AURELIO & HIS MANY MENTORS
A CASE STUDY IN INTERGENERATIONAL CHANGEMAKING
Aurelio Villanueva is a fictitious and composite figure, drawn out of my lifetime experience as an educator serving
the needs of young people from a variety of backgrounds.
His is a success story, due mainly to the fact that he received the kind of mentoring he needed, both at pivotal moments in his life and in the sustained, ongoing and orchestrated support he received over a decade. The sheer number of obstacles that Aurelio encountered in this story is all too commonplace. The sheer volume of coordinated resources that Aurelio received in this story, on the other hand, is unfortunately all too rare.
His story is so designed as to give the reader a vision for the extensive scope of resources that young men and women like Aurelio really need. For the many Aurelio’s out there, one program or intervention, here and there, episodically, is usually not enough. That said, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. Therefore, we encourage youth mentors to put to good use as many of the insights and the approaches in this story as is feasible and whenever possible to coordinate and choreograph them.
AURELIO & HIS MENTORS
Aurelio Villanueva is a twenty-five year old mixed-race young man who grew up in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. His father is a recent immigrant from Guatemala and his mother is African American, a rather unusual lineage, at least as far as he can tell. As far back as he could remember, he was considered “the smart one” in his family. They had high hopes for him, and so far he’s delivered. It is a story of daunting environmental obstacles and uncommon resilience on his part, and, of course, sustained and focused mentoring.
Elementary School. In kindergarten Aurelio had a gifted teacher who brought out the best in him, so much so that he thrived throughout elementary school. His family—mom and dad, his younger brother and sister and grandparents on his mother’s side—remained intact throughout and by most measures supportive. He also enjoyed the weekly gatherings on Sundays of his extended family—church in the morning and lots of food in the afternoons. He enjoyed the company of his mom’s three sisters, one of whom was his favorite auntie. He also looked up to two of his cousins.
Middle School. Middle school was the most trying time of all in Aurelio’s life. In sixth grade his father, always violent when drunk, was forced out of the house, leaving his mother as the sole breadwinner and his grandparents in charge of domestic duties, sending Aurelio into what his pediatrician diagnosed as a low-grade depression called dysthymia.
Without a father to drive him to and from school, Aurelio had to walk, leaving him at age eleven to his own devices, especially in negotiating two gang territories. As a result, he developed his own street smarts—a sixth sense for anticipating danger and the ability to move out of harms way when need be. He also learned early on not wearing either red or blue. That said, he found himself attracted to a few gang leaders in his community. He admired their self-confidence, the respect they would command and the power they could wield. For a while he thought, “I’d like to be like that”—until the day he watched someone get shot outside his home.
His middle school, for the most part, was a safe haven and a respite from these anxieties, yet he had this gut sense that one of his teachers was a closet racist. This would throw him off kilter at least once a day. And while he developed a few close friendships among some of his classmates and a solid relationship with most of his teachers, he also found himself the target of verbal bullying, starting innocuously enough in the fifth grade and increasing in intensity through the eighth grade.
It was also in eighth grade that his spirits began to improve. A youth worker at his church introduced him to an organization called A Better Chance, which was able to secure for him a full scholarship to attend an elite Los Angeles independent high school.
High School. When he arrived at his new high school in Brentwood—nearly an hour’s bus ride from his home in Eagle Rock—his immediate experience was one of culture shock. As he found himself drifting away from his neighborhood friends (two had been moved into foster homes and others had been recruited into gangs), he was growing closer to a new group of friends, many of whom were children of wealth and privilege. This left him disoriented and in need of some personal creativity. So, he created a ritual. Somewhere near the halfway point in his daily bus ride he would change his shirt; in the morning he would take off his neighborhood soccer jersey shirt and put on an Oxford cloth shirt. On his way home he performed this ritual in reverse. This went on religiously for nearly two years.
Starting on the first day of high school Aurelio knew he had to some serious catching up to do academically. Yet he felt relatively safe there, due mainly to the confidence all his teachers had in him, and it didn’t take long to develop a close relationship with two teachers in particular, his history teacher and his advisor, one of whom happened to be Latino and the other African American. These two teachers became his all-purpose mentors. They coached him in how to write a well organized essay, something that took hours of frustration and a lot of perseverance and how to get his point across convincingly and without anger in class discussions. They taught him that success in math is more about “the struggle” than anything else.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Aurelio was developing a new set attitudes about learning itself, turning in his old model of a “fixed mindset” (“you either got it or you don’t”) for a newer and more powerful set of values in the form of a “growth mindset” (“your mind is a muscle you can strengthen through regular mental exercise”). Through it all he came to see his setbacks (and failures) as opportunities for growth. Perhaps most importantly of all, he was beginning to overcome the anxiety that tended to rise up and grab him by the throat in a test or exam setting.
Like most other teenagers by the time he entered high school, he had acquired a sophisticated internal “crap detector.” It gave him special powers in uncovering the hypocrisy, pretense and inauthenticity in others, whether it was in those who held authority over him or in other students he considered as phony. His crap detector also heightened his cultural skills, resulting in growing away from his church and interpersonal skills, such as reading others’ tone of voice. As a result, he became increasingly sensitive to the dog whistles of racism he encountered nearly everywhere he went. (Both of his formal mentors were well equipped to help Aurelio with these issues as well.)
Aurelio was extraordinarily fortunate to have such capable and sensitive mentors at such a formative time in his life. (Most teenagers, whatever their economic and social status, are not so fortunate.) First and foremost, they were good listeners, offering Aurelio the gift of time. Secondly, they were good coaches, helping Aurelio develop those critical social skills—how and when to speak out against prejudice—and how and when to remain silent.
His mentors also provided Aurelio with another gift that would energize him throughout the rest of academic career and into his professional life—that he had the power to make positive and lasting changes within the school and his neighborhood. This would play out in Aurelio becoming the founder of a new organization on campus—a community service tutoring program called The Cesar Chavez Project. Aurelio’s mentors knew intuitively how to channel that spark of idealism within him. In brief, they guided him to become his own changemaker.
Even with the benefit of the school’s considerable resources and Aurelio’s steady successes over time, something still left him disoriented, a vague sense of guilt that somehow, in spite of everything, he was not deserving of the full scholarship he was receiving. Somewhere in his soul he felt that he was some kind of imposter. These feelings arose in him often, both in school and in the homes of his more privileged classmates. This guilt only increased his sense of alienation, for, in one corner of his soul he sensed that he didn’t belong.
His visits to the homes of his wealthy classmates also intensified his cognitive dissonance (Mexican vs. rap music) and his stress levels around family finances. These visits also intensified his appreciation of his mother’s financial acuity, especially her ability to stretch $20 to meet the family’s weekly food budget, mere chump change for his wealthy friends.
Fortunately for Aurelio, there was one place where he knew for sure that he did belong—the YES Scholars Program. In the summer before high school he was accepted into this nationally recognized program designed to offer a group of promising young people, ages twelve to eighteen with the full-service supports they need to become the first in their families to go to college. Coming together from different schools across the city, they met three afternoons per week at the YES Scholars Center under the tutelage of a recent college graduate. They would study together, honing their academic skills. They would support one another emotionally. And they would develop lasting friendships.
The center was their home away from home—part clubhouse, part study hall and part support group. It is what social scientists call a “free space”—where they could just be themselves—goofy and serious, vulnerable or strong. It was also a safe space where their extended families and guardians could gather together in support of their children and grandchildren. Aurelio didn’t fully realize it at the time, but it was comforting to know that through this program their families were able to get more and more comfortable with letting their children leave home (and leave their tight-knit communities) for college.
College. Aurelio’s experiences in high school and with the YES Scholars program prepared him well, so much so that he was accepted to Amherst College in Massachusetts. Initially he struggled, but quickly gained traction. When he first walked into his calculus class in the fall of his freshman year he found himself, as per his habit, on guard. He was not a natural student in mathematics, so he also brought with him a certain lack of self-confidence.
Yet, in spite of his self doubts, he immediately picked up the nonverbal and encouraging “cues” from his professor. He felt safe to be himself around her, so much so that he struck up a conversation right after the first class, finding in her an ally in whom he could come to trust implicitly. He just knew intuitively that she had his back. His crap detector served him well.
That first encounter seemed to set the tone for his entire college experience. In the next four years he learned increasingly to take the initiative and even befriend some of his professors. He took advantage of their office hours and even found himself baby-sitting their children. Yet two things still tugged at him every now and then: he couldn’t shake the feeling, at moments of self-doubt and insecurity, that he remained an imposter; and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not doing his share to help out his family financially. He also had the ongoing support of his YES Scholars mentor, who would check in with him every two weeks and help him sort through these tensions as well as a whole host of other issues, big and small.
Into the Workplace. Aurelio is now in his first job in Los Angeles, working as an AmeriCorps member for a nonprofit that focuses on immigration rights. He’s planning on law school in the next few years.
————————————-
What “saved” Aurelio? Was it that he got in with the right crowd, or peer group? Was it a kind word from a mentor? Was it one moment in time and place or a series of moments, recurring habitually—his routines? Was it the solid foundation he received in kindergarten and elementary school? Was it the steady and reliable presence over years of one or more of his mentors? Any one of these could have been a catalyst. Any one could have been formative.
The short answer is this: we can’t tell, exactly. It is more likely that Aurelio was “saved” due to a confluence of factors—part science and part art. In other words, a longer and more complex answer…
Let us turn to social science to offer us some insights.
Once we gain access to these pathways, we can turn to the art of mentoring, which involves deciding upon which pathways offer the most potential in addressing Aurelio’s needs and once decided, in determining just how much force to exert—from a subtle nudge to a more direct assertion.
Further, to more fully understand Aurelio’s success and add to the mentor’s toolkit, we turn now, in the next paper in this series—to what social scientists call the “identity engagement process.”
Aurelio Villanueva is a twenty-five year old mixed-race young man who grew up in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. His father is a recent immigrant from Guatemala and his mother is African American, a rather unusual lineage, at least as far as he can tell. As far back as he could remember, he was considered “the smart one” in his family. They had high hopes for him, and so far he’s delivered. It is a story of daunting environmental obstacles and uncommon resilience on his part, and, of course, sustained and focused mentoring.
Elementary School. In kindergarten Aurelio had a gifted teacher who brought out the best in him, so much so that he thrived throughout elementary school. His family—mom and dad, his younger brother and sister and grandparents on his mother’s side—remained intact throughout and by most measures supportive. He also enjoyed the weekly gatherings on Sundays of his extended family—church in the morning and lots of food in the afternoons. He enjoyed the company of his mom’s three sisters, one of whom was his favorite auntie. He also looked up to two of his cousins.
Middle School. Middle school was the most trying time of all in Aurelio’s life. In sixth grade his father, always violent when drunk, was forced out of the house, leaving his mother as the sole breadwinner and his grandparents in charge of domestic duties, sending Aurelio into what his pediatrician diagnosed as a low-grade depression called dysthymia.
Without a father to drive him to and from school, Aurelio had to walk, leaving him at age eleven to his own devices, especially in negotiating two gang territories. As a result, he developed his own street smarts—a sixth sense for anticipating danger and the ability to move out of harms way when need be. He also learned early on not wearing either red or blue. That said, he found himself attracted to a few gang leaders in his community. He admired their self-confidence, the respect they would command and the power they could wield. For a while he thought, “I’d like to be like that”—until the day he watched someone get shot outside his home.
His middle school, for the most part, was a safe haven and a respite from these anxieties, yet he had this gut sense that one of his teachers was a closet racist. This would throw him off kilter at least once a day. And while he developed a few close friendships among some of his classmates and a solid relationship with most of his teachers, he also found himself the target of verbal bullying, starting innocuously enough in the fifth grade and increasing in intensity through the eighth grade.
It was also in eighth grade that his spirits began to improve. A youth worker at his church introduced him to an organization called A Better Chance, which was able to secure for him a full scholarship to attend an elite Los Angeles independent high school.
High School. When he arrived at his new high school in Brentwood—nearly an hour’s bus ride from his home in Eagle Rock—his immediate experience was one of culture shock. As he found himself drifting away from his neighborhood friends (two had been moved into foster homes and others had been recruited into gangs), he was growing closer to a new group of friends, many of whom were children of wealth and privilege. This left him disoriented and in need of some personal creativity. So, he created a ritual. Somewhere near the halfway point in his daily bus ride he would change his shirt; in the morning he would take off his neighborhood soccer jersey shirt and put on an Oxford cloth shirt. On his way home he performed this ritual in reverse. This went on religiously for nearly two years.
Starting on the first day of high school Aurelio knew he had to some serious catching up to do academically. Yet he felt relatively safe there, due mainly to the confidence all his teachers had in him, and it didn’t take long to develop a close relationship with two teachers in particular, his history teacher and his advisor, one of whom happened to be Latino and the other African American. These two teachers became his all-purpose mentors. They coached him in how to write a well organized essay, something that took hours of frustration and a lot of perseverance and how to get his point across convincingly and without anger in class discussions. They taught him that success in math is more about “the struggle” than anything else.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Aurelio was developing a new set attitudes about learning itself, turning in his old model of a “fixed mindset” (“you either got it or you don’t”) for a newer and more powerful set of values in the form of a “growth mindset” (“your mind is a muscle you can strengthen through regular mental exercise”). Through it all he came to see his setbacks (and failures) as opportunities for growth. Perhaps most importantly of all, he was beginning to overcome the anxiety that tended to rise up and grab him by the throat in a test or exam setting.
Like most other teenagers by the time he entered high school, he had acquired a sophisticated internal “crap detector.” It gave him special powers in uncovering the hypocrisy, pretense and inauthenticity in others, whether it was in those who held authority over him or in other students he considered as phony. His crap detector also heightened his cultural skills, resulting in growing away from his church and interpersonal skills, such as reading others’ tone of voice. As a result, he became increasingly sensitive to the dog whistles of racism he encountered nearly everywhere he went. (Both of his formal mentors were well equipped to help Aurelio with these issues as well.)
Aurelio was extraordinarily fortunate to have such capable and sensitive mentors at such a formative time in his life. (Most teenagers, whatever their economic and social status, are not so fortunate.) First and foremost, they were good listeners, offering Aurelio the gift of time. Secondly, they were good coaches, helping Aurelio develop those critical social skills—how and when to speak out against prejudice—and how and when to remain silent.
His mentors also provided Aurelio with another gift that would energize him throughout the rest of academic career and into his professional life—that he had the power to make positive and lasting changes within the school and his neighborhood. This would play out in Aurelio becoming the founder of a new organization on campus—a community service tutoring program called The Cesar Chavez Project. Aurelio’s mentors knew intuitively how to channel that spark of idealism within him. In brief, they guided him to become his own changemaker.
Even with the benefit of the school’s considerable resources and Aurelio’s steady successes over time, something still left him disoriented, a vague sense of guilt that somehow, in spite of everything, he was not deserving of the full scholarship he was receiving. Somewhere in his soul he felt that he was some kind of imposter. These feelings arose in him often, both in school and in the homes of his more privileged classmates. This guilt only increased his sense of alienation, for, in one corner of his soul he sensed that he didn’t belong.
His visits to the homes of his wealthy classmates also intensified his cognitive dissonance (Mexican vs. rap music) and his stress levels around family finances. These visits also intensified his appreciation of his mother’s financial acuity, especially her ability to stretch $20 to meet the family’s weekly food budget, mere chump change for his wealthy friends.
Fortunately for Aurelio, there was one place where he knew for sure that he did belong—the YES Scholars Program. In the summer before high school he was accepted into this nationally recognized program designed to offer a group of promising young people, ages twelve to eighteen with the full-service supports they need to become the first in their families to go to college. Coming together from different schools across the city, they met three afternoons per week at the YES Scholars Center under the tutelage of a recent college graduate. They would study together, honing their academic skills. They would support one another emotionally. And they would develop lasting friendships.
The center was their home away from home—part clubhouse, part study hall and part support group. It is what social scientists call a “free space”—where they could just be themselves—goofy and serious, vulnerable or strong. It was also a safe space where their extended families and guardians could gather together in support of their children and grandchildren. Aurelio didn’t fully realize it at the time, but it was comforting to know that through this program their families were able to get more and more comfortable with letting their children leave home (and leave their tight-knit communities) for college.
College. Aurelio’s experiences in high school and with the YES Scholars program prepared him well, so much so that he was accepted to Amherst College in Massachusetts. Initially he struggled, but quickly gained traction. When he first walked into his calculus class in the fall of his freshman year he found himself, as per his habit, on guard. He was not a natural student in mathematics, so he also brought with him a certain lack of self-confidence.
Yet, in spite of his self doubts, he immediately picked up the nonverbal and encouraging “cues” from his professor. He felt safe to be himself around her, so much so that he struck up a conversation right after the first class, finding in her an ally in whom he could come to trust implicitly. He just knew intuitively that she had his back. His crap detector served him well.
That first encounter seemed to set the tone for his entire college experience. In the next four years he learned increasingly to take the initiative and even befriend some of his professors. He took advantage of their office hours and even found himself baby-sitting their children. Yet two things still tugged at him every now and then: he couldn’t shake the feeling, at moments of self-doubt and insecurity, that he remained an imposter; and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not doing his share to help out his family financially. He also had the ongoing support of his YES Scholars mentor, who would check in with him every two weeks and help him sort through these tensions as well as a whole host of other issues, big and small.
Into the Workplace. Aurelio is now in his first job in Los Angeles, working as an AmeriCorps member for a nonprofit that focuses on immigration rights. He’s planning on law school in the next few years.
————————————-
What “saved” Aurelio? Was it that he got in with the right crowd, or peer group? Was it a kind word from a mentor? Was it one moment in time and place or a series of moments, recurring habitually—his routines? Was it the solid foundation he received in kindergarten and elementary school? Was it the steady and reliable presence over years of one or more of his mentors? Any one of these could have been a catalyst. Any one could have been formative.
The short answer is this: we can’t tell, exactly. It is more likely that Aurelio was “saved” due to a confluence of factors—part science and part art. In other words, a longer and more complex answer…
Let us turn to social science to offer us some insights.
- First, science brings us the ability to uncover those dynamic pathways that had a direct and indirect influence in Aurelio’s life. Let’s call them the “pathways” that connect or disconnect intentions with results. These pathways may take many forms—two of the most prominent being physical (i.e., the route that Aurelio walked to and from middle school) or internal (i.e., his grit, character or resilience, among others). These pathways can either block or facilitate his success, or do both simultaneously.
- Second, these very pathways can become “recursive,” that is they can double back upon themselves—forming feedback loops that can reinforce one another, exacerbating an already negative situation (aka, “vicious cycles”) or greasing the skids of his healthy development (aka, “virtuous cycles”).
Once we gain access to these pathways, we can turn to the art of mentoring, which involves deciding upon which pathways offer the most potential in addressing Aurelio’s needs and once decided, in determining just how much force to exert—from a subtle nudge to a more direct assertion.
Further, to more fully understand Aurelio’s success and add to the mentor’s toolkit, we turn now, in the next paper in this series—to what social scientists call the “identity engagement process.”