He joined 134 other Latino eighth- and ninth-graders representing about 50 schools throughout Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties at the six-day, overnight conference that concluded Friday at Astrocamp in Idyllwild.
“Where I come from, there are not a lot of leadership opportunities,” Cortez, 15, said. “We are broken up by the system. Our youth is divided into Chicano and African-American gangs. The area is very low-income and racial profiling is very big there.”
He said it will take a process to control the violence and improve the community.
“Once we stop fighting, we can have more progress to unite and create leaders in our communities that will improve the state of things,” he said.
