Junny Figueroa says everyone she knows in Lynnwood is in a gang.
They’re members of the Sureños, a Latino gang, according to the Mountlake Terrace High School student. Some have dropped out and some are still in school, she said. There are “plenty” of fights.
“Whenever and wherever they can,” Figueroa said. “Behind the library, on street corners. I’m amazed people don’t know about this.”
Students join gangs in middle school.
“It starts with the transition from elementary to middle,” said Joanna Cienfuegos, a College Place Middle School student.
Figueroa and Cienfuegos are members of Colores Unidos, a group of students in the Edmonds School District who recently formed to give Latinos a place to belong other than gangs. They hope to reach out to other minorities and address problems minorities face in school, too.
Parents, district officials and district social workers are also members, and they meet once a week.
Students started the group spontaneously.
Figueroa and other students were at a conference in Tacoma in January called the Latino Education Achievement Project, or LEAP. They’d just stepped out of a seminar on gangs and were talking about what they could do to help the situation. Mountlake Terrace High School student Jesus Quintero threw out the idea of starting a club.
He said this week that the club and the LEAP conference have given him hope.
He was on the verge of withdrawing from school because of poor grades and other issues, but has decided to try to turn things around.
“Before, I thought it was just me ‘cause I was doing really bad,” he said. “But there are hundreds of students in the same situation, feeling as I was feeling. It got my hopes up.”
Latino students face challenges — among them, stereotyping by students and adults — group members said.
“The stereotype is (they are) potheads, lazy, immigrants, nobody has papers, not smart,” said Figueroa.
The stereotypes can start young. Claudia Sepulveda’s daughter, Jeanette Sepulveda, is now in the IB program, an advanced program at Edmonds-Woodway High School. But when she was in preschool, her teacher was surprised at her success.
“She said: ‘Your child is very high — it surprises me because she’s even higher than the white students,’” Claudia Sepulveda said.
“The assumption is you can’t score high just because your family speaks Spanish,” said Maria Garcia, a district parent and group member.
Minorities are underrepresented in district honors and AP classes. Meanwhile, many are in the lower classes, said group member Jessica Cienfuegos. She wants to see more outreach to Latino students who aren’t doing well in school. A lot of her friends don’t play sports because their grades are bad, but nothing is done to help them get tutoring, she said.
“That’s another reason they refer back to gangs,” she said.
There’s also a lack of understanding about Latinos and their culture among some teachers and administrators, group members said.
For example, in Jeanette Sepulveda’s Spanish class, a discussion of last names came up, and she said hers was Mexican.
“(The teacher) made a comment there’s no way I’m Mexican because I’m white and Mexicans are dark,” she said, adding that the teacher was white.
Cienfuegos would like to see more education about Latino culture and history in the schools.
“If they talk about it, they talk about it in a negative way,” she said.
Group members are aiming for change. They recently gave a presentation to middle school and high school principals about the LEAP conference, and are trying to start up smaller groups at the high schools.
“That’s why the district joined with parents — they want positive change,” said Claudia Sepulveda.
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