The purpose of the 1996 National Summit of Hispanic Youth Workers was to glean information from a group of top Hispanic youth leaders regarding the state, issues and trends related to Hispanic youth ministry. The Summit took place in October on Lake Mead in Arizona. A retreat and recreation area was chosen to facilitate relationship building as well as to provide leaders with a much needed time of rest and relaxation. The group represented the broad swath that is Hispanic America. All parts of the nation were represented (see list of those who attended below). Ethnic representation included Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and South Americans.
This group of leaders gathered at a critical time for outreach to Hispanic youth in America. U.S. population demographics routinely report drastic increases in the Hispanic population. In 1996, Hispanics in the U.S. number 27 million. Count the undocumented and the island of Puerto Rico and that figure exceeds 32 million. Half of all Hispanics are 22 years of age and under, according to the Hispanic Market Handbook. Yet, there are no definitive studies on Hispanic youth in regards to their church and religious involvement. One reason for the lack of research is that until very recently Hispanic young people and Hispanics as a whole have been the invisible minority. Principal attention has been paid to Anglo and African-American young people, and only due to the impossible-to-ignore demographic figures have researchers like George Barna and national organizations like the National Institute for Youth Ministry begun to target Hispanic youth.
Despite the lack of research and attention, Hispanics themselves have been keenly aware of a crisis in youth development and began unprecedented outreach efforts earlier this decade. In the Christian churches, groups like La Alianza de Ministerios Evangelicos (AMEN), the Hispanic Association of Bilingual Bicultural Ministries (HABBM), Network 2000 and numerous denominations and organizations have made efforts to organize movements around reaching Hispanic young people. And just this year, Catholics through the National Catholic Council on Hispanic Ministry turned their attention to Hispanic youth needs.
This growing awareness of the needs of Hispanic youth has generated response in other areas. The music industry has turned its attention to the growing Hispanic market potential and has begun promoting acts such as Jaci Velasquez while performers like Crystal Lewis have incorporated Spanish-language cuts on new releases. Publications such as Christianity Today, Sojourners and Regeneration Quarterly raise the spectre of a Hispanic Generation X being ignored by the Church. At the seminary level, programs targeting Hispanic pastoral development at Fuller Theological Seminary and Azusa Pacific University are just two of the many similar programs springing up throughout the nation.
But, until the National Summit of Hispanic Youth Workers, there has never been a nationwide, interdenominational gathering of top Hispanic youth workers.
This group of leaders came primed to talk about their passion for Hispanic youth with a keen awareness that they were making history. For many, the sentiment was, "It's about time" -- It's about time that Hispanics got together; it's about time we formulated a plan; it's about time we networked. The discussions, exhortations and agreements reflect this desire. Participants hunger for a group, association or network of peers. They desire the camaraderie, understanding and the ministry models which are the benefits of such an organization, and they wish to expand the experience of this relationship-building weekend to include those in their circles back home.
They also express great urgency regarding printed materials, such as curricula, books, publications and tracts that are truly Hispanic in content and tone as well as contemporary, and look to the assembled skills and strength of their peers as the means of producing these materials. The prevailing sentiment is reflective of Mordecai's statement in the Book of Esther, "Who knows if you did not attain royalty for such a time as this?" The unanimous exclamation for printed materials reflects a desire to enter the one medium that appears to have eluded Hispanic youth workers. Group members have access to television, video and radio to communicate their messages. One participant, a 27-year-old Assemblies of God regional youth director named Sam Rodriguez, currently hosts a weekly television show. And, Rodriguez is one of the loudest in calling for printed resources.
The picture of Hispanic youth presented by youth workers shows young people akin to the "average" American youth, and yet, distinctive. Like most American youth, issues such as sex, drugs, peer pressure, the future, etc. weigh heavily on their lives. But, unique to Hispanic youth is a treacherous no man's land, summed up in a phrase from a Mexican poem: "Caminante no hay camino/Se hace camino al andar," or "traveler there is no road/you make the road as you walk." Many Hispanic young people are walking life paths that their foreign-born and recently immigrated parents have never walked. Their parents have nothing to say to them about navigating the American school system, surviving in the workplace or dealing with other cultures. This bicultural "fence-hopping" between a Hispanic experience rooted in another country and America in the 1990s confronts young people at home, church, school, the street and within the media. This is a generation of confusion, a generation that has difficulty affirming life because it does not know what it is.
For decades this bicultural pressure has, in varying degrees, existed for many Hispanic young people. It has now come to mass attention because the number of Hispanic youth in crisis cannot be ignored. The need among Hispanic youth for guidance, for counselors, and for role models is truly staggering. Efforts like the National Summit of Hispanic Youth Workers are not only timely, they offer a deeply sought ray of hope that lights a landscape of possibilities in Hispanic youth ministry -- if we commit our best: our time, resources, strategies and people.
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