Voices from the pipeline: high school completion among rural Latinos

Although significant strides have been made in increasing the numbers and proportions of minorities in nursing, at 2.0% of the RN population (MinorityNurse.com, 2001), Latinos continue to lag far behind other minorities (Buerhaus & Auerback, 1999). As the fastest growing minority group in the United States--an increase from 9% of the population in 1990 to 11.9% in 2000 and projections of 14.6% by 2001 and 17% by 2020 (U.S. Census, 2001)--Latinos' under-representation in all fields of health care is expected to continue unless concerted efforts are taken to recruit and educate more students. This paper presents an analysis of narratives of high school completion as articulated by Latino adolescents in group interviews. Narrative inquiry of the focus group data found three major categories of supports and challenges: peers, family, and schools. The paper concludes with a discussion of how these findings can be used to develop community based interventions to increase high school completion and thus increase the pool of applicants for nursing and other health careers.