Attitudes Toward Race Issues of High School Students in Holtville

Students from Holtville, California Holtville High School Teacher Susan Massey Students Ages 14-18

Holtville High School is located in a rural, agricultural community just 15 miles north of the Mexican border in California.  Not surprisingly, many of the students' families are from Mexico: 27% of the students are of European descent and 73% are of Mexican descent (some born in the U.S. and some born in Mexico). The students in Susan Massey's ESL class, all immigrants to the U.S.  born in Mexico, decided to use their math skills and their emerging skills in English to learn more about their classmates and to investigate social relations at Holtville High. They conducted a survey of their peers on a wide range of issues including student interests (favorite sports, music, clothes, food, TV programs, and free-time activities), aspirations (educational goals and future career plans), values and social attitudes. Collecting data from all the 11th graders in the school was only the first step. They then used their math and graphing skills to disaggregate the data by ethnic background and birthplace of the students. In their final report of this extensive survey, they analyzed the data, reflecting on which questions seemed most important to ask.  In the following excerpt from their 25 page report of findings and conclusions, you'll find some of their observations on social relations at their school.

The ESL classes decided to make a survey of all the students in eleventh grade.  First we made the questions about their opinions.  Then we gave the survey to the teacher who has all the eleventh grade students.  Then we got them back and we counted them and we divided the people who were born in Mexico and the students who were born in the U. S. of European origin and students who were born in the U. S. of Mexican origin.

We made a graph of the results of the entire eleventh grade and then we made different graphs for each different nationality.  Then we wrote a report of the results of the survey and we corrected the mistakes together in class.  All the work was done by the students.

38.8% of the students think that "yes" racism is a problem in our school and 61.1% of the students said "no" it isn't.

The people who said that they have a few and many friends of different race or nationality are tied with 46% and 8% said that they don't have any friends of different nationalities.

50.8% said that they would like to have more friends of different race and 11.6% said no they wouldn't. 32.1% said they already had many friends of a different race or nationality.

For 83.8% of the students the most important is their family.   The money, other things, and friends are tied with 5.3 %.

12.  Do you think there is a problem with racism in our school? a.  Yes   b.  No

When asked, "Is there a problem with racism in our school?" students who are born in Mexico were divided with a few more saying yes than no. Of the students who are born in the U.S of European origin a few more said no than yes.  Among those born in the U. S. of Mexican origin, twice as many said no than yes.

We see that many students in all groups think that racism is a problem, but more among the students born in Mexico think this way.

13.  Do you have friends who are of a different race or nationality than yourself?
a.  none    b.  a few    c.  many

The biggest group of students who are born in Mexico say they have a few friends of a different race.  The others were divided between many and none.   The biggest group of students who are born in the U. S. of Mexican origin also say they have a few friends of different race, but another large group of them say they have many.  Only 2 of them say they don't have any. The largest group of students who are born in the U. S. of European origin have many friends of a different race with a slightly smaller group having a few.  None said they have no friends of a different race.

14.  Would you like to have more friends of a different race or nationality?
a.  yes    b.  no    c.  I already have many friends of a different race or nationality.

The biggest group of students who are born in the U. S. of Mexican origin said that they wanted to have more friends of a different race or nationality.  Many others said they already had many friends of a different race.  Only one person said that he didn't want to have more friends.  The biggest group of students who are born in the U. S. of European origin said that they already had many friends of different races.  The biggest group of students who are born in Mexico said they wanted to have more friends of a different race.  Nobody said that they already had many friends who were different.  We can see that the results of the three groups are different.

15.  What is most important to you?
a.  my family   b.  my friends   c.  money   d.  other

In this very important question, we see that the largest number by far in all groups said their family was the most important to them.  A few more students born in U. S. of European origin chose other answers than did the other two groups.

When we look at the results of the survey, we see that more things are similar than different in the three groups.  The biggest differences are in favorite sports, music and clothes.  In the most important things to life they are not very different.   These are plans for the future, highest education hoped for, how you spend your free time, and what's most important to you.

We also see that there is a lot of difference in each of the three groups. The people in each group don't all think the same or do the same things.

We think that it is important to know that some people think that racism is a problem in this school so that somebody can do something so we can know exactly if there is a problem.