WASHINGTON – Latino parents are the target of a new public service advertising campaign by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) in concert with the Ad Council to help instill a college-going culture within the nation’s largest minority group.
The campaign, which emphasizes the phrase “Tus palabras,” or “Your words,” harps on a Hispanic cultural idiom where life values are packaged into commonly used catchphrases. Using another phrase, “their tomorrow depends on your words today,” the campaign urges Latino parents to encourage their children to pursue higher education.
The campaign’s creators, along with public officials, hope that adding college to the daily vocabulary of parents and children will foster a culture where good grades and diplomas will be as ubiquitous as tortillas and Spanglish. The media advertisements are accompanied by a Web site that is available in both English and Spanish.
On hand to help introduce the campaign on Tuesday in downtown Washington, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the persistent negative trends for U.S. Latino students are “morally unacceptable” and “economically unsustainable.”
“Hispanic students K through 12 represent about 22 percent of our population but only 11 percent on the higher education side,” Duncan said. “This is a tremendous dropoff … those numbers need to increase dramatically.”
Frank Alvarez, HSF president and CEO, said the influence of Latino parents on their children is indelible, and building a college culture in the home will take the nation closer to fulfilling President Barack Obama’s degree completion goals. The new campaign follows efforts by Univision, the Spanish-language television network, that launched a college encouragement campaign called “Es El Momento” in February.
“These commercials are designed to put at least one baccalaureate degree in every U.S. Latino household,” Alvarez said. “We want to inculcate the Hispanic community in such a way to make college-going the norm.”
