After Pulitzer Prize-winner Jose Antonio Vargas revealed his undocumented status, California author and entrepreneur Graciela Tiscareno-Sato decided to push her call for the "Two by 2020 Mentoring Challenge" harder than ever, according to a press release. The challenge asks college-educated Americans to commit to mentoring two young people for the next nine years, with a special focus on Hispanic youth.
By 2020, America will need 36 million new college graduates in order to become the most educated nation on Earth. Of those, 5.5 million must come from the Hispanic community -- 611,000 per year.
"Active, intentional, long-term mentoring is the only way that a kid like me, the first in my family to graduate from college, can have a success story today," Tiscareno-Sato said.
"What America needs now is a wake-up call and a mentoring acceleration program, with a place to share success stories that will be produced as a direct result of the Two by 2020 Mentoring Challenge."
Olga Milan-Howells heard Tiscareno-Sato speak at the recent Silicon Valley Latino Leadership Summit at Stanford University. Immediately after hearing the numbers and fully understanding the gravity and urgency of the situation, Ms. Milan-Howells, a real estate developer in San Francisco, decided to take the challenge.
"Given the enormity of the situation facing not only the Latino community but also the country, I decided to focus my energy on addressing this issue and form a Latino Parents Club to help Latino parents navigate the education system," said Milan-Howells.
In California, over half the children in K-12 schools are Hispanic, according to the release.
"Truly the status quo educational attainment numbers for the Latino community are an impending train wreck for America," says Tiscareno-Sato.
