CURRENT AGE: 16
CURRENT AGE: 15
AREA HISPANICS ARE CROSSING
As a Mexican-American high-school sophomore, Cindy Gil was a good student but felt that something was missing in her life at school.
There were no programs or clubs at Pike High School to bring Hispanic students together or teach other students about the contributions Hispanics have made to the U.S. and the rest of the world.
"When I moved here . . . I was educating people about my culture," said Cindy, who was born in Mexico.
That's now changed at Pike and other area schools as more and more Hispanics move into Indianapolis. According to the U.S. Census, they are the fastest-growing population in Marion County. At Northwest and George Washington high schools, for example, Hispanic students make up 17 and 21 percent, respectively, of the high-school populations.
Gil and her peers began to feel better about themselves when the El Puente program entered their lives, she said.
El Puente, which is Spanish for "the bridge," promotes three activities: lead, learn and serve. Started in 2001 as a three-year project at several high schools, the program mentors, tutors and encourages Hispanic kids to further their education.
Now 20, Gil is a student at Butler University.
"I can honestly tell you that if it wasn't for the El Puente Project, I would not be where I am today," she said.
Jose Rosario, a professor of education at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, founded El Puente at Tech High School. Rosario was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in a poor neighborhood of New York City.
"I know what it means to lack opportunities, and also know what it means to struggle to belong . . . because your language is different and your culture is different. So that sort of background helped me identify with the kids," he said.
Being able to identify with other kids in similar situations is empowering, said Audel Torres, 19, who also was born in Mexico.
Torres sought out El Puente because "I thought it could be a good idea to share ideas with other Hispanics and help my own people in the community," he said.
He also wanted to learn about college.
El Puente made university visits easier for Torres and helped inform him about college Web sites and scholarships.
The program also helped him believe in himself; Torres begins classes at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana in January.
El Puente is now working to redefine how to best help young Indianapolis Hispanics by working with other youth agencies.
It still maintains a Web site to keep the Indianapolis community updated on Hispanic youth activism and projects.
However, El Puente projects have branched out into other programs as well, such as "Tu Futuro" (Spanish for "Your Future"). The program, based at La Plaza, 8902 E. 38th St., conducts high-school workshops to help Hispanic families learn about college options. Three organizations, the Hispanic Center, Hispanic Education Center and Fiesta Indianapolis -- merged to form La Plaza, which works to serve and celebrate the Hispanic community in Indianapolis.
Another youth program that is an outgrowth of El Puente is FIRME, which stands for "Film, Inquiry, Research, Media, Education."
Young people, most of them El Puente alumni, are producing their own documentaries that demonstrate immigrants' true feelings and experiences, said Javier Barrera, 23 and a student at IUPUI. El Puente helped him get a college scholarship.
"(The general public) doesn't have any idea of what immigration life is like from the perspective of youth," said Barrera. "They just know what they hear through the news or through the mass media."
He is a FIRME project facilitator, teaching younger members how to conduct interviews, get images and edit for the documentaries.
There are about 30 high-school and college students in the group from four high schools and four universities.
One of their most recent documentaries is "Our Invincible Youth," shown earlier this month at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
It was followed by a discussion as part of the Spirit & Place Festival.
In the documentary, one of the challenges youth discuss is how common it is for Hispanics to drop out of high school.
"In my class, I remember that we started with approximately 200 to 250 Hispanics, and from all those Hispanics, only about seven of us graduated -- two women, five men," said one documentary subject.
According to Gil, many of her Hispanic classmates felt discouraged because they didn't have good relationships with teachers and didn't feel like they were a part of the school.
"A lot of the students that I spoke to that were Hispanic were brilliant students . . . but you saw their grades and they didn't reflect that," said Gil. "Many of the students . . . would leave, drop out and then just go to work."
Being smart isn't always enough for immigrants who aspire to go to college.
In the FIRME documentary, one mother cried while telling her daughter's story. The girl was studying technology in high school, and a teacher helped her find an internship, but the immigrant student lost the job within a month because she didn't have a Social Security number.
Now, the mother, an undocumented worker, fears her talented daughter won't be able to attend college or even get a driver's license.
The film not only informs the audience about immigration, but also teaches Hispanic youth about how best to express themselves. FIRME students interviewed about 100 people for the documentary,
It's full of color, fast images and old, humorous film clips that show how far Hispanics have come in being recognized as part of U.S. history as well as how much more work will be needed to achieve acceptance.
"Many of these students have feelings and experiences that they want to share, but they didn't have a forum to get it out there because of their legal status," noted Felipe Vargas, a doctoral student in education at Indiana University-Bloomington, who has mentored, taught and advised the students.
The FIRME students are not only learning how to make a documentary, they are learning how to support, promote and lead a discussion about their work. The documentary can be seen at the El Puente Web site: http://www.elpuenteproject.com
FIRME's next project will be individual student documentaries for a Latino film festival at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in the spring.
"All of our lives are very complex, and sometimes the best way to express those lives is to be artistic," Vargas noted. "FIRME is giving a voice to people whose voices have always been silenced."
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Tony Quintana, 15; and Tommaso Verderame, 14.
REPORTER: Mercedez Quintana, 14.
Copyright 2007 Y-Press