Latino Families Would Rather Eat Delicious Foods And Go To Church Than Send Their Kids To School
Latino families tend to, apparently, take month-long trips during the holiday season, causing their children to miss out on school. Um, how come our family never followed this supposed trend?:
Martha Padilla-Ramos and Jose Barrera fondly remember the long car rides south to Mexico each December when they were children. At the end of the trek awaited their cousins, delicious food, trips to church [Ed. note: Church? Martha Padilla-Ramos and Jose Barrera are the mayors Funtown!!!] and days of parties to celebrate Christmas.
It was a beloved part of their childhood, so the Chicago-area school administrators understand why families make the annual trek to their homelands. But they can’t understand why so many families — an estimated 10 percent of the Hispanic students in Waukegan, for example — plan these trips to last a month or more, far beyond the traditional two-week holiday break Illinois schools allow.
Uh oh!
“This time of year, those two weeks of vacation never seem to be enough for families,” said Barrera, principal at Columbia Explorers Academy in Chicago. “Being Hispanic, I understand. But families also have to understand that every day of school is important.”
Honestly, we can’t relate to this sort of thing at all. Our parents were pretty strict about school. Often, family vacations consisted of driving around the neighborhood while our dad pointed to a stray dog, called it a cheetah, and asked us how we were enjoying the safari.
Hispanic students pay price for extended Christmas vacations, officials say [Post-Gazette]
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I have no problem with this.
Posted by el Bulto | January 09, 2008
I experianced this from grade school..missing the first week of the quarter in College..and I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to pull a three week vacation at work..but the party must go on!
Posted by Mon | January 09, 2008
My strapped parents used to find some way ship me (and sometimes my siblings) off to Guatemala to visit my uncle, ride motorcycles, do way too much karate, shoot off firecrackers, go swimming and fool around with lovely young ladies. The latter typically involved more crushing out than any actual fooling. Alas.
The first time it happened, I returned stateside by way of a month and a half detour in Miami where we set up camp at a hotel near the airport, chowing down on club sandwiches from room service, watching “Breakin’” and wondering what exactly Cubans in Hialeah were all about. I didn’t return to school until October. Suffice to say it was dope.
I’ve heard some people consider such a thing irresponsible. I call it studying abroad at an early age, especially when studying Spanish in your bisabuela’s house was a three-hour a day requirement.
Posted by pocho_guey_al_norte | January 09, 2008
I went to school regardless of health, weather, finances just to get away from being Hispanic!!
<~ has perfect attendance records to prove it.
Posted by Janie A Go-Go | January 09, 2008
They can’t understand why the trips are so long? Maybe it’s because it may the one time a year they get to go back home and see family, so you want to squeeze out the most time you can. And I’m sure there are plenty of countries which you’d rather visit when the temperature is cooler than during the middle of summer.Except if you come from Argentina or something, then it all works out!
Posted by DrGirlfriend | January 09, 2008
I am a self proclaimed nerd and wouldn’t stand for missing a day. I remember my mother’s astonished look when I threw a tantrum, in first grade, for not wanting to miss school for the birth of my baby cousin. That being said when I truly was ill, I got to write my own excuse note and have my mom simply sign. During the summers the cousins were shuffled between families, and this I truly loved!
Posted by pocachica | January 09, 2008
My familiy did the road trip from sacramento to Jalisco every christmas!! [with all the stoping we did it was about 3 days] My parents were responisble enough that if we’d miss any school [which was usually a week] they’d advise our teachers and our teachers would give us a packet of school work.
I haven’t done the road trip since my freshman year in high school…[Thanks for the memories] after that our parent said if you want to go save up your money because we are not paying for your flights… with 5 kids they couldn’t afford to pay for 7 plane tickets.
Even though I work in the travel industry I haven’t gone [to visit family] since i was 17 .. almost 5 years.. now i just to go hawaii twice a year for a week.
Posted by la roncha | January 09, 2008
Who wouldn’t want to make the most out of their drive? San Diego to Guadalajara or Mexico City is almost a week two-ways. Day 1 SD to Navajoa, Son, LOOOONG drive, Day 2 Navajoa, Son to Mazatlan, SIN. Day 3 Mazatlan to GDL, this was marathon driving between my mom and dad. I would make journals and sketches and turn it in for credit. In HS I asked for homework to make up on the trip. Nowadays parents can go to jail for kid’s skipping school.
Posted by boozer | January 09, 2008
We used to do this every other year when I was in elementary school.
My aunt Mago taught my age level (2nd grade) at the local school and she got permission to have me sit in on the classes during that vacation. I came back to my school in the U.S. with the ability to do long division and some basic algebra, and I learned how to write roman numerals up to one million. They put me in G.A.T.E. the next year.
I think we need to send ALL the kids down to Mexico for a year or two to get a better education. K-12 schooling in this country sucks balls.
Posted by diabolik | January 09, 2008