[gentle music] - Armando Gonzales: Today, there's a variety of accommodations for Spanish-speaking students.

But that wasn't always the case.

In the past, they were sent to segregated schools, and they still face challenges today.

The challenges of Latino education range from poverty, to lack of academic support, resources, and racial discrimination.

One of the major challenges is how American schools strip Latino students of their language and culture.

Latino students who cannot learn using their first language struggle in school because they cannot understand the teachers' English instructions.

If students cannot get the specialized help that they need, they will not understand the assignments.

Due to not giving Latinos specialized needs, teachers saw Latinos as lazy or dumb.

But in reality, they are just not given the help they need to understand the assessments.

So stripping Latinos of their language in schools is stripping Latinos of their chance of learning and their chance of ever breaking the cycle of Latino dropouts.

- Hannah Zuniga: This has been going on since the beginning of Latino education in America.

In the beginning of the 1870s, throughout the Southwest, Latino students were often made to attend separate schools that were often bare-bone facilities, based on things such as their complexion and their last name.

These schools often lacked basic supplies and sufficient teachers.

Many of these schools did not offer the full 12 years and only had vocational classes.

In the 1930s, as the Mexican population grew in the United States, students were being sent to separate nearby barn schools to be "Americanized."

Americanization was their way of stripping Mexican students of their culture.

It was believed to be necessary that Spanish be eliminated in order for students to properly learn and be proper American citizens.

As this continued, by the 1940s, up to 80% of some Latino children were attending separate schools.

In the 1940s, a young girl, Sylvia Mendez, was turned away from an all-white school in Orange County, California.

Instead of going to the well-equipped 17th Street Elementary, she was told to attend Hoover Elementary, a run-down, two-room shack.

The Mendez parents, along with four other families, fought back and filed a class action lawsuit against Orange County School Districts.

On February 18, 1946, after seven long months, Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled that the school districts discriminated against Mexican-American students and violated their Constitutional rights.

Although the school districts attempted to challenge the ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with McCormick.

Thanks to this case, segregation was officially ended in California.

By the '60s and '70s, students took action.

In 1968 in Los Angeles, California, 15,000 students walked out of their classes in protest for access to education for Latino youth.

Similarly, in 1970 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 150 Latino students staged a sit-in in the chancellor's office at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to get resources and representation for Latino students.

In Wisconsin, this led to the founding of the Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute.

Out of the changing attitudes after these protests, American schools started to develop multilingual programs.

One of these programs is the Dual Language Immersion Program in Beloit, Wisconsin that offers students to be taught half of their day in Spanish and the other half in English.

One of the people responsible for bringing the Dual Language Immersion Program to Beloit was Rosamaria Laursen, who continues to bring multilingual programs to other school districts.

- Rosamaria Laursen: Okay, so multilingual programs are any program that uses more than one language to teach students.

And the reason for that is because students who speak more than one language need access to content that's traditionally taught in English.

Many Latinos are bilingual, multilingual, and they don't speak English in their home.

So the students, when they come to school and everything's in English, it's more difficult for them to be able to access what it is that the teacher is trying to teach them.

There's a term called linguicism that's discriminating against people because of the languages that they speak.

Historically, education for Latinos has not been as high-quality.

You know, the funding that is available for education and the amount of investment that needs to happen for multilingual programs and for them to, so that all of them can work, we haven't gotten to that point yet.

It needs to become a priority, really.

- Historically, education for Latinos has been inefficient, and even though change has been made, it's important to continue striving for change.

It is important for Latinos to have representation and opportunities in education, and the resources to succeed.

Resources and opportunities such as Dual Language Immersion and Beloit's Multicultural Teacher Scholarships are offered for Latino students in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Beloit's Multicultural Teacher Scholarship is a partnership with Stateline Community Foundation that gives scholarships to students that are looking to become teachers.

Students are able to go to the college or university of their choice and are given $5,000 per year for four years.

Beloit also offers a Latino Studies class to high school students.

The hope for this class is to not only be offered and taught in Beloit, but also in other school districts.

[gentle music]