Left Behind
A Generation of Latinos Struggling to Succeed
![[]](part4.jpg)
Part IV: Higher education
Making higher education a part of more futures
Although there is mounting concern about the large number U.S.-born children of Hispanic immigrants who drop out of high school or get pregnant as teenagers, there are also hundreds of thousands who are getting the college educations they need to enter the middle class.
Part III: The trials of teen mothers
Even as the teen pregnancy rate for other racial and ethnic groups has fallen substantially in the past 15 years, it remains stubbornly high among Latinas. As many as one in four Hispanics born in the United States to immigrant parents has a child before her 20th birthday.
Part II: A child's burden
Of all the challenges confronting American children of Hispanic immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, perhaps none is as significant as the enormous share being raised by parents who are in the country illegally. Forty percent--or 3.3 million--have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant.
Part I: A dropout's difficulties
Javier Saavedra was a gang member by 13, a high school dropout by 16 and a father by 21. Now 23, he has been trying to turn his life around since his daughter, Julissa, was born.
About this series
While the arrival of millions of Latino immigrants has received extensive media coverage, far less attention has been paid to their U.S.-born children, who will play an increasingly important role in the Amerian workforce. This four-part series by Washington Post Staff Writer N.C. Aizenman explores the lives of young Latinos and the challenges they face as they come of age in one of the most difficult economic climates in decades.
