A recent New York Times article reveals that 41 percent of Mexicans in New York City between 16 and 19 have dropped out of high school, which is the highest drop out rate for any population in the city.   A few years ago Radio Rookies aired this story from Radio Rookie Christian about the extremely limited options available to him as an undocumented youth, even if he did finish high school and go to college.

Fortunately, four years later, Christian is not a part of the grim statistics: he recently graduated from high school, is working and considering his next steps.  He's thinking about enrolling in community college or, possibly, moving to California where he may join the military. 

After Christian's story came out in 2007, we received a lot of feedback, most of it very positive.  That was at least, until the talk show host Laura Ingraham aired the story with a violin playing underneath and awarded it a prize for the "biggest illegal immigrant sob story."  Hate mail (directed mostly at Radio Rookies, not Christian) began pouring in from across the country.  As noted in this blog post in SchoolBook, it sounds like the Times experienced a similarly large response to their article about the high Mexican drop out rate.