Sam LeDoux

By SAM LEDOUX, MPS
Española City Council candidate

There is a silent crisis going on with our young Hispanic men that could have major consequences down the line. According to many studies, men in general are less likely to pursue higher education, this is best highlighted in the new Brookings Institute book Of Boys and Men.

However, a key under-reported fact of this phenomenon is that Hispanic men in particular are the least likely demographic to go to college and the most likely to drop out. This comes as Hispanic women continue to thrive, we need to ask ourselves why our young men are struggling in education?

As a Hispanic man myself who is a college professor and was able to get through graduate school, I have to say it wasn’t easy thriving in an environment where the more I progressed the less people who looked like me were around. I attended two Hispanic Serving Institutions, Northern New Mexico College and New Mexico Highlands University and received 3 degrees from them, these are schools with Hispanic populations in the 60 and 70 percentiles. Despite those numbers, male students dropped off a cliff past the entry level courses.

The matters don’t get much better when it comes to representation. Throughout my entire journey through higher education with 4 degrees and almost 200 credits of education, I only had a total of 7 Hispanic male professors. Not having many students or faculty you can relate to culturally can create a sense of anxiety and what some people call “impostor syndrome”, the feeling where you don’t belong or deserve to be in a position. I had those feelings in graduate school, it actually inspired me to pursue at least becoming an adjunct professor.

I would hope upon reading this many of my other fellow academic Hispanics will try and enter the arena and become an example to these young men. I know I definitely could’ve used a mentor during some of those long nights. I was blessed that my father and grandfather helped set an example for me, but I wish there were more people in the schools I could talk to about our unique experiences. There is a long way to go to before our young men feel more comfortable in academic settings, but one of the easiest ways we can help now is to be an example, a mentor, a professor, a tutor, or just someone pushing them to keep going.

To those young men out there, do the work and study and I promise you that you can get through this. It may seem hard now but trust me, it is possible. Good luck this semester.

Editor’s note: Sam LeDoux is a candidate for Española City Council and an adjunct professor at Grand Canyon University and University of New Mexico – Los Alamos, he’s served in Government and Political organizations for over 10 years.