Giving Latinos Power to Control their Destinies
Education doesn’t just open doors to opportunities; it gives us the power to control our own destinies. MarketVision created a PSA campaign to highlight NCLR’s effort to empower Latinos to define and achieve their own American dream, through a college education.
“Choose College. Make Your Future” – National Council of La Raza (UnidosUS)
By not educating Latinos – the largest ethnic minority group in the nation – we are putting our country at risk. And, while Latinos now account for 25% of all kindergarten and elementary students, they still lag behind non-Hispanics in completing college within six years.
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR, now UnidosUS), the nation’s largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, asked for MarketVision’s help to drive Hispanic students to pursue a college education, and to convince parents they could motivate their children along the road to that goal.
Why do some Latino students choose not to complete college? To help unravel the complex question, we talked with educators who worked with underprivileged Latino students, leaders of organizations in high schools where 90% of the Latino students went on to graduate from college, professors at high-density Hispanic colleges, and Latino students and their parents.
We found that most students believed a college education was important, but the realities of life – working to help the family, getting married and supporting their own families – made it more difficult to make college a priority. Those who did overcome a multitude of real and perceived barriers and successfully finished college were much better positioned to support their families.
How We Did It
We created a campaign to get Latinos to think of a college education as the way to gain control of their lives so they could achieve their dreams, and to encourage the broader community and parents to recognize and support Latino students’ talent and college decision. To do that, our story had to come from the community.
The “Choose College. Make Your Future” campaign featured filmmaker Mickey Cevallos and geologist Maria Antonieta Pacheco – real Latinos our students could relate to, working in careers Latinos aren’t often encouraged to pursue. They told their own stories about how college gave them the power to do what they had always dreamed of doing and stressed the benefits to their families, who had supported and encouraged them along the way.
Work Results
Our PSA campaign was featured at the NCLR ALMA Awards broadcast on Univision, at the NCLR Annual Conference and aired on local Comcast stations across the country.
