There are some startling new statistics regarding latina teens. The following comes from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy:

• 51% of Latina teens get pregnant at least once
  before age 20—nearly twice the national average.
• Latinas have had the highest teen birth rate of any
  major ethnic/racial minority in the country since 1995.
• Latina teen birth rates have declined about half as fast
  as non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black teens.
  In fact, teen birth rates have actually
  increased in 16 states and the District of Columbia.
• The Latino population is the largest and fastest growing
  minority group in the United States—by 2025, one quarter
  of all teens will be Latino. Clearly whatever
  goes on among Latino teens not only affects the Latino
  community, but also has an extraordinary impact on the
  nation as a whole.

This last statement is telling. Hispanics may one day outnumber all races in America if current birth rate trends continue. A high teen pregnancy rate among any race, but particularly one that is projected to be in the majority, has negative implications for everyone. I do not know if sex-at-fifteen is a cultural thing or if it is the result of rampant secularism (MTV, music, magazines, fashion, movies, commercials, etc.). It is more likely a mixture of both.

Many of these teen girls end up giving birth to multiple children with multiple fathers, virtually guaranteeing the long term need for social services like Medicaid and food stamps. This is a problem as evidenced by a February 6, 2007 article from The Arizona Republic:

Latina teens are 3 1/2 times more likely than Anglo teens to become pregnant in Arizona and are about one-third more likely to get pregnant than Hispanics nationwide.

This has helped keep Arizona’s teen pregnancy rate one of the highest in the nation. And Arizona taxpayers are increasingly picking up the tab: 82 percent of all teen births in 2005 were paid for by the state’s Medicaid program, up from 71 percent a decade earlier. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimates that Arizona taxpayers spent $268 million in 2004 for costs related to teen pregnancy, ranging from health care to welfare to lost income taxes.

According to an October 30, 2007 Newsweek article by Sarah Elkins, latinas “attend ’skipping parties’—as in skipping school—where they shed their inhibitions with the help of alcohol, pot and other drugs and hook up (have sex) with guys who are usually older than they are.” Elkins goes on to point out that, culturally, latinas are taught about “chastity and demureness,” while their male counterparts are more likely to be taught about “virility and conquest.”

Why, then, do these girls have sex at age 13 if they are raised to know better? The Arizona Republic article above points out that “Parents are busy adjusting to a new country, language and culture; they often work several jobs, while their kids are immersed in American teen culture, entrenched in sexy clothes, sexy music and sexy images on TV.” At some point, a disconnect between parent and child forms. This disconnect needs to be fixed fast judging by what Marisa Treviño tells us at the blog Latina Lista:

A friend recently told me that her daughter, who attends a majority-Latino, public middle school (6th, 7th and 8th grades) in Dallas, Texas, told her that there were 26 girls pregnant at her school. She routinely has 1-3 girls, at minimum, in her classes who are pregnant. But what is equally shocking is that her daughter said that the girls sit around and talk about how they ‘planned their pregnancies.’ It’s comprehensible that girls would plan for sex since sex is equated with sexiness and attractiveness and is so overtly glamorized in music videos and movies. There’s no pre-teen or teenage girl who doesn’t want to feel attractive and wanted by boys, but the idea that a fat belly is equally a turn-on is just a plain mystery.

In other words, being pregnant is fashionable. I approach this travesty from a layman’s perspective and cannot offer anything but a common sense approach. Articles like Elkins’ and Treviño’s offer better insight into the cultural reasons behind higher latina teen pregnancy rates. Treviño gives us the most culturally relevant and common sense statement about all of this:

All of these are scenarios that play a part in teens getting pregnant, but one other scenario that has never really been discussed is that some teens who get pregnant are continuing a family cycle — they see it as a tradition. Mom got pregnant young, dropped out of school, had more kids, worked dead-end jobs, never thought about school again. Daughter follows mom’s footstep.

This tradition has to end.

Related Posts:

Virginity Is Boring