V Encuentro Proceedings and Conclusions

Proceedings and Conclusions of the V National Encuentro of Hispanic/Latino Ministry | 173 Appendix B V Encuentro Online Survey of Youth and Young Adults Faced with this limitation, the Research Team responded by engaging the NFCYM once again to field the 2017 Online Survey of Youth and Young Adults . The survey was launched in-person at that year’s National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC), during which 715 responses were gath- ered, about 28% of which were from Hispanic respondents. In the three weeks following NCYC, the survey was promoted online and with various partner organizations, generating an additional 826 responses. In total, 1,008 Hispanic responses were obtained, including 45% in English; about 83% of the NCYC Hispanic responses were in English. The survey included a variety of questions to help determine who responded. Among the Hispanics/Latinos who completed the survey, 24% were adolescents and 76% were young adults; 60% were female; and 61% identified as mixed-race (most indicating their national her- itage or just “Hispanic/Latino”), 30% as White, and 7% as Native (presumably meaning indig- enous people from Latin America). Among the adolescents, 37% were immigrants, 47% were 2 nd generation, and 17% were 3 rd + generation, while among the young adults it was 77% immi- grant, 18% 2 nd generation, and 5% 3 rd + generation. About 40% of the young adult immigrants arrived before age 15, so they would be classified as the 1.5 generation. What is remarkable is that among those who responded in English, fully 91% said they speak Spanish at home and 24% said they do not speak English at home, meaning that 67% spoke both languages at home. Meanwhile, among those who responded in Spanish, only 34% said they speak English at home. Several questions were asked to help determine how engaged the young people are in their faith life, and how active they are at Church. It is clear that the results of this survey are not representative of the general population of Hispanic/Latino young people. Rather, these young people are highly involved at Church and have a personal commitment to spiritual practice. That was to be expected at NCYC, but it also proved to be true among those who took the survey in response to the online promotion. The survey itself compensated for this by asking respondents to describe how the Church could be more relevant, welcoming, or spiritually enriching not only for themselves but also for their peers. The Parish, Diocesan, Regional, and National Encuentros Before getting into the specific results from the open-ended questions that were asked in the online survey, it is worthwhile to complete the picture of youth and young adult participation in the Encuentros at each level of the consultation. As with the five sessions and missionary actions, some of the data is incomplete. This was especially true for the Parish Encuentros, where only 35% reported an estimate or count of the overall attendance, and among those 87% gave a number for the youth and young adults. In the reporting parishes, nearly 30% of the participants were young people, giving an estimated total participation of about 27,000 youth and young adults in the Parish Encuentros.