To the Editor:
Although the writer's intentions might have been respectable, an article in Thursday's Herald ("Support for Hispanics scrutinized," April 21) poorly navigated the very sensitive and political nature of the Latino experience at Brown. I was originally told the piece was meant to address the statistic that, out of all the Ivies, Brown has the highest dropout rates among the Latino student population, particularly among Latino men. I'm not sure if this is indeed factual, and am even more skeptical now. Yet the writer never mentioned the statistic in his piece, even though it was precisely what I was asked to respond to in the interview. Thus, I would like to clarify what seems to me to be a symptom of poor journalistic practice.
Yes, we do need more Latino faculty members at Brown, but this can also be said for a myriad of other underrepresented groups in academia. As for fostering dialogue around problems Latino students feel should be addressed, I am sure no one would object to talking these things out. I do not feel, though, that Brown does a poor job of reaching out or of providing outlets for these grievances to be voiced. If anything, I think it is an institution that values underrepresented voices and is very much proactive in sharing the microphone.
Moreover, I am a little weary about the problem alluded to in the piece about Latino students not performing as well academically as our counterparts. I am not too familiar with this phenomenon and am not even sure if it's a real one. Firstly, I fear this ungrounded assertion only adds fuel to the flame, promoting stereotypes that represent the minority student as less intellectually apt because he or she was admitted only as a result of affirmative action. This robs us of our individual achievements, equating us to sheer numbers for a quota. In any case, if I had to conjecture a response to Latino students "struggling academically", I would say it might be related to a pattern where some minority students somehow feed into this fallacious idea and begin questioning their own abilities as scholars and their own right to be in academia. I want to say that that is total nonsense. The quicker we leave that idea behind and realize we were given this academic opportunity because of who we are not what box we check off on the Census form, the more we can focus on our academic growth and scholarly progress.
Ana-Irma Patete '13
