SAN JUAN – The director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans emphasized here Thursday the importance of knowing English for the integration of Latinos into U.S. society.

Juan Sepulveda, at a meeting with reporters at San Juan’s Corazon Sagrada (Sacred Heart) University, said that it is “very important” for Latinos to speak English well to be able to have more opportunities so they can get ahead in the United States.

The Mexican-American official also said that all minorities who live in the United States should learn to speak English, making his remarks shortly before taking part in the “Chatting with the community” event.

“The aim is to achieve bilingualism,” said Sepulveda in English in response to questions posed in Spanish by the Puerto Rican journalists.

Regarding the educational problems confronting Hispanics in the United States, he emphasized that the percentage of Latinos going to college is still much lower than the average in society as a whole.

Sepulveda emphasized that currently only about 11 percent of young Hispanics attend college in the United States, while the figure is about 30 percent among non-Hispanic whites.

He said that his job consists of increasing the number of Latinos who attend a university, thus contributing to the objective set out by President Barack Obama that 60 percent of young U.S. citizens get a college education.

He said that the border area with Mexico stands out among the zones in the United States experiencing the main educational problems affecting Latinos.

Sepulveda emphasized, for example, that in some areas of San Diego, California, Latino parents are afraid to let their kids to go to school because of the violence that occurs on the streets.

He said that one of the goals of his visit to Puerto Rico was to learn first-hand about the island’s experience to be able to apply new ideas in the rest of the United States.

“We have to gather ideas that are already under way and take them to other places,” he said, after noting that “there’s no magic solution” for the educational problems of Hispanics.

Meanwhile, the president of the university, Jose Jaime Rivera, lamented the fact that – according to his data – only 3 percent of Hispanics have university educations, a figure three times lower than the rest of the U.S. population.

Rivera said that, therefore, for the United States to be competitive, it is essential to promote the academic success of students of Latino origin.

The university chief also said that by mid-century one of every four people in the U.S. will be of Hispanic origin, and he urged an increase in efforts to provide a better education for this group, which in the coming decades will be a key sector for the country’s productivity. EFE