Obesity in Hispanic Community The problem of obesity among children in the Latin American community is not primarily related to the lack of attention of parents to the growing problem.
• “Diabetes Prevention in U.S. Hispanic Adults” by McCurley et al. This information allows for supposing that face-to-face interventions can be suitable to my practicum project that considers measures to improve access to care among African Americans with heart failure diseases. Finally, it is possible to […]
• Conditions of People Migrating to the U.S.: Hispanic Migration In the first half of the century, Mexican comprised the majority of the Hispanic migrants to the country, with a small proportion of immigrants from the Caribbean countries.
• “In the Heights”: A Depiction of Hispanic Immigrant Experience in the United States In many cases, immigrants form or join the closed communities, and the people, who live there, are often not adjusted to the environment of the main population. Nina Rosario is the daughter of two hard-working […]
• Discrimination Against Hispanics in America Today, Mexicans and all other Hispanics are still victims of the stereotypes and inequalities faced by their people in the US over a hundred years ago.
• Hispanic American History: Importance and Impact The study of the complex interrelationships and general trends of Hispanic-American economic, political, and social developments helped deepen and understand the features of the people, which is helpful for professional activities.
• Hispanic Americans and Immigrants The people of Hispanic origin account for a considerable part of the population of the United States. More specifically, the Hispanic population of the country has surpassed sixty million by the year 2019, and this […]
• Addressing the Needs of Hispanic Patients With Diabetes Similarly, in the program at hand, the needs of Hispanic patients with diabetes will be considered through the prism of the key specifics of the community, as well as the cultural background of the patients.
• Communicating With Hispanic Patients The Hispanic populace in the United States is strongly assorted having starting points in Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
• Hispanic and Black Community Injustice Moreover, in the letter to environmental organizations, people of color demanded to include them in the ruling positions of unions and to raise funding in the polluted areas.
• High Blood Pressure Management in Hispanic Patient These symptoms are complemented by heavy snoring and the lack of pain except for the headaches, which are becoming more frequent and last for a couple of hours.
• Hispanic and Latino Community’s Health in Florida In terms of the present presentation, the community health assessment will be focused on the health state of the Hispanic and Latino community in the state of Florida and Broward County, in particular.
• Anxiety and Depression in Hispanic Youth in Monmouth County Therefore, the Health Project in Monmouth County will help Hispanic children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 to cope with anxiety and depression through behavioral therapy.
• Heart Disease Among Hispanic and Latino Population Hispanics and Latinos have the highest propensity for heart related diseases in the society. They are at a very high risk of developing diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.
• Hispanic Migrant Workers’ Community The primary language spoken by Hispanics in the United States is Spanish as in the case of the farm workers of Mexican origin or Latin American nationalities.
• Nursing in Different Cultures – Hispanic Cultures Cultural conflicts can occur when nurses acknowledge the influence of their values on global health. Cultural values are the lasting belief systems, which a society focuses on.
• Heart Disease Among Hispanic & Latino Population One of the causes of the rise in the case of heart diseases in Westminster is the literacy rate of the Hispanic/Latinos in the county.
• Community Health Advocacy Project: Diabetes Among Hispanics It will be important to evaluate the performance of the intervention plan in order to determine how appropriate it is in addressing the identified problem.
• Community Health Advocacy Project: Hispanics With Diabetes Statistics clearly show that age, gender, socio-economic status, and weight management are some of the key factors that affect the distribution of type-2 diabetes amongst the Hispanics.
• Hispanics Are More Susceptible to Diabetes That Non-Hispanics This trend is persistent to date, and is the reason behind the prevalence of diabetes among Hispanics. The condition of the environments in which Hispanics live also adds increases their susceptibility to diabetes.
• Rates Diabetes Between Hispanics Males and Females An increase in the period that one spends in the US correlates with the chances of developing the disease. In this context, all the levels would be used to address the high prevalence rates of […]
• Hispanics: Scholarly Culture Paper Duran, notes that the absence of information about Hispanics contributes largely to the unavailability of competitive healthcare services of the same.
• Hispanic Americans Opinion Takeyuki Tsuda The book Immigration and Ethnic Relations in the U.S.speaks on the theme of reshaping the face of the United States during the period of the past few decades.
• A Portrait of Hispanics Living in California The originality of the Hispanic population in the US can be traced to different ethnic groups comprising of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cubans.
• Educational Disparities: Non-Hispanic Whites vs. Blacks The segregation set up the course for disparities in the education sector because the black schools mainly in the south were poor and thus could not afford to provide adequate facilities for the students.
• Hispanic Males in the 19th-21st Centuries This change in the family setup has led to the change in the role of the Hispanic male. The family’s security was in the hands of the Hispanic male while the woman acted as the […]
• Norms, and Characteristics of African American and Hispanic Living in Florida The two minority groups selected for my research are African American people and Hispanic groups with whom I am familiar from my locality.
• African Americans and Hispanics in New Jersey In fact, “African-American history starts in the 1500s with the first Africans coming from Mexico and the Caribbean to the Spanish territories of Florida, Texas, and other parts of the South”.
• Hispanic Nation: Brief Retrospective The number of the baby born to Hispanics in comparison to other groups is very high. Another threat is of the low skill set of the Hispanics and their ability to learn new skill for […]
• Health Effects of Tobacco Smoking in Hispanic Men The Health Effects of Tobacco Smoking can be attributed to active tobacco smoking rather than inhalation of tobacco smoke from environment and passive smoking.
• Hispanic American Diversity and Conventions According to the analysis in these countries majority of these people are catholic, that is 70 %, the Protestants are 23%, and 6% have no affiliation.
• Immigration, Hispanics, and Mass Incarceration in the U.S. This article evaluates the effect of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, that led to the legalization of approximately 3 million immigrants had on the crime rates in the U.S.
• Human Papillomavirus Vaccination in Hispanic Women The study is justified because establishing the level of HPV, cervical cancer, and HPV vaccine knowledge among Hispanic women would pave the way for the formulation of strategies on patient education on the issue.
• National Association of Hispanic Nurses: Importance of Involvement The official website of the organization, http://nahnnet.org/, stipulates that the primary purpose of the organization is to unite the nurses and make sure that they provide the Hispanic population with adequate care.
• Hispanic Women’s Stereotypes in the USA Importantly, the single-story related to Hispanic females refers to the representatives of the entire continent since people pay little attention to the origin of the Latino population.
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Hispanic Teenager Family dynamics and social withdrawal do not seem to have affected the client’s academic history; her grades are good and she has no history of behavioral problems.
• Perception of Diabetes in the Hispanic Population Diabetes is also defined as one of the leading causes of death among the citizens of the United States. Despite the possibility to create certain measurements of this nursing research project, it is also required […]
• Gonorrhea and Chlamydia Reduction in Hispanic Women Its purpose is to reduce STI’s Gonorrhea/Chlamydia among Hispanic women in Michigan and to plan a culturally appropriate intervention to address this area of health. The final data is also inclusive of the ethnic and […]
• Anti-Obesity Program for Hispanic Children It is expected that the successful implementation of the program will lead to a subsequent 15% drop in the levels of obesity among Hispanic children in the target community.
• Hispanic Student’s Cultural and Ethical Issues Unfortunately, there is a lot of evidence supporting the fact that the educational experience for Hispanics in the United States is one of the most pressing problems.
• Hispanic and Asian Americans’ Mobility Factors As for me, I believe that the level of discrimination and assimilation have a critical impact on the socioeconomic flexibility of the immigrants due to the ability of the society to create stereotypes while the […]
• Obesity in Hispanic Adolescents and Fast Food Most of these, however, describe the relationship existing between the prevalence of diabetes in the population and the consumption of fast foods.
• Hispanic Patients and Dietary Approaches (DASH) As to sugars, the DASH diet limits the sweets intake to the daily servings of fructose from fruit and additional 5 servings of sugar per week.
• African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Pakistani, Dutch Cultures In addition, Nigerians are believed to speak their own Nigerian pidgin, which is not true since the official language of the country is English, and many people speak it fluently.
• Counseling and Mentorship Program for Hispanic Children The purpose of the mentorship program was to educate and widen their learning skills of the targeted children. The program also targeted to inform these individuals about the relevance of schooling in the Hispanic society.
• The Hispanic Project” by Nikki S. Lee One of the most complicated and at the same time the most essential problems of the modern world, the racial segregation, and the racial hegemony is to be considered because of the growing number of […]
• The Hispanic Community Concept: History and Characteristics It could refer to the current Spain; it can also be used to refer to the Spanish language, or the term can be used to refer to the communities in the world that speak the […]
• Hispanic Childhood Poverty in the United States Importance of the Problem The problem of childhood poverty in Hispanic groups in America is important to this study and to the social studies in America.
• Ethnic Stratification, Prejudice, Discrimination: Hispanics The author of this paper discusses the effects of ethnic stratification on the Hispanics/Latinos, and how prejudice and discrimination are relevant to this ethnic group.
• Hispanic Americans: Roles Played in the American Society. In the first place, it is necessary to remember that Hispanic Americans constitute about 15 % of the entire American population, which makes them the second largest ethnic group in the USA.
• Hispanic Americans: Racial Status Starting the discussion with the identification of the Hispanic Americans and their place in the population of the USA, the author says that some cities inhabit more Hispanic Americans than Americans.
• The US Ethnic Groups: the Hispanic Americans Of all the Hispanic Americans ethnic groups in the US, the Mexican is the largest, followed by Puerto Ricans, and then Cubans. The population of the Hispanic Americans has increased rapidly and is now the […]
• The Role of Hispanic Americans in Counseling Family structure and gender roles Family commitment in different cultures is an indispensable characteristic, which involves loyalty, a strong support system, the behavior of a child, which is associated with the honor of the family, […]
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Sexuality in the Hispanic Culture Men are the breadwinners of the family, a duty that requires men to play the father figure role in the family.
• Overview and Analysis of Hispanic & Latino Theology The Hispanic theology is shown as a representation of the religious and theological inflections of the Hispanic people staying in the United States.
• Assessing the Challenges in Treating Substance Abuse Among Members of Hispanic Families In this respect, it is necessary to define the peculiarities of Hispanic culture in terms of family structure traditions, gender role distributions, and influence of family problems on members’ substance abuse.
• Mexican American, Chicano, Latino, Hispanic Cultural Variations in Childrearing Most of the Mexican Americans lived in areas in the USA that once belonged to Mexico that is areas such as California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and others and in the regions that they […]
• Immigration bias on Hispanics in North Carolina Immigration bias against the Hispanics has been witnessed in the State of North Carolina based on implementation of Section 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• The Hispanic Population in the United States The Hispanic population represents the largest minority group in the United States. Around one half of Hispanic residents in the United States were born in a foreign country.
• The Ethnic Issues of the Hispanic American People In the article, it is evident that the population of people from the Hispanic American origin has risen over the years, and currently, they contribute to approximately fourteen percent of the entire population of the […]
• Economic and Social Inequalities in the United States Between Whites, Asian Americans, Hispanics and African Americans Although, there are similarities in the wellbeing of whites and Asian American, Asian Americans are still seen as foreigners. However, to further isolate them, they are indentified with a tag inclined to the origin of […]
• The Aspects of Hispanic History and Culture S history emphasize on how the British colonies of North America were found and their subsequent growth, their gaining of independence in 1776 and the east to west growth of the U.S.
• Annotation Of: Hispanics and the Death Penalty It also identified several manifestations of racial discrimination between the whites and non whites by comparing Asian Americans and Hispanics marriages with the whites and discovered that the Asian Americans and Hispanics had higher chances […]
• African Americans and Hispanics of Mental Health Facilities
• Assimilation and Health: Linked Birth Records of Second and Third-Generation Hispanics
• Background Knowledge Immigration Hispanics From the United States
• Blacks, Hispanics, and White Ethnic Groups: Are Blacks Uniquely Disadvantaged?
• Bragging About Online Purchases: Comparing Consumer Word-Of-Mouth Among Hispanics and Non-Hispanics Groups
• Brain Amyloid Burden and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Late Middle-Aged Hispanics
• Cancer, Respiratory and Cardiovascular Diseases: Mortality Rates Among African-Americans and Hispanics
• Gender Disparity in Automobility Among Hispanics in the U.S
• Child Sexual Abuse Among Hispanics and TF-CBT
• Comparing Modernity Between Hispanics and Tibetans in Baltimore
• Considering the Economic Status of Black Americans and Hispanics
• Contextual Factors and Weight Change Over Time: U.S. Hispanics and Other Groups Comparison
• Diversity Analysis: The Impact of Hispanics in the Workplace
• Domestic Violence Against Hispanics and Latinas in Louisiana
• The Problem of Domestic Violence Among Hispanics
• Educational Disparities Among Black and Hispanics
• Racial Discrimination and Hispanics in the United States
• Ethnic Stratification, Prejudice, Discrimination: Hispanics
• Overview of Healthcare Disparity Among the Hispanics
• The Case of Direct Marketing Advertising for Hispanics
• The Problem of Teenage Pregnancies Anong Hispanics
• Hispanics and the American Dream: Analysis of Hispanic Male Labor Market Wages
• The Problem of Alcoholism Among Hispanics
• Hispanics and Their Contribution to America’s Human Capital
• Analysis of Hispanic Health Care Issues in Texas
• Hispanics, Black, Substance Abuse, and Multicultural Counseling
• Legal and Social Justice for Hispanics and Women
• Looking Through the Eyes of Undocumented Hispanics in the United States
• Hispanics’ Habits and Attitudes Towards Drinking
• Marital Assimilation Among Hispanics: Evidence of Declining Cultural and Economic Incorporation
• His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S
• Mind, Body, and Culture: Somatization Among Hispanics
• Minority Groups: African Americans, Women, and Hispanics
• Mortality Among Elderly Hispanics in the USA: Past Evidence and New Results
• Operant Conditioning and Parenting Practices Between Hispanics and North Americans
• Police Brutality Against Hispanics and African Americans
• Racial and Ethnic Inequality of Hispanics in the USA
• Self-Selection, Prenatal Care, and Birthweight Among Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics in New York
• Racial Prejudice and Bias Against Hispanics
• Police Brutality: Hispanics, Asians, and African American
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Latina first-generation college students draw on lessons, mentor others

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Noemi Rodriguez, 21, aspires to make an impact in her community through her work after college. But as she maneuvers through her final year at University of California, San Diego, balancing school, work and commuting has been an ongoing challenge.

"My mom had told me from the beginning, 'If you want to go to school, it’s going to be on your own account,'" said Rodriguez, who's worked part time at Jamba Juice while going to school full time and taking on a second job in the summer to help pay for tuition and cover some of the family’s bills.

Latinos are more likely to be first-generation college students than any other racial or ethnic group: More than 4 in 10 (44 percent) Hispanic students are the first in their family to attend college, according to educational nonprofit organization Excelencia in Education .

Monday was the annual National First-Generation College Celebration, marking the anniversary of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which greatly expanded college opportunities through financial assistance tools such as grants and work-study programs.

While the celebration is one day, many higher education institutions carry out weeklong and even monthlong celebrations.

In California, Hispanics make up 43 percent of public college undergraduates, according to a report by The Campaign for College Opportunity . The organization, composed of a coalition of groups, aims to boost opportunities for the state's Latinos to attend and graduate from college.

Latino college enrollment and degree obtainment are continuing to rise, and there have been encouraging trends in California, which has the country's largest Latino population, making up almost 4 in 10 (39 percent) Californians. A little over half (51 percent) of the state's Latinos are under 30.

The report noted that almost 9 in 10 (87 percent) of Latino 19-year-olds have a high school diploma or equivalent credential, compared to 73 percent 10 years ago. In the last five years, four-year graduation rates doubled for Hispanics enrolled as full-time, first-year students in the California State University system — from 9 percent to 18 percent for Latinos and from 15 percent to 29 percent for Latinas.

However, only 18 percent of Latino and 29 percent of Latina freshmen at the California State University system are graduating in four years.

Rodriguez is a success coach for the UCSD Student Success Coaching Program , which supports incoming and continuing first-generation students like her through mentoring, helping them balance school and work and giving them access to resources and support services. After graduation, she plans to continue mentoring students, drawing on her own experiences.

The first in her family to attend a four-year university, Rodriguez recalled dealing with impostor syndrome in high school before she was admitted to UCSD, a topic of discussion among many first-generation students.

"When I talked to other people outside of my school, they all did a lot better than me and had higher SAT scores, higher grades," Rodriguez, who is double majoring in political science and ethnic studies at UCSD, said. "Even though I know I did a lot, I didn't think that I was going to get in."

Daisy Gomez-Fuentes, 23, a graduate student at San Diego State University, works for the school's Latinx Resource Center as a peer mentor and graduate assistant.

She provides students with guidance by supporting them across coursework, answering questions they have about classes, advising them on how to ask for letters of recommendation and holding workshops regarding impostor syndrome and best practices to stay organized throughout the semester.

“As a first-gen, I’m paving the way for future generations by breaking cycles and barriers and essentially becoming a resource and a mentor to other first-gen students,” Gomez-Fuentes, who earned a bachelor’s degree earlier this year in Chicana/o/x studies from California State University, Fullerton, said.

She is planning to obtain a doctorate in sociology and become a professor. Under 6 percent of Latinas have a graduate degree, compared to 15 percent for white women.

'I see myself'

For Brenda Elizondo, 21, helping first-gen students is a full-circle moment.

Elizondo works in youth development services for the Boys and Girls Club of Garden Grove, helping many first-generation youths from low-income areas grow as students.

"For me, it really just means a lot because I was part of this program, as well," Elizondo, who's a full-time student at Cal State Fullerton, said.

She said participating in the program as a child helped distract her from troubles at home. There would be times when there wasn’t any food on the table, she said.

Now, as an adult, she juggles three jobs while being the sole caretaker for her mother, who is 42 living with several chronic conditions. As the eldest of her siblings, she also provides for her two younger brothers, who are 17 and 13.

“I do feel like it gets overwhelming,” Elizondo said. “There’s times that I feel like maybe this isn’t for me, maybe I should drop out.” But serving as an example for her brothers is what is motivating her to continue college, she said.

Having her mom and siblings watch her walk at graduation would feel “like crossing that line at a marathon,” Elizondo said. She said she expects to graduate in 2022 and is pursuing a career in journalism to tell stories about people in her community who she feels don’t have a platform.

The guidance Elizondo is providing at the Boys and Girls Club is a step to helping more Latino youth on the pathway to college.

"Being able to offer that support, whether it's emotional, anything, just for these kids, it means a lot," she said, "because when I see them, I see myself."

Follow  NBC Latino   on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .

Edwin Flores reports and produces for NBC Latino and is based in Anaheim, California. 

Mexican Americans essay

Mexican Americans are Americans who are Mexican by blood. Mexican Americans comprise the largest Hispanic race in the United States. Mexican Americans are categorized into major by their roots, biracials include the Mestizos; a crossbreed of European and Amerindian, Mullatos are a mixture of black and white skin pigments and Zambos, a biproduct of African and Amerindian reproduction. Mexican Americans also root from full bloods such as caucasians which have pigmentations on the skin. Amerindians.

or native Americans as well as are resemblances to Asians and Africans (Menchaca, 2002, p. 20). Mexican Americans, in the course of history always considered Americans or Amerindians, particularly in the social aspect. They have similar rights that Americans have such as voting and holding public office, they also have the right to have matrimonial bonds with non-hispanic whites. Language has no restrictions nor barriers for Mexican Americans as they both speak their primary language of Spanish and English.

All Mexicans in the United States are regarded as white due to a previous treaty with the Spaniards regarding citizenship and social status around the time when skin tone was still a factor of becoming an American Citizen (Lopez, 1996). However, Mexican americans in some states such as california still suufer from racial discrimination due to their ethnicity. It is evident in the fact that most of them are employed in blue collar jobs. Religious beliefs of Mexican Americans on the other hand are not a matter of question since most of them are Christians and unlikely to practice occult rituals.

Puerto Rican American In the United States and Puerto Rico, Puerti Rican Americans are adressed as Stateside Puerto Ricans. These are the citizens born from the U. S dependent Puerto Rico or a descendant of the aforementioned nation. The Puerto Rican communities in the United States have solid contact with their fellowmen from their native country. A noteable trademark of a Puerto Rican American is the fluency in speaking both Spanish and English.

Related essays:

• Hispanic Interpretaions essay
• Hispanic American Diversity essay
• Hispanic American essay

They are mostly known for their Unity in pleading their political and social advocacies as well as the preservation of their cultural background and are in the political battlefield for almost a century (Cortes, 1980). Poverty has always been an aquaintance of stateside Puerto Ricans, it is mirrored by fifty years of reports regarding the socio-economic status of the ethnic group. However, the turn of the millenium gave the Puerto Rican Americans a big break as socio-economic progress dug the stateside Puerto Ricans out of the poverty pit.

Stateside Puerto Ricans’ migration to and from the United States in a regular manner strengthens the population’s identity. Statistical data indicate positive reflection svia social practices and the establishment of various institutions (Cortes, 1980). Roman Catholicism is dominant among Puerto Ricans both stateside and native since their Spanish colonizers incorporated Christianity in the occupation of the territory, as is every other country. The emergence of numerous religious sects are only brought about by Puerto Rican’s indirect exposure to American Culture (Burnett & Marshall, 2001).

Cuban American. Cuban Americans are people who hail from the Cuban republic and migrated to the United States. Conversely, an American citizen with Cuban ancestry is also considered a Cuban American. The major ancestral roots of Cuban Americans are Spanish, otherwise, they are of French, Portuguese, Russian and Italian descent. A number of Cuban Americans osmosed themselves into the American popular culture. But in the state of florida, particularly in Miami and its the surrounding cities, the Cuban American community is exceptionally sculpted.

Cuban Americans moved out of the Little Havana and into the city of Hialeah and ,Kendall, Coral Gables and Miami Lakes since the 80s. The once boring city of Miami which was only deemed as a retirement beach is now a modern city with an island feel in gratitude to the Cuban Americans’ business establishment and integration into the political bandwagon. In addition, the middle class income of Cuban American Households is 36,671 U. S dollars, a figure close to the non-Hispanic Americans.

Giving credit to their Spanish heritage, the majority of Cuban Americans’ religious practices are grounded from the Roman Catholic faith. Though there are other practices such as Protestantism, Spiritualism, Agnosticism and Judaism. Despite the historical account that Cuban American settelements date back to 1565 when St. Agustine, Florida was discovered and the Cuban American efforts to rejuvinate the city of Miami. Cuban Americans, like other races are still on the receiving end of racial discriminations across the United States.

Dominican American American immigrants and their descendants from the Dominican Republic are refered to as Dominican Yorks or Dominican Americans (Rodriguez, 2000). Their migration to the United States is historically dated in the late 19th century. Since 1930, New York city was the home for Dominican Communities, The economic instability and the decline of then Dominican Tyrant Rafael Trujillo in the 1960s saw a massive migration of dominicans to the United States (Rodriguez, 2000).

Numerous Dominican Yorks are comprised of first generation youth with little academic acheivement. A number of Dominicans also hail from the rural ares of the country, thus, language constraints are among their areas for improvement. The subsequent generation proved to be highly educated as their higher incomes and professional employment reflected and the percentage of college degrees among Dominican Americans are recorded to be 21%, a rate close to that of the national average of 24% (Castro, 2004).

The Dominican Americans’ culture takes pride in music as its core, musical styles such as merengue and bachata which takes its roots rom bolero are popular among the Dominican York youth. The urban sounds of Hip-hop and Reggaeton are popular as well (Castro, 2002). Dominican American religion is no different from its Spanish roots. Roman Catholics comprise 90% of dominicans who believe in saints, virgins and apparitions. The virgins Altagracia and Mercedes are highly influential to Dominicans serve as symbols for Dominican identity and is manifested in the flag (Castro, 2002).

Burnett, C. & Marshall, B. (2001). Foreign in a Domestic Sense. North Carolina: Duke UP. Castro, M. J. (2002). The Dominican Diaspora Revisited, Dominicans and Dominican -Americans in a New Century. Florida: Miami UP. Cortes, Carlos (ed. )(1980). Regional Perspectives on the Puerto Rican Experience New York: Arno Press. Lopez, I. (1996). White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York UP. Menchaca, M. (2002). Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans. Austin: University of Texas Press

Paez, M & Dr. Torres, L. Latinos: Remaking America, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Los Angeles: California UP. Rodriguez, C. (2000). Changing Race: Latinos, the Census, and the History of Ethnicity in the United States. New York: New York UP. PBS. (2004, October, 26). Dominican Republic: Dual Citizens. Retrieved January 7, 2008, from http://www. pbs. org/frontlineworld/elections/dominicanrepublic/ Census Bureau (2001). The Hispanic Population Census 2000 Brief. Retrieved January 7, 2008 from the U. S. Bureau of the Census.

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Searching for My Mom, and the History of La Puente’s ‘Little Watts’

Greenberry, where she taught for decades, helped forge today’s multi-racial san gabriel valley.

After a photo of her recently deceased mother arrived in the mail, scholar Gilda L. Ochoa sought to understand more of her mother’s past—and came across a local history of Black-Latino solidarity in La Puente. Top left: Envelope from 2022 containing a photograph of the author’s mom, Francesca Ochoa. Bottom left: Francesca’s homeroom class photos, 1972-1973. Middle photo: Francesca standing at Sparks Middle School circa 1970. Right: Sparks yearbook cover, 1970-1971. Photos courtesy of author.

by Gilda L. Ochoa | August 15, 2024

I lost my mom to COVID in February 2021. She died alone, after spending 10 excruciating days in the hospital. A year after her death, a white envelope with no return address arrived in my Pomona College mailbox. Inside was a photo of my mom from the early 1970s.

In the photo, she is standing between two corridors of Sparks Middle School’s brick campus in La Puente, where she taught until she retired in 2008. She smiles gently, with her arms by her side. Her hair is long and straight, and she is wearing a sleeveless dress. She looks so young.

She was gone, and there were so many things I couldn’t ask her. For years, as a researcher and resident, I wrote about La Puente’s Mexican community and its fight for educational justice. My mom’s death—and that precious photo—made me consider new questions about the past. I began wondering about Greenberry, East San Gabriel Valley’s first Black suburban neighborhood, sometimes called “Little Watts.” Some of my mom’s early students lived there. I first heard about this neighborhood from her, but still knew next to nothing about it.

I wanted to be near my mom, and I wanted to learn Greenberry’s history. I began reaching out to some of the students she taught in the 1970s, and digging through yearbooks, newspaper articles, church records, and city council and school board minutes. I learned that Black residents in La Puente, so often forgotten, challenged multiple forms of racism. At times, they found common cause with Mexican Americans and other allies, including my Sicilian American mom. Indeed, Greenberry and its now-hidden history of activism helped forge today’s multi-racial San Gabriel Valley.

My family’s history, and specifically my mom’s early years at Sparks, intersected with Greenberry’s growth and its residents’ fight for equality. First-generation college graduates committed to social justice, my parents returned to La Puente—the multi-racial blue-collar city where their Sicilian and Nicaraguan immigrant parents lived—to become junior high school teachers. In the early 1970s, they rented a house on Evanwood Avenue, less than a mile south of Greenberry.

Pushed out of South Central Los Angeles by urban renewal, eminent domain, and the 1965 Watts uprising, Black families, some originally from the South and Midwest, moved to Greenberry in the 1960s. Newly suburbanized La Puente had relatively affordable homes, so Black families bought there and created a thriving community. White real estate agents, however, sought to preserve all-white neighborhoods. Fueled by racist beliefs that Black residents would lower home values, they steered Black families south of Francisquito Avenue into an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County just outside the then-white middle-class city of West Covina. Greenberry Drive led to the enclave’s three main blocks—Greenberry, Glenshaw, and Evanwood.

Former residents fondly describe late midcentury Greenberry as a “village.” Black families integrated existing churches, and Black pastors established new ones. Black women hosted parties and games of bid whist and dominos. The community discussed issues that impacted the village and in 1964, frustrated with ongoing discrimination, established the La Puente-West Covina branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They fought segregated housing in West Covina, and curriculum tracking and IQ testing in schools.

Children who grew up in Greenberry went to Sparks, where my mom taught Spanish and language arts to the area’s Black, Mexican, white, and few Asian American students. She wanted students to leave feeling better about themselves than when they entered. During Mom’s Zoom memorial, former student and Greenberry resident Keith Williams recalled, “The thing I valued most from Ms. Francesca Ochoa is the way she always finished her Spanish class, ‘Que tengas un buen día. Have a nice day.’ She showed us that she cared.”

Living in the school district where my parents taught, the lines between work and home often blurred. My mom’s 1970s students told me they occasionally dropped by our home to make the 10-minute walk to school with Ms. Ochoa. Some even remembered hearing toddler-me crying in the background.

Shortly after Mom arrived at Sparks, the local NAACP allied with the La Puente-area Organization of Mexican American Communities and La Raza Unida Party to fight police brutality and to increase the number of Black and Chicana/o educators. They pushed for Chicano and Black Studies classes, and in 1972, demanded that the school district make one year of Chicano and Black Studies a graduation requirement for all high school students. My mother taught Chicano studies for several years.

As I learned more about Greenberry and its history of Black activism, I found my mother in the historical record. Lionel J. Brown came up often in my research: a president of the area NAACP, an organizer against police violence, and a teacher who advocated for, and then chaired, a council to address racial discrimination in the school district. Through school board minutes, I discovered that my mom and Mr. Brown participated together in a multi-day workshop in 1974 titled “Different Aspects of Mexican Culture.”

I was eager to find Mr. Brown, and I looked for him at his old address. The owner told me Mr. Brown lost his home to foreclosure in the early 1980s; he stored some of Mr. Brown’s items for a few years, but never saw him again. This was the closest I came to finding Lionel Brown. I was overcome with sadness—a sense of loss thinking about how he was pushed out of his home and community, and a sense of loss reflecting on how his labor to improve our area is unknown to too many.

Almost none of the Black families in Greenberry remain today. In the late 1970s, many of the neighborhood youth left for the military, college, or work. Priced out of the area and able to purchase newer and larger homes further east, young families went to the Inland Empire; their parents, like mine, passed away. I spoke with 65-year-old Ethel Smith, who lived in Greenberry from 1969 to 1976, and recently visited the neighborhood, hoping to reconnect with old memories. “It’s sad,” she grieved, “I went through Greenberry to reminisce, and I can’t remember people whose houses I’ve been to. I can’t remember where they lived.”

But relationships endure, even as the community is now physically dispersed. Greenberry’s former residents have met for yearly reunions since 2012. “How many communities from the ’70s—communities not families—get together once a year?” Keith Williams marveled when I visited him as part of my research into the neighborhood. “I don’t know of any communities that have such an interwoven connection with one another,” he reflected. The seeds that the original residents planted, Keith observed, have connected the former Greenberry residents’ kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.

Recovering local histories of placemaking, like Greenberry’s, teaches us about our interrelated and unequal pasts, and about the times that people have united for change. Researching Greenberry’s past has been part of my own remembering—a way to stay connected with my mom, honor the relationships she maintained, and hold onto the love she conveyed. It has exposed interconnected and transgenerational relationships and on-going struggles for justice.

For all of this, I’m grateful to former Greenberry residents. I hope to ensure more people learn about this past, and the community’s work—for them, for my mom, and ultimately for us all.

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Breaking news, okla. college students may have been drugged for trafficking, organs on mexico vacation, loved one says.

The Oklahoma college students who were supposedly drugged with fentanyl at a Mexican resort may have been targeted for trafficking or even to have their organs stolen, according to one of their loved ones.

Stephanie Snider — whose son, Jake, is dating one of the students, Zara Hull — spoke out about the theory after photos emerged of Hull and friend, Kaylie Pitzer, slumped over after ordering water from their Cancun resort’s pool bar on Aug. 2.

“We believe they were planning to take her away to be trafficked or perhaps even to take her organs (which is what we were later told is a common thing that is done),” Snider wrote on Facebook this week.

“They most likely would have done something to my son as well, possibly even death,” Snider added.

She did not specify who exactly warned them about the possibility of Hull and Pitzer being targeted for trafficking or organ harvesting.

Hull, 20, was later hospitalized with what doctors suspected were life-threatening side effects of synthetic fentanyl .

She finally returned to Oklahoma on Monday, nearly two weeks after her traumatic ordeal, Snider added in another Facebook update.

The college student was pictured smiling in the passenger seat next to her boyfriend, who drove her home from Dallas, Texas, where she was hospitalized after being treated in Cancun.

“Zara is feeling better physically each day-just still a little wobbly and dizzy at times,” Snider said of her condition.

“It seems like when we close our eyes at night many things hit at once of what she’s been through. Kaylie is still struggling with these things as well so prayers are still needed for these girls,” she added.

Hull’s boyfriend, Jake, was separated from her when she was first hospitalized , his mom wrote online.

When he finally got to see her, he found her intubated and under heavy sedation.

He even prevented the hospital staff from taking her to another location for an MRI, which he suspected was a front for trafficking, his mom said.

The hospital admission also ran up a hefty bill.

“The baseline was $10,000 for them to even look at me,” Hull recalled in an interview with CBS News.

Hull and Pitzer were on their dream Mexican vacation with their boyfriends when disaster struck – and Snider warned other parents to be on the lookout for similar symptoms.

“I want everyone to know this is REAL,” she implored.

“As parents of Jake, and Zara’s and Kaylie’s parents, we still can’t close our eyes at night because these things are still haunting us.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, a GoFundMe for Hull’s hospital bills and related travel costs had raised nearly $25,000 of its $40,000 goal.

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How To Tackle The Weirdest Supplemental Essay Prompts For This Application Cycle

Writing the college essay

How do you write a letter to a friend that shows you’re a good candidate for the University of Pennsylvania? What reading list will help the Columbia University admissions committee understand your interdisciplinary interests? How can you convey your desire to attend Yale by inventing a course description for a topic you’re interested in studying?

These are the challenges students must overcome when writing their supplemental essays . Supplemental essays are a critical component of college applications—like the personal statement, they provide students with the opportunity to showcase their authentic voice and perspective beyond the quantitative elements of their applications. However, unlike the personal essay, supplemental essays allow colleges to read students’ responses to targeted prompts and evaluate their candidacy for their specific institution. For this reason, supplemental essay prompts are often abstract, requiring students to get creative, read between the lines, and ditch the traditional essay-writing format when crafting their responses.

While many schools simply want to know “why do you want to attend our school?” others break the mold, inviting students to think outside of the box and answer prompts that are original, head-scratching, or downright weird. This year, the following five colleges pushed students to get creative—if you’re struggling to rise to the challenge, here are some tips for tackling their unique prompts:

University of Chicago

Prompt: We’re all familiar with green-eyed envy or feeling blue, but what about being “caught purple-handed”? Or “tickled orange”? Give an old color-infused expression a new hue and tell us what it represents. – Inspired by Ramsey Bottorff, Class of 2026

What Makes it Unique: No discussion of unique supplemental essay prompts would be complete without mentioning the University of Chicago, a school notorious for its puzzling and original prompts (perhaps the most well-known of these has been the recurring prompt “Find x”). This prompt challenges you to invent a new color-based expression, encouraging both linguistic creativity and a deep dive into the emotional or cultural connotations of color. It’s a prompt that allows you to play with language, think abstractly, and show off your ability to forge connections between concepts that aren’t typically linked—all qualities that likewise demonstrate your preparedness for UChicago’s unique academic environment.

How to Answer it: While it may be easy to get distracted by the open-ended nature of the prompt, remember that both the substance and structure of your response should give some insight into your personality, perspective, and characteristics. With this in mind, begin by considering the emotions, experiences, or ideas that most resonate with you. Then, use your imagination to consider how a specific color could represent that feeling or concept. Remember that the prompt is ultimately an opportunity to showcase your creativity and original way of looking at the world, so your explanation does not need to be unnecessarily deep or complex—if you have a playful personality, convey your playfulness in your response; if you are known for your sarcasm, consider how you can weave in your biting wit; if you are an amateur poet, consider how you might take inspiration from poetry as you write, or offer a response in the form of a poem.

The goal is to take a familiar concept and turn it into something new and meaningful through a creative lens. Use this essay to showcase your ability to think inventively and to draw surprising connections between language and life.

Harvard University

Prompt: Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

What Makes it Unique: This prompt is unique in both form and substance—first, you only have 150 words to write about all 3 things. Consider using a form other than a traditional essay or short answer response, such as a bullet list or short letter. Additionally, note that the things your roommate might like to learn about you do not necessarily overlap with the things you would traditionally share with an admissions committee. The aim of the prompt is to get to know your quirks and foibles—who are you as a person and a friend? What distinguishes you outside of academics and accolades?

How to Answer it: First and foremost, feel free to get creative with your response to this prompt. While you are producing a supplemental essay and thus a professional piece of writing, the prompt invites you to share more personal qualities, and you should aim to demonstrate your unique characteristics in your own voice. Consider things such as: How would your friends describe you? What funny stories do your parents and siblings share that encapsulate your personality? Or, consider what someone might want to know about living with you: do you snore? Do you have a collection of vintage posters? Are you particularly fastidious? While these may seem like trivial things to mention, the true creativity is in how you connect these qualities to deeper truths about yourself—perhaps your sleepwalking is consistent with your reputation for being the first to raise your hand in class or speak up about a cause you’re passionate about. Perhaps your living conditions are a metaphor for how your brain works—though it looks like a mess to everyone else, you have a place for everything and know exactly where to find it. Whatever qualities you choose, embrace the opportunity to think outside of the box and showcase something that admissions officers won’t learn about anywhere else on your application.

University of Pennsylvania

Prompt: Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge.

What Makes it Unique: Breaking from the traditional essay format, this supplement invites you to write directly to a third party in the form of a 150-200 word long letter. The challenge in answering this distinct prompt is to remember that your letter should say as much about you, your unique qualities and what you value as it does about the recipient—all while not seeming overly boastful or contrived.

How to Answer it: As you select a recipient, consider the relationships that have been most formative in your high school experience—writing to someone who has played a large part in your story will allow the admissions committee some insight into your development and the meaningful relationships that guided you on your journey. Once you’ve identified the person, craft a thank-you note that is specific and heartfelt—unlike other essays, this prompt invites you to be sentimental and emotional, as long as doing so would authentically convey your feelings of gratitude. Describe the impact they’ve had on you, what you’ve learned from them, and how their influence has shaped your path. For example, if you’re thanking a teacher, don’t just say they helped you become a better student—explain how their encouragement gave you the confidence to pursue your passions. Keep the tone sincere and personal, avoid clichés and focus on the unique role this person has played in your life.

University of Notre Dame

Prompt: What compliment are you most proud of receiving, and why does it mean so much to you?

What Makes it Unique: This prompt is unique in that it invites students to share something about themselves by reflecting on someone else’s words in 50-100 words.

How to Answer it: The key to answering this prompt is to avoid focusing too much on the complement itself and instead focus on your response to receiving it and why it was so important to you. Note that this prompt is not an opportunity to brag about your achievements, but instead to showcase what truly matters to you. Select a compliment that truly speaks to who you are and what you value. It could be related to your character, work ethic, kindness, creativity, or any other quality that you hold in high regard. The compliment doesn’t have to be grand or come from someone with authority—it could be something small but significant that left a lasting impression on you, or it could have particular meaning for you because it came from someone you didn’t expect it to come from. Be brief in setting the stage and explaining the context of the compliment—what is most important is your reflection on its significance and how it shaped your understanding of yourself.

Stanford University

Prompt: List five things that are important to you.

What Makes it Unique: This prompt’s simplicity is what makes it so challenging. Stanford asks for a list, not an essay, which means you have very limited space (50 words) to convey something meaningful about yourself. Additionally, the prompt does not specify what these “things” must be—they could be a physical item, an idea, a concept, or even a pastime. Whatever you choose, these five items should add depth to your identity, values, and priorities.

How to Answer it: Start by brainstorming what matters most to you—these could be values, activities, people, places, or even abstract concepts. The key is to choose items or concepts that, when considered together, provide a comprehensive snapshot of who you are. For example, you might select something tangible and specific such as “an antique telescope gifted by my grandfather” alongside something conceptual such as “the willingness to admit when you’re wrong.” The beauty of this prompt is that it doesn’t require complex sentences or elaborate explanations—just a clear and honest reflection of what you hold dear. Be thoughtful in your selections, and use this prompt to showcase your creativity and core values.

While the supplemental essays should convey something meaningful about you, your values, and your unique qualifications for the university to which you are applying, the best essays are those that are playful, original, and unexpected. By starting early and taking the time to draft and revise their ideas, students can showcase their authentic personalities and distinguish themselves from other applicants through their supplemental essays.

3 strategies to help college students pick the right major the first time around and avoid some big hassles

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Educational Psychology at the United States Coast Guard Academy, University of Connecticut

Disclosure statement

Rachael Cody does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Connecticut provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Not long after new college students have finished choosing the college that is right for them , they are asked to declare an academic major. For some students, this decision is easy, as their majors may have actually influenced their choice of college. Unfortunately, this decision is not always an easy one to make, and college students frequently change their minds.

For instance, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 30% of undergraduates changed their major at least once.

While it may be common for undergraduates to change their major, it can cause them to lose time, money and opportunities . Students who experience the loss of these resources may be at risk for dropping out of college altogether .

While earning a Ph.D. in educational psychology , I conducted a study that highlighted students’ experiences upon changing their majors. I wanted to know why students made the switch and what that experience was like.

The results of my study showed that students became disoriented about their majors during their undergraduate education. Oftentimes, they were influenced by professors and advisers who were dismissive of their aspirations and abilities . These students experienced failure , which sometimes ruined their motivation. Failure may be commonplace in certain majors, but these students believed themselves to be outliers, viewing failure as a hit to their self-esteem .

So, what is a college student to do when faced with such an important decision? It is tempting to give into fear, indecisiveness or worry. But rest assured, using the following strategies to select the right major will also help sustain your motivation when the going gets tough.

1. Make a career plan

Creating a career plan is one of the ways that students can bolster their chances of success in their chosen majors. When creating a career plan, think about the career that you want to have in the future and consider the academic and professional paths that could lead to that career. Researchers have found that students who made career plans were more likely to persist in their academic majors.

When making a career plan, you should reflect on your beliefs about work, your interest in various academic subjects and your abilities. Exploring these factors may be one of the reasons why students who complete career plans are more likely to stick with their majors . Use your reflections to guide you as you search for careers that you would enjoy. Then, identify a specific career and outline the steps that you will have to take during your time at college that will help prepare you for that career.

2. Do your research

College students sometimes drop out of their selected majors because they have become disenchanted with the academic area they have chosen . Or they may find themselves more attracted to a different academic major altogether. For others, the desire to switch majors may occur after they get a taste of what it is like to work in that field, particularly during work-placement opportunities. One study found this to be true for some nursing majors , who shared that their first clinical placements showed them that they were not well suited to perform the duties of a nurse.

To avoid these sorts of outcomes, it is important to do your research about the job that you are interested in pursuing, as well as any related jobs. Is there one that would be better suited to your abilities and your preferences? Is there someone you can talk to who can tell you more about what an average day looks like at a particular job? Ask yourself which aspects of the job you could see yourself enjoying, as well as the parts of the job that you think you might dislike. While it is possible to switch out of your major once your interests become more apparent, you will save a good deal of time and energy by initially choosing a major that is aligned with your interests and abilities.

3. Brace yourself for challenge

It may come as a surprise when you are presented with incredibly challenging material during your first semester at college. Students who were at the top of their class may be particularly shocked when they receive their first low grade on an exam. You should not assume, however, that you have made the wrong choice of academic major simply because you performed poorly on one test. Negative feedback from college advisers and instructors can influence a student’s choice to switch out of their major.

The possibility of failure can be so discouraging to students that they can lose their ambition on the first day of class , before they have experienced any academic failure at all. Hold on to the confidence that guided you to select your major in the first place, and prepare yourself for the academic challenges that await you in whichever major you choose.

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Your Social Security number may have been leaked: Here’s how to check, protect yourself

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Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter . It’s Sunday, Aug. 18. I’m your host, Andrew J. Campa. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

• Your private information may have been leaked.
• Orange County alleges nonprofit, supervisor’s daughter ‘plundered’ tax dollars .
• This business won’t flee California but wants some changes .
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

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Millions of Americans may have had sensitive information leaked

The company whose data breach may have jeopardized every American’s Social Security number and left them vulnerable to identity theft recently made two public admissions about the incident.

The first was an acknowledgment the data theft actually happened, something National Public Data, a Florida-based company that collects personal information for background checks, resisted doing for months.

The company posted a “Security Incident” notice on its site to report “potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024.” The company said the breach appeared to involve a third party “that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023.”

National Public Data also recognized that more personal data may have been released than was previously reported, leaving those affected at graver risk of potential fraud.

What happened?

The hacking group USDoD claimed in April to have stolen personal records of 2.9 billion people from National Public Data, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Posting in a forum popular among hackers, the group offered to sell the data for $3.5 million , a cybersecurity expert said in a post on X.

A purported member of USDoD said last week they were offering “ the full NPD database ,” according to a screenshot taken by BleepingComputer.

The information consists of about 2.7 billion records. Each includes a person’s full name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and phone number, along with alternate names and birth dates, the member claimed.

What’s new?

National Public Data acknowledged the breach also included email addresses — a crucial piece for identity thieves and fraudsters.

Having a person’s email address makes it easier to target them with phishing attacks, which try to dupe people into revealing passwords to financial accounts or downloading malware that can extract sensitive personal information from devices.

In addition, because many people use their email address to log into online accounts, it could be used to try to hijack those accounts through password resets.

Finding out who was hacked

A free tool from the cybersecurity company Pentester found that other personal data purportedly exposed by the breach, including Social Security numbers, were on the dark web.

National Public Data said on its website that it will notify individuals if there are “further significant developments” applicable to them.

At this point, it appears that the only notice provided by National Public Data is the page on its website, which states, “We are notifying you so that you can take action which will assist to minimize or eliminate potential harm. We strongly advise you to take preventive measures to help prevent and detect any misuse of your information.”

How to protect yourself

The steps recommended by National Public Data include checking your financial accounts for unauthorized activity and placing a free fraud alert on your accounts at the three major credit bureaus, Equifax , Experian and TransUnion .

Once you’ve placed a fraud alert on your accounts, the company advised, ask for a free credit report, then check it for accounts and inquiries that you don’t recognize. “These can be signs of identity theft.”

Security experts also advise putting a freeze on your credit files at the three major credit bureaus. You can do so for free, and it will prevent criminals from taking out loans, signing up for credit cards and opening financial accounts under your name.

The catch is that you’ll need to remember to lift the freeze temporarily if you are obtaining or applying for something that requires a credit check.

In the meantime, security experts say, make sure all of your online accounts use two-factor authentication to make them harder to hijack.

For more on the hack and on tips to protect yourself, check out the latest from editor Jon Healey .

The week’s biggest stories

Crime, courts and policing

• Nonprofit and supervisor’s daughter ‘brazenly plundered’ tax dollars , Orange County says in lawsuit
• Matthew Perry’s shocking last month on ketamine: ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay ’
• ‘Law and Order: SVU’ star Mariska Hargitay helped solve thousands of real-life rape cases .
• L.A. officials direct traffic officers to enforce parking laws, tow RVs that people live in.
• Comedian Perry Kurtz killed in L.A. hit-and-run, teenager arrested.

Election 2024

• Walz’s handling of unrest after George Floyd’s death coming under renewed scrutiny.
• Harris offers proposals to cut food and housing costs , trying to blunt Trump’s economic attacks.
• Los Angeles County voters are lukewarm on tax hike for homeless services , poll says.
• Some California cities will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote for school board this year.
• New poll shows most California voters want to see tougher punishment for theft, fentanyl crimes.

In memoriam

• BeatKing, the Houston rapper also known as Club Godzilla, dies at 39.
• Maurice Williams, writer and lead singer of ‘Stay,’ dies at 86.
• Maxie Solters, entertainment publicist who joined a family business , dies at 37.
• Wally Amos, founder of Famous Amos cookies and its famous L.A. store on Sunset , has died.
• Jack Russell, Great White frontman who survived deadly nightclub fire , dies at 63.

Climate California

• First-of-its-kind zero-emissions train rolls into San Bernardino .
• Fast, wet and furious: How the North American monsoon floods the California desert .
• Halfway through ‘danger season,’ nearly all of America has been touched by extreme weather .
• Controversial bill to abolish California fire hazard rankings dies in Legislature .
• A 12-foot-long harbinger of doom washed ashore in San Diego.

City and state news

• Column: L.A.’s cracked, ruptured sidewalks are a scandal . Where is City Hall?
• L.A. city attorney wanted $500,000 for outside law firm . The City Council gave her only 10%.
• California auto insurance rates are skyrocketing : Here’s why and how to save.
• Real estate agent commission rules changed Saturday . Here’s what you need to know.
• Top leadership in flux at troubled L.A. Animal Services department as general manager takes unexplained leave.

More big stories

• This controversial California AI bill was amended to quell Silicon Valley fears. Here’s what changed.
• Chargers’ injured quarterback Justin Herbert finally gives protective device the boot .
• How a ‘game-changer’ child tax credit for families became a priority for Harris, Vance.
• Will the new Belle’s Bagels spark a deli culture comeback?
• L.A. woman sentenced to 12 years in Russian prison over $51 donation to Ukraine.
• More than 400,000 students in L.A. have enrolled in Metro’s unlimited free ride program .

Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here .

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

For nearly a decade, Los Angeles has touted its sweeping earthquake safety ordinance — the nation’s toughest, which requires thousands of buildings to be evaluated and strengthened if necessary. But city officials never made it easy for Angelenos to look up retrofit information about their building.

More great reads

• This Orange County city has the hottest housing market in the country .
• Trash, traffic, tempers, tourists: Laguna Beach’s summer of discontent .
• Why some residents of European hot spots just want tourists to stay away .
• ‘I do see poetry and rap as one and the same.’ Noname carries forward a legacy .
• Column: Keep your medal! Olympian Jordan Chiles should slam door on misguided IOC.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected] .

For your weekend

• 🌊 Rapper and comedian Awkwafina breaks down her perfect Sunday , starting with a Jayde’s Market smoothie.
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• 📚 Here are the bestselling hard cover fiction , nonfiction, paperback fiction and nonfiction books this week.
• ✒️ Poems of brilliance and beauty, written in the heat of the moment , offer inspiration.
• 🧑‍🍳 Happy National Fajita Day! Here’s a recipe to make your kitchen sizzle.
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, Sudoku, word search and arcade games .

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

A few days later, we met up at Teaspoon, one of the many boba spots on Sawtelle Boulevard . Toward the end of our time together, he put his elbow on the table and raised his open palm. I thought maybe he was challenging me to arm wrestle. Did he know I used to beat all the boys in elementary school? He asked me to put my palm to his. He made sure I was OK with it. I didn’t hesitate. It felt good.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Andrew J. Campa, reporter Carlos Lozano, news editor

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Andrew J. Campa is a member of the Fast Break team at the Los Angeles Times, having previously covered the Eastside and San Gabriel Valley. Before, he worked at several medium and small daily newspapers and has covered education, sports and general news. He’s a proud University of Alabama (#RollTide), Cal State Fullerton and Pasadena City College alumnus.

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