South Mountain Community Colleges Affluent Latino's

When I first started at South Mountain Community College (SMCC) I didn't know what to expect. I figured it was going to be the same as working at Phoenix College (PC) where I was for three years.  The first thing I realized was that PC and SMCC were nothing alike.  First of all PC has approximately 12k students where as SMCC has about 5k.  In terms of diversity PC is much more diverse than SMCC, this is where I saw the most distinction.  Although PC is more diverse, because it is an inner city college, the majority of the students that enroll in PC belong to the inner city, which are typically poorer than the suburbs.  Now, I am generalizing and these comparisons are based upon my own personal and anecdotal experience.  When I first arrived at SMCC, immediately I realized that there where more Latino's than any other ethnicities.  Additionally I realized that in my perception they were more affluent than the Latino's that I grew up around.  Drawing comparisons from my experience growing up in an inner city school and working for an inner city college I made these following distinctions.  The majority of the parents that I came across at Alhambra High School, and PC, were lower working class.  My mom cleaned houses, my dad worked in construction.  Both lived paycheck to paycheck, poorly educated, and weren't able to help me get through college because they had no clue what college was all about.  Many of my friends parents lived in the same conditions.  Adversely, speaking to some of the students that attend SMCC, I found that their parents, although still working class, had better jobs that paid more.  Many of the parents were college educated, professors, and professionals, this was something that in the inner city is not seen as often.  So naturally it gives them the ability to move to the suburbs, with nicer houses, safer neighborhoods, and better schools.  The houses around the SMCC are more expensive, and in order to live here you obviously need more money which means you need a better job.  I found that although PC and SMCC are in the same city, they served different pockets of society, even within the Latino community.  So although we are all Latino's we grew up very differently, which is okay.  It was simply walking into a different world for me.