Mentoring for Change: Supporting Latinx Youth in Civic and Political Engagement
October 11, 2024
Latinx youth are at the forefront of critical conversations surrounding citizenship, human rights, and belonging in the United States. These young people are raising critical questions about racism, inequality, and other pressing social issues.
Whether through protests, canvassing, fundraising, or online activism, these young people are driving change in their communities. Navigating spaces often dominated by adults can be especially tough for marginalized youth, such as first and second-generation immigrants, who may feel disempowered or unsure how to get involved. At a time when the presence of immigrants and Latinx people is central to political debates in the U.S., it’s personal for the many young people whose lives are directly affected. It’s essential that the youth work fields, including mentoring providers, understand not only how these youth engage in civic action but also who helps them navigate these spaces. Mentors play a crucial role in either opening doors to civic and political engagement or, at times, unintentionally creating barriers.
To explore how mentors support the civic and political engagement of Latinx immigrant-origin youth, we partnered with MENTOR and its Affiliates in New York, California, Florida, and Texas on a multi-year study centered on youth voices. This project emphasized youth voice by interviewing 23 young Latinx people (aged 18-24), all first or second-generation immigrants, and collaborating with a youth advisory council to co-create interview questions, analyze the data, and interpret the findings. One of the advisory board members was also hired as a part-time research assistant on the project.
17 participants (74%) had at least one mentor who encouraged their exploration of social issues and, in some cases, helped them take action. On average, participants reported having about three mentors, most commonly family members — older siblings, cousins, and grandparents — followed by educators like teachers and professors. Community members, including religious leaders and program mentors, also played important supportive roles. However, six participants reported no access to mentors who supported their civic and political engagement.
Adults played diverse roles in shaping participants’ civic and political engagement by offering emotional support, providing opportunities for critical social analysis of structural inequities, and modeling activism. They also created tangible opportunities for youth to get involved, such as offering training in community organizing. Yet, some adults used their influence to hinder this development, either through disapproval, discouraging discussions, downplaying youth concerns, restricting engagement, or even manipulating situations. These obstacles often mirrored the kinds of support other mentors provided. Our findings illustrate the complexity of these relationships — some adults were described as purely supportive or obstructive, while others did both depending on the issue or moment. Building on these findings, we are developing a tool to help youth-serving organizations assess young people’s perceptions of mentor support for civic and political engagement and identify areas for intervention to enhance youth civic and political engagement.
Ultimately, these findings underscore the importance of understanding how mentors can both foster Latinx youth’s civic and political engagement, revealing the complexity of these influential relationships. We encourage mentoring programs to think carefully about how and when their mentors and programs staff can nurture the political engagement of young people and help them find and use their voices. This is particularly important when working with youth who are often marginalized from our political processes and conversations, such as the Latinx and immigrant origin youth we focused on in this project. Our findings underscore that young people are keenly aware of how adults in their lives support their engagement in community-level and national issues. We hope the mentoring movement can continue to help youth use their voices to be agents of positive change.