Los Angeles isn’t the only place where Latinos are disproportionately affected by strikes. In Arizona, Latinos make up about half of the students enrolled in public school and across the country, Latinos make up the highest percent of public school enrollment after whites. That number is growing: The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that by 2025, Latino children will make up 29 percent of the students enrolled in K-12 public schools.

In a 2008 paper, Patricia Gándara, the co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at U.C.L.A., called the state of Latino education a “crisis.” “These students will form the work force in the immediate future,” she wrote, and, more specifically, “if the state of California does not immediately begin preparing more underrepresented students for higher education, by 2020 the state will experience an 11 percent drop in per capita income, resulting in serious economic hardship for the people of California.”

Part of the problem, Gándara said, is misplaced attention on English language ability. “The notion of speaking a language other than English as an educational liability must be turned on its head,” Gándara wrote, noting the positive effects of dual language programs on both Latino and non-Latino students.

BLACK BURNOUT

Earlier this month, a BuzzFeed News article about burnout as the perennial millennial condition went viral, hitting a nerve with many who could relate to feeling overworked and obsessed with productivity. The result of our current condition, wrote Anne Helen Petersen, is that millennials tend to neglect ostensibly simple tasks, like going to the post office or doing laundry, if they aren’t directly related to our jobs. (Guilty!) Petersen described burnout as a systemic issue: “The problem with holistic, all-consuming burnout is that there’s no solution to it. You can’t optimize it to make it end faster.” Her essay set off alarm bells in my head and gave language to a latent feeling I’ve had for a long time that something’s got to give.

A response written by Tiana Clark expanded on Petersen’s idea to consider how race and economic inequality increase burnout even more. “Yes, we are all so damn tired and in debt,” she wrote, but it is compounded for people of color, who must also manage microaggressions and systemic discrimination as well. It’s a worthwhile read that adds another dimension to discussions about our collective health.