>> today we are talking about the college prep academy and the latinos amigos at big brothers, big sisters of the greater area. we begin today celebrating the indian heritage celebration. with me once again is vern an medicine cloud with us every year to talk about this great event and the reason why we should celebrate. welcome back to the show. this year's event, it's always

spiritual and emotional and a big event. >> it is. getting bigger and better every year. we added a spiritual run and a film and speaker series. it's getting bigger and bigger. the spiritual run will be let off with the 500 mile runners. they were formed about the mid-1970s to run for your spirit. we'll kick things off at san jose state. >> wow. >> it will be nice. >> are you participating? >> unfortunately not. >> we have video and we have to get to a pow-wow. we mentioned this in previous segments. there -- i have been with a camera to one of the pow-wows over at the college. we weren't allowed to videotape certain things. >> definitely. that's some of the things sacred to us. you can't video record. how we think of that is if you video record or take photos, you capture that spirit of what's

going on in the ceremony. they are sacred and we prohibit that at that time. >> tell us about your community and how big and vital and strong it is in the bay area. >> sure. it's pretty strong definitely. in san jose there is about 12,500 american indians and 125 representative tribes from all over the nation. there is a lot of strong organizations in the santa clara valley and a few other organizations. it's strong and growing and it's active. >> there is a presence here in san jose. >> tell us what that feel suggest like to be the first americans. >> it's a great feeling to be honest with you. >> a lot of people tend to forget. >> definitely. i totally understand. it's a great feeling to be honest to know that this is where you belong in your homeland. >> with we pay you back for what happened? there is my answer right there. saying i'm sorry is not good

enough. >> definitely not. through the indian casino, thank goodness, it's nice to see that a lot of them are providing for their own people and stuff like that. that's nice. i don't think you can. historical trauma caused for hundreds of years. >> there is so much sacred ground around the bay area. you hear about new developments. you have to stop. we found bones there. the native american bones we will not going to be building. >> it belongs to the tribe in the san francisco bay area. we pay respect to them. >> that's awesome. give us specifics on the festivities this year. tell us what other things are happening. >> big time is a california style dance and celebration that will happen for four hours. we will have aztec dancing as well and trying to get road runner singer, bird singing. an interesting type of celebration.

hopefully they can come. we will have the pow-wow from 6:00 to 10:00. >> amazing and it's happening at the evergreen valley college on september 18th and goes until 10:00 p.m. give us your final thoughts as we roll the credits. >> it will be a great time and free parking and everybody is welcome to come out. it just going to be a great time. family fun. >> come and salute the first americans at the american indian heritage celebration at the evergreen valley college. thank you for what you are doing to the community. next up, big brothers, big sisters and the latino community. stay with us. #

with me is thelatinos committee of the big brothers and big sisters of the san francisco bay area. with me is the president of the organization. also a big brother and a police officer is also with the amigos

latinos of big brothers big sisters. welcome to the show. we will show a video clip and the reason we are here. this is about big brothers, big sisters. if you notice, none of the big brothers or sisters is latino. that's why it's important to have this committee and start recruiting more latinos as big brothers and latinas as big sisters. >> big brothers and big sisters. they are trying to increase the visibility in the community and raise awareness. 2008, an advisory committee was create and the vision that was group was to form a grass roots group of dedicated volunteer who is have a passion around youth mentoring and thus the amigos latinos committee was created in

may of this year. >> that's awesome. i will go to you because it's important to emphasize that a lot of the kid who is participate don't have the same ethnicity to pair them up with. >> we were noticing about 30% of the children in our program are latino and only about 4% of the volunteers are latino. it's important for us to create matches that are culturally and linguistically sensitive because it's proven that the matches tend to last longer. both big and seem to be dedicated to each other. a little bit of themselves in the bigs and the bigs feel a little bit of themselves in the littles. also the bigs being able to communicate with the parents of all our littles. it's proving to be helpful. >> it makes a difference. you are a santa fe police

officer and serving your community in that sense. what do you get out of being a big brother? >> gratification. a feeling of purpose. really giving back to not just the community, but to a particular individual that's my little brother. being a role model for him. that sense of i'm making a difference maybe in his life and everyone that sees that and maybe going forward. >> we will talk about what specific activities you go to a ball game in a second. maybe there is misconceptions that it's not a latino thing? >> what do you mean? speak more to that. >> when you think of the organizations, big brothers, big

sisters and maybe it's the reason we don't have enough role models, but the misconception is it's not our thing. >> mentoring is done within the family and not with a stranger. the idea of a stranger coming in and taking your child out is not known and not comfortable with it. that's why we are here today to say that we are here. these programs are wonderful and they could help your children. >> tell us who qualifies and what you need to do to become a big brother or sister? >> norma is a little more qualified to answer that. >> if you are 21 and over and you have the time to dedicate a year of your time, you would be hanging out with your little two to four times a month. you can feel free to contact us. you can figure out ways to help out. if you can't dedicate a year of

your time, join amigos latinos or donate time in a different way. that would be very helpful. you are helping to impact the life of the children within our communities in a great way. >> what do you get out specifically of being a big sister. what do you get out of it? >> so much. i could talk for hours. i am thrilled to be a big sister. i had reached a point in my life where i felt the need to want to give back to the community. i really wanted it to be a mentor and that's why i chose to be a big sister. i get more out of it than my little. knowing you are making a difference in a child's slooif tremendous. no words to describe it. >> that is awesome. what do do you with the little? >> we have done a lot in this

short time we have been together. since january. simple things like exploring new foods and going out to eat and trying ethnic foods. he enjoyed soccer and i enjoy soccer as well. we will play soccer and sports and watch a movie. he's on the soccer team. i will watch his game and support him. >> that are means a lot. that is incredible. >> give us your final thought fuss don't mind about why we should recruit more latinos. >> we really need the statistics on the littles and the bigs and we mead more adult volunteers. many ways you could help and become a member of our committee and come to some of our events. you can become a fan on facebook. ultimately we want you to be a volunteer. we realize it's a commitment and

i have to tell you it will be one of the best things you will ever do and you won't regret it. >> rewarding i would imagine. >> it's my little's birthday. 13 years old. happy birthday, johnny. >> here's the information if you want to get ahold of these folks. any final thoughts? >> it's really amazing. i get to work directly with the matches and it's amazing and inspiring to see the stories that come out of these matches. if you are looking to share your experience, if you are looking to share some of your success with someone within your community who reminds you of yourself, go ahead and check us out. please become a part of this organization. it's great for the community. >> we mentioned before on this show, it ends there and shouldn't end there. part of our duties are to work with the community. thank you very much for what you are doing.

up next here on "comunidad del valle".

latino collegeprep is getting ready for college with me here on the show. the director of the school and also with us is a counsellor there at the latino college prep. welcome to the show. tell us, what makes your school or your college prep school different than other high schools? >> we target the student who is are underserved on the east side. we are looking for students who are english language learner who is may not have done very, very well in the public school system. our gel is to make sure they are biliterate and graduated high school and majority prepared for college entrance. >> when you get them at that age, they have to go through the system for a while. when you get them as freshman and they are english language learners. >> depends on the schools they

come from and the development they had prior to latino college prep. our goal is to make sure we provide quality instruction and intervention support to make sure the kids are beyond what the core is asking them to learn. >> these the kids you have seen them come through with slip through the cracks sometimes because there is not that support. maybe the traditional high schools? >> right. what makes our schools so unique is that we use culture identity and families. to get to our goals. something different that other schools do not do. >> tell us about the family and how you get them involved. >> the family aspect is important and research and parent involvement is critical. for example, what we do is we work with san jose state university and the school social work where we have under graduate students and the future master levels that will work

with the parents as support system. in addition providing workshops for them. >> very good. >> we take very seriously the part of parent involvement. we define it as community, school, and at home. >> doctor, this is a tough challenge. why do you want it? >> it goes back to the way we were raised. we were given a quality education and it's time to give back. the boys and girls advocates, we have so many student who is were not performing well. the dropout rate for males is astronomical, about 60% in some areas. economically if we don't do something to prepare our students to overcome what needs to happen in the state of california, we will remain second class citizens. no one will do it for us. we have to do it for ourselves as a community. >> how successful has it been in getting the students prepared

for college? >> it will be our first year with the leadership. we are looking forward to expanding and i think reach our goals. something different and something unique. it's the right time. >> a lot of us make excuses for failing and not succeeding. how tolerant are you of excuses in general? >> there no excuses. if you have excuses, we have failure. failure can't be an option as a family. the reality is we remain second class citizens. with the economy the way it is, education may be the only way you can with stand what's occurring here in the state of california. it's difficult sometimes because we have what i call a self hatred. we set ceiling for ourselves. we have to break that to go beyond that so we can achieve what we have.

>> i get inspired. how inspired are you by the students who you are trying to help? >> every day i learn something new. every day. that makes me keep going knowing that we have a lot of people that -- a lot of youth who have ideas about the kind of people they want to be and how they want to impact the community. i didn't do it to get rich, but i did become culturally rich. that keeps me going. >> you mentioned no excuses. what do you expect? what should they leave with? >> as long as they work hard, we provide all the support necessary. the curriculum is rigorous and we have four years of required science and mathematics and we begin with algebra.

many of them are leaving with trigonometry and calculus. we have an opportunity for jurns and seniors. they traditionally have been under served in public schools and we are seeing them be successful. what we are trying to prove is our kids can learn given the right environment and ambiance and support. it takes time to give that to them. >> sometimes we need that. >> some of us more than others. >> you worked with students a long time. >> how many of them don't need that? >> many. what they need is to say that someone can be successful. there is a great story when i was a principal at a high school in monterey county. we had a large group of spanish speaking students and i would walk around and make sure i was visible. there was a group speaking

spanish and knew what you were talking about. they never know when you will come out. when i started speaking spanish, they were astonished. they did not perceive that woon of us can be a principal. they thought maybe i too can do something with my life. that's essential. you see in them, in the students, i have been at the school and i covered news stories there and they are respectful kids like every other kid. >> right. what i have seen is that when children have a positive cultural identity of who they are, they become role models. we know from research when you have a positive cultural identity, that actions as a buffer against delinquency. we know that any time you have a positive cultural identity. you don't need to succumb to

gangs, for example. that's what we are working with. >> good luck. we have the information for you on the latino college prep. any final thoughts? >> absolutely. our goal is to make sure they are bilingual and biliterate. they get a curriculum and make sure they succeed. >> that's inspirational. thank you very much for the work you are doing. >> up next here on "comunidad del valle," a festival here in september coming up is a mariachi. stay with us.

>> here's what's happening inyour commune dad.

celebrating a special day. >> are our address for next week to pick up a copy of the newspaper and support your bilingual weekly. we thank you for sharing your sunday with us. up next here, mariachi out of

epcot center in florida. they will be here at the festival in san jose. you won't want to miss it.