ANNA MARÍA CHÁVEZ GREW UP in rural southern Arizona with her father, a migrant farmworker, and her mother, who ran a large farm nearby. They were both leaders in her community—volunteering, offering guidance, and showing her what public service looked like day in and day out. They valued education and knew that a good one would open opportunities for her. Anna María's grandmother, who had not received a formal education, reinforced this message and taught her never to take this privilege for granted. So even though she attended an underfunded school, typical of a small farm town in Arizona, and was a first‐generation college student, she had a support system that encouraged her to get everything and more out of it and a home life that taught her the things her classes could not: what it meant to help your neighbors, lead by example, and fight for your community.

The term digital divide was coined 25 years ago, so it is not a new problem. Rather, it has been an issue in the Latino community for a long time. The COVID‐19 pandemic and the shift to online learning highlighted the disparities in technology and internet access for our Latino, Black, and indigenous students and intensify the impact. The digital divide plagues students and families in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Nationwide, an estimated 16 million students lack reliable access to high‐speed broadband.

Throughout the pandemic, we have seen how communities are innovating to serve their students – from districts using their school buses as mobile internet hotspots, to public school teachers speaking from radio stations or local television stations to bring learning into the homes of their students. School boards, superintendents, and educators are doing everything possible to help overcome the digital divide's disproportionate impact on our nation's Black, Brown, and low‐income students.

Our public schools need help – from short‐term solutions like donations and support for tech equipment and extended Wi‐Fi access, to long‐term funding solutions.

The nationwide shift to remote and hybrid forms of delivering instruction has spurred some innovative developments and led public education down a path where instruction can be more personalized to students' unique needs and meet them where they are. This is the focus of Ad Astra Media – creating educational STEM content to help teach and inspire youth and adults from Latino and underserved communities. But so many students are still not able to access that innovation. Why? Because to “be at the decision‐making table” we must talk about it but, equally important, we must take action. One way to do that is to encourage Latino parents and caregivers to run for their local school board. Today, 78 percent of all school board members in the United States are white.

We also need to encourage our communities to talk with their state and local representatives to share what is important for our Latino families and children. By keeping the spotlight on the unique needs of our school children, we can drive change.

In June 2020, Anna María became the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National School Boards Association (NSBA), a federation of state associations and the U.S. Virgin Islands that represents over 90,000 locally elected and appointed school board officials serving over 50 million public school children. Working with and for our members, NSBA advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. To advance that mission, serve our members, and champion educational equity, Anna María leads a team of policy, member services, legal, communications, and business experts.

The NSBA believe all students should have access to an education that maximizes their individual potential. As advocates of educational equity, they equip our members with resources, research, and other supports they can use to advance their work with the local school boards.

To help guide and propel their equity work, NSBA launched the Transformation Now! initiative that puts our public school students and their individual needs at the center of learning and sets out to reinvent public schooling in the United States, close the digital divide, and prepare students with the twenty‐first‐century knowledge and skills they need to succeed. Ad Astra Media creates bilingual STEM informed resources to further this mission.

A major pillar of this transformation is addressing the systemic, institutional racism housed within schools and inscribed within our education policy. In 2020, NSBA established the Dismantling Institutional Racism in Education (DIRE) initiative, which provides a framework for confronting the myriad ways racism presents itself in education – from explicit bias and the overdisciplining of Black and Brown students to the chronic underfunding of schools in low‐income communities of color. The exact dynamics of educational inequity are unique to every school. DIRE equips local school boards and decision‐makers in education to build smart policy on a foundation of data and research. It helps support work to confront the realities of local education systems and construct and implement responsive solutions that work. Data, research, and a commitment to the creation and enactment of intentional policies that eliminate racism will help set the stage for a more equitable education system.

When Anna María was a young girl, she watched her mother run for a seat on the local school board at a time when it was unusual for women, especially Latina women, to seek elected office, let alone win a seat. Anna María had the chance to learn from her mother's example as she changed the world around her. Anna María was incredibly fortunate. Mentorship is critical for young people aspiring to be bigger than they can dream, and she had her mother, father, grandmother, teachers, and many other people who kicked down barriers for her. They showed Anna María what it meant to work for what she believes in and to weave public service into every day and every interaction. Anna María hopes that she is paving the way for more Latina women and women of color to lead organizations with missions that they are passionate about. There are always going to be obstacles, no matter who you are or where you come from. But when it comes down to it, what matters most is having people around you who believe in you and support your dreams and aspirations.

Amanda Renteria grew up in the Central Valley of California. Her parents were former farmworkers. Amanda's dad came from Zacatecas, Mexico, and her mom from Santa Ana, California. They landed in Woodlake because there was a popular farm labor camp just outside of town called Redbanks. That town, Woodlake, is in one of the poorest congressional districts in the state, among the 10th poorest across the country, literacy rates hover around 40 percent, unemployment is often in the double digits, and, as you might guess, the public schools are severely underresourced.

Therefore, it was a bit of a surprise her senior year when she received an acceptance package from Stanford University. There had been only three other students who had been accepted to Stanford in the history of her high school. And there had never been a woman, a Latino/Hispanic, or a daughter of farmworkers.

While she was excited about the opportunity, she really didn't know if she could do it – academically, financially, or logistically. Her family didn't buy into the “going away to college” theory. In fact, her dad was a pretty conservative Mexican father with three daughters, the kind of dad who lectured their prom dates for two hours before allowing them to go. You can imagine that, for Amanda's parents, Stanford felt like a planet away.

So, she leaned on her academic community to guide her through her decision‐making process – teachers, coaches, and counselors. As she asked and listened, she could hear their concern. Everyone was certainly well meaning, but she could hear the subtle message that maybe Stanford was a bit too challenging for her, that “someone like her” might not be able to handle the academic rigor at Stanford. Although she was a confident kid, the consistent message was beginning to sink in, that maybe Stanford was a step too far. Then, her economics teacher pulled her aside before class and said, “Listen, I know you're hearing all kinds of things about what you should or shouldn't do. But I'm here to tell you that it's not about you, it's about your community, and that someone like them can succeed at a place like that. You have to go.”

When you hear the right words, even at 17, they ring in a different way. She said she knew she had to go. And, so, she took the leap. There's no doubt Stanford was hard. In fact, she learned pretty quickly the challenges she faced as she walked into her first calculus class. She sat at her desk and looked up at a busy calculus‐infused chalkboard. She knew Spanish and English, but she didn't know that language.

So, after class, she walked up to the professor and asked, “Can you tell me where I can find your introductory class?” The professor looked a bit confused and said, “This is our entry level class.” Then, he gracefully guided her over to the teacher's assistant, who handed her a thick book that she would need to study before, after, and in between the classes, just to catch up.

Amanda remembers the walk that day from the lecture hall to her dorm room, that sinking feeling of not knowing exactly how she was going to make it through. She couldn't call her parents and talk with them. She was too embarrassed to tell her roommate that the book in her backpack wasn't for the class, but just to prepare to be in the class. But, as she kept walking, she thought about the words of her economics teacher. He was right: she wasn't just holding that backpack, it was an entire community holding that backpack. And, she admits, over the course of the first year, she held a lot of extra books. But in the end, she figured it out.

Amanda double‐majored in economics and political science. She also performed for the Ballet Folklorico de Stanford dancing group. She walked on to, not one, but two division one athletic teams and earned an athletic scholarship. And she did finally graduate … with honors. But how do we continue the evolution of Latino digital intelligence?

First, let's begin with access. Amanda explains we need to make sure that every family has the ability to get online and has devices and systems that allow for quality access and connection. It took until 2017 for her old high school to finally achieve full digital access for every student. This story is not an unusual one for rural, poor, marginalized Latinx communities.

Second, the only way to understand the deep level of inequality faced by the Latinx community is to incorporate Latinx talent at the decision‐making table and trust their lived experience to shape policy and action. This requires a real commitment to listening and learning from and with community members themselves. She has learned over the course of her career, most poignant as the first Latina Chief of Staff in the U.S. Senate, that there are far too few of us at leadership tables in every industry. As a result, there has been an overall lack of attention or understanding about the issues that impact Latinx communities across the country. Therefore, Amanda emphasizes that we need a ramp‐up in people and experiences that can foster a deeper understanding in and with Latinx communities.

Third, in 2020, the Latinx population became the largest ethnic minority group in the country. Consequently, the economic, social, and political rise or fall of the Latinx community will have reverberating impacts on the overall state of our country. Therefore, as we enter a world more reliant on digital access, it has never been more important to close the digital divide in Latinx/Hispanic communities.

Amanda is the CEO of Code for America, a nonprofit organization that partners with government to build equitable services for all, with a special focus on low‐income programs. To be more specific, they are a tech support and providing powerful resources #GetCalFresh, #GetYourRefund, and #ClearMyRecord, as well as the network of Code for America civic tech volunteers in 90 chapters across the country. Their work is committed to helping government improve outreach and access to marginalized, low‐income communities. They center for the people the government intends to serve, which means that they sit in social service centers with clients, visit families at home as they fill out forms, and listen to the obstacles people face when trying to access critical government services. From those experiences, they build what is needed to reach people with dignity and respect, putting people at the very center of research, product design, policy implementation, and anything they build for governments. Their belief is that it is not just about moving from paper to online, it's about utilizing tech to see and serve all people, especially those who have been left out for far too long.

Amanda's blog is called “Our Opportunity to Build a More Equitable Government” (https://www.codeforamerica.org/news/our-opportunity-to-build-a-more-equitable-government).

It's important to learn the system, and then to learn how to push the system toward justice for all. For too long, people have peddled the notion that government can't work, isn't innovative, or is just a clock‐in, clock‐out job.

Based on Amanda's experience, it is what we make of it. And, today, there's a once‐in‐a‐generation opportunity to reimagine how government works and for whom. We need more people to drive a new vision for and in government and see ourselves as responsible for making that change. The last year of uncertainty due to a pandemic, economic challenges, and racial injustices should be a calling to every single person in this country to help create a country and government we can all be proud of, Amanda adds. She is hopeful that more people have come to understand the fragility of our democracy, the need for good government, the requirement to have efficient and effective systems, and the commitment to finally address systemic racism. So, for all the obstacles Amanda may have seen or experienced in her long career in public service, she believes it is time for the barriers to change.

“Do you see that guy over there?” his father asked him in the middle of his abuelo's memorial service. “Yes, Dad, I see him,” Damian replied. The man didn't look special to him; he was Latino just like him, with a mustache and beard, dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket. Then his dad asked him, “Do you know what he does?” His dad continued, “He's an engineer. An electrical engineer. Do you know what that means?” Damian thought and replied, “I guess he is like an electrician, so he does electrical work?” “No,” his Dad responded, “He does know that stuff but as an electrical engineer he is the one that needs to sign off on permits before new buildings can open up or before people can expand on their properties. He has a lot of power in that position. That's what you want to do in college, you want to be an engineer.”

Throughout his life his parents taught him it was okay to dream of doing the impossible things. And how his dad passed along one possible dream to consider. It's funny how when you look back on your life you can see the dots connecting. And even more so when you realize just how smart your parents were in placing you in a position to be able to achieve your biggest dreams. Throughout his life, Damian's parents, David and Doris Rivera, and his brother, Dr. David Rivera Jr., were the foundations by which he was able to achieve his dreams. His father was a college graduate and studied criminal justice, and his mother, although she didn't finish college, is a brilliant collaborator and learner whose life has been dedicated to giving back to the community through nonprofit work. When Damian thinks about growing up in Harlem, New York, the three biggest obstacles to achieving his aspirations were the knowledge gap, the access gap, and what he calls the “risk tolerance gap.”

First was the knowledge gap. And Damian wants to be very clear as to what he means by “knowledge gap.” This is not a capability gap. The issue has never been nor will it ever be that he or anyone else in the Latino community has a capability gap. To the contrary, by every measure of capability the Latino community excels. This is about knowledge of the opportunities. If his father had not opened up his eyes to what it meant to be an engineer, he would never have considered a technology degree in college. Knowing and seeing someone that looked like him as an engineer made it easy for him to picture himself in that space; a lot of people use the phrase “If you can see it, you can be it” (Ad Astra Media's motto). A proof point of this is that he also wanted to be a lawyer. But he didn't see any Latino lawyers in his neighborhood and so he never truly considered that as a career choice.

The second obstacle is access. This can be access to information, access to tools, or access to a network of people that can help you along the way. This is another area where Damian was extremely fortunate early in life. His parents put a computer in front of him when he was about seven years old, in 1982: a Commadore Vic 20 computer. They enrolled his brother in Lotus 1‐2‐3 classes and enrolled him in an after‐school and summer program called The Upward Fund. During the summer, this organization had a computer day camp where they were taught programming as well as dining etiquette, preparing them to feel confident when they would one day be in a corporate setting.

Knowledge and access are required but not sufficient. It's important to know where and how to apply your knowledge and access. Although Damian was not consciously aware of this fact until fairly recently, his tolerance for risk was extremely low. He would usually take the fairly safe route. Go to college, take the steady job, continue to perform in the job, and continue to progress. There was nothing wrong with that path but he never really evaluated other options that may have been slightly more risky but would have come with more reward. Looking back, Damian states, “I don't regret a thing.” He made it to be one of the top employees as a managing director at an established global company, Accenture. But if he could speak to his younger self he definitely would have encouraged him to pause and consider “What do you plan to do?” more often. And he would have encouraged his younger self to take more risks, earlier.

His father helped him with this later in life when he had an opportunity to take on a role that had the potential to get him to the position of managing director, but at the same time it was an extremely risky role. His father gave him some great words that he takes with him to this day. He said, “What's the worst that can happen? Worst case you can lose your job? Remember, we have been through worse, you'll be okay.” He gave him the strength to push to a whole new level of risk tolerance that has resulted in truly living his life to the fullest to this day.

The digital divide is narrowing dramatically within the Latino community. Although there are still issues with respect to internet access in many communities, we are seeing the Latino community persevering, adapting, and finding ways to connect. A report from Nielsen in March 2020 showed that 98 percent of Latino households have a smartphone as compared to 93 percent of the general population and are spending approximately 30‐plus hours per week on the smartphone.

The first thing he believes we need to do is to control what we can control as a community. By this, he means identifying opportunities to collaborate more efficiently as a Latino community across the country. There are a myriad of resources that we have as a community, from nonprofit organizations like ALPFA to educational institutions like the many HSI's, Es Tiempo, and Ad Astra Media. In addition, the growing number of Latino college graduates over the past few decades has created success stories across the globe and given risen to a strong group of Latino mentors and sponsors for the upcoming generation. If we mobilize our resources more efficiently as a group, we will be able to bridge the divide more effectively. In parallel, as we organize and collaborate we will see that we will have more power as a group and therefore be able to better push for the changes needed within social, political, and corporate arenas. One example of this is the work being done by Esther Aguilera, CEO of LCDA, who is building a coalition of Latino organizations to push for more Latinos to be appointed to boards and seeing success through those efforts. We are also seeing the same in the political arena with Nathalie Reyes, president and CEO of Latino Victory, helping to get more Latinos to run for political office. And I will also put my own organization in there as well. ALPFA is doing amazing things to educate and mobilize corporate professionals, helping them with the professional development and connections needed to navigate the corporate world and have a seat in that board room.

The answer to how we bridge the divide and create space in the room is a combination of controlling what we can control as a community while engaging in all aspects of life that have created the divide in the first place – from government policies to corporate boardrooms.

Damien has been working as an executive for a great organization that provides professional encouragement. So how do we help more Latinx succeed postcollege? How do you promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, especially in the digital age?

Damien responds: First, we have to live the values that we expect others to implement. Just like any other company we need to have processes and policies in place to ensure we live up to our values of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. It can be something as simple as the phrase we use when we describe ALPFA: “We are Latino focused, but not Latino exclusive, we welcome everyone.” The team nationally is extremely diverse, and you see the same thing with the professional and student chapters.

Second, enterprises have to serve their members and corporate partners. One of the keys to success has been how they have engaged in a wholistic approach to development. They expanded out to include six key areas of development: Business Masters, Professional EQ, Wealth Creation, Health and Wellness, Community Engagement, and Xtrapreneurship™. Within each of these areas they engage in discussions around personal growth as well as the hurdles to achieving the growth. The hurdles can range from things you can control, such as mindset, to things that may be out of your explicit control but that you can influence, such as workplace unconscious biases.

Through last year most of their programs were done in person or through webinars, but in August 2021 they launched a completely new learning, development, and engagement platform that he believes will further push the conversation. This platform is a cornerstone of making ALPFA a true digital nonprofit that will reach the Latino community at scale. They have seen the research that 98 percent of Latino homes have access to smartphones. At the same time, enterprises should know one of the biggest challenges to getting equal opportunities and being included is just the knowledge of the opportunity and access to it. This new platform will provide both to anyone who joins. At the same time, it will create the ability to provide engagement between corporations and the community in a way that will improve the discussions in the workplace between their own employees with the goal of those discussions translating to improved policies and practices.

Damien is not a big believer in “best practices,” and he proposes that what works well in one place may not in another. Best practices in theory come from a lot of places having successfully used them and the belief is that the practice is the right thing to do everywhere. However, best practices don't consider maximum potential. For example, someone could observe a 10 percent improvement in productivity from a specific supply chain process. The process is the best practice and therefore the 10 percent must be the best result. But they wouldn't have considered that maybe if they applied different processes, they could have reached a 20 percent or even 50 percent improvement. Also consider the algorithms that have been trained that the best practice is to hire from Harvard and Columbia because it looks like all the members of the senior executive team come from there, and therefore it must mean they have the best people. That then ties into the AI/ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning) issues that we will have. Training to follow best practices can be a slippery slope. As we consider how to promote leading practices and evaluate for effectiveness, we need to focus less on specific practices and more on the desired outcomes and the processes for ongoing implementation and testing of effectiveness so that each institution can reach its highest potential based on the demographics of the community being served. For example, if the academic setting is a commuter school (i.e., a school where most students do not live on campus) the needs will be different from those for a school where the majority of students live on campus. As a Latino community we need to be involved with our school districts. Starting in elementary school up through college level we need to have more Latinos on school boards and in decision‐making positions (i.e., deans, presidents, etc.). This requires deliberate collaboration among various organizations to put together a team to make a difference, for example, collaboration between associations and groups who know Latinos in the community who might be good candidates for school positions. This could lead to work with another group who knows how to prepare someone to run for an elected position. Or use the Latino network to identify someone who is qualified for a college board appointment. The power of the Latino network in getting qualified individuals into these positions will be critical, especially as schools begin to pivot to truly digital learning institutions where AI and ML capabilities will become more prevalent. We need to be in those rooms when the design decisions are made on how the new capabilities will be implemented.

We need to meet them where they are at. While Damien tries to stay away from generalizations, he leans into this one: Latino families are passionate about their children's education. His parents were for him and his brother, and the parents of ALPFA students are the same way. The great news is that studies show the Latino community has a growing rate in college enrollment in the country.

We see that Latino households are 98 percent smartphone enabled, and that Latinos are staying connected through podcasts, smart speakers, and radio shows. So we need to make sure that we are providing the information on how parents can best engage through these means. We need to create more podcasts and develop more voice‐enabled skills in Spanish and English. One thing we are doing in ALPFA is creating a learning path for parents of ALPFA students, targeted at first‐generation‐student parents. It will give the parents insight into what their child may be experiencing in school and how they can best help. This information will be in Spanish as well as English.

Mary Ann Gomez Orta is a first‐generation American of Mexican heritage. She is the first of five children born and raised in a farmworker camp 45 minutes away from what she calls “civilization,” also known as Stockton, California. Her family was poor in finances and rich in traditional values. Her father, Leonides Gomez, came to the United States from Michoacan, Mexico, in the Bracero Program. Her mom, Margaret Garcia, was born in Brownsville, Texas. They met while working in the fields of Chico, California.

Mary Ann is proud that all five siblings have college degrees. Mary Ann considers that the most significant accomplishment of her parents, who completed third grade, was making sure school was a priority for their children. Her dad used to say that, no matter what happens, no one can take away your education.

Mary Ann grew up speaking Spanish, watching shows on Univision, and dancing to American Bandstand. “I only had access to ABC, NBC, CBS, and Univision. The TV was my primary English language and American culture teacher.” Through that screen, she learned about other cultures, countries, languages, and religions. It filled her mind with possibilities.

While sorting potatoes in the packing shed, her mom learned about the University of the Pacific. Her comrades bragged about their daughters going there, so that became her mother's ambition about where Mary Ann was going, too.

Everything at the university was new to her – course topics, time management, loans, and working part‐time on campus. And the majority of her classmates were white, from higher socioeconomic beginnings. Her struggle was real. She received a letter she was on academic probation after her first semester. Upset and with a sense of obligation to her family, to not let them down, she asked for help. She was able to get through college with the support of person by the name of Allison Dumas with the Community Involvement Program. It also sparked a new drive in her. “I focused on graduating in front of my family.”

Since college graduation, she has mentored many students. She shares her story and encourages them to ask questions and ask for help.

Her personal experience on the digital divide is based on growing up in a farmworker camp. Whenever she would learn about new services, opportunities, or innovations, she would always ask herself, “Will children in farmworker camps have access to this? Will their schools offer it? Will their parents be able to afford it?”

What most children learn, are exposed to in life, or experience beyond what is in the home is through school. If they have access to digital assets at school, it does not matter what their parents can afford. Innovations supply opportunities and possibilities for equitable academic excellence.

Imagine elementary school boards, community college and university presidents, nonprofit and private sector leaders creating local task forces to design equitable digital solutions, to challenge leaders to be solution creators, not just problem solvers. If a decision‐making table doesn't exist, start one and decide who you want in those seats. A country's most potent natural resource is its people. If the United States is committed to being a global leader, digital resources must be a funding priority.

The Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute's (CHLI's) vision is advancing the Hispanic community's diversity of thought. The board of directors is a diverse group of Republican and Democratic members of Congress and corporate executives of different races, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, academic disciplines, and industries.

Diversity, equity, and Hispanic inclusion have always been at the core of CHLI. Before you can promote any concept, you have to invite people to join in the dialogue. As CHLI's CEO, Mary Ann has invited non‐Hispanics to be part of their programs. She believes that Hispanics, Latinos, or Latinx want to be invited, hired, promoted, and celebrated; she believes we start by inviting non‐Hispanics to our organizations, programs, and social occasions. How else are we to learn from each other? It's not about us or them or others. To succeed, it's about all of us supporting each other.

The foundation of empowerment is investment. Through the CHLI leadership, programs, and alumni activities, Congressional members invest in each other, interns, people, and organizations that support Hispanics. Mary Ann mentions that the most significant investments are in college students. They show them the power of diversity of thought, inclusion, individual and family pride, public service, and servant leadership.

Mary Ann encourages Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx to start by getting involved in a nonprofit at the local level that has a personal meaning to you. Sharpen your skills by practicing good governance, business basics, public relations, and policy. The skills one develops by serving on a nonprofit committee or board flow into other aspects of one's life purpose and day job.

Mary Ann would not be where she is today had she not taken the time to serve on a committee for the American Heart Association (AHA) in Sacramento in 1991. She chose the AHA because she had a brother who died of heart disease when he was only three years old. She learned about committee consensus, media relations, project management, event logistics, networking, and crisis communications. The added value? She also sharpened her advocacy voice.

One of the main obstacles to succeeding in nonprofits is imposter syndrome. It can be challenging to be positive and focus on the work, when most of our lives, we have been the recipients of discrimination and racial or ethnic bias. Mentorship, sponsorship, supportive networks, and life coaching are all ways to help realign goals. Like in any other sector, there may not be many of us at the top levels or even on the second‐tier level, but please do not let that stop you from going for it. Reach out for guidance. Maybe the seat is waiting for you!

Antonio Flores grew up in a very small and remote rural community in Jalisco, Mexico. The highest level of education available there was fifth grade, which was 150 percent higher than when his parents were young (second grade), and as such he became a first‐generation elementary school graduate. When a family of teachers that had been in his home community for some years was transferred to the city of Chapala they spoke to Antonio's parents and offered to take him with them. They believed he could further his education and finish sixth grade there. His parents agreed. This was a life‐changing experience for him.

After high school, he went to college to get a degree in education and teacher certification. He taught elementary school for 18 months. While he was working, he went back to college to study for a degree in business administration. The main obstacles to his success in college were the lack of money and a dearth of support networks.

In 1972, at age 25, he emigrated to the United States with the benefit of having a college education but without English proficiency. However, his collegiate experience helped him learn the new language rather rapidly. Two years later, he was admitted to a master's degree program, which he completed in three years while working at a college in Michigan. Years later, he enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Michigan. Every step of the way, he was fortunate to have been mentored and supported by great teachers, colleagues, and friends.

Also, he was able to combine his professional work with his graduate studies. What he was learning he could simultaneously apply to his work as some of his main career challenges were closely related to his studies. This made for his most helpful way of improving in his professional performance while also bringing real situations into his academic endeavors. It was a win‐win arrangement, which also helped him to advance professionally rather swiftly. This symbiotic approach has become part and parcel of his work everywhere, including HACU.

As such, his management style includes a heavy dose of continuous teaching and learning: “I share with my reports as much as possible what may be relevant to their own and our team's challenges, but also to seek their input in making important decisions. And they always try to avail themselves of the most current and pertinent information to reach sound conclusions.” It is a teaching and learning process grounded in HACU's mission and reality. His college and graduate education armed him with the tools to succeed as president and CEO of this great organization.

The digital divide is a manifestation of the deep inequality that prevails in our society. Those on the upper rungs of the socioeconomic ladder have the most access to broadband connectivity and advanced technology. Those at the bottom have neither. But higher education is the great equalizer and is more accessible and affordable for our emerging generations, even though it is still much more challenging for middle‐ and lower‐income students to get a college education than for those who are better off. Hispanic‐Serving Institutions (HSIs) are their community's engine for upward mobility. Higher education degrees are our ticket to leadership positions in society, whether corporate, civic, professional, technical, and so on.

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) advocates for greater government investments in HSIs and increased support from the private sector and develops and replicates programs and best practices in the education of Hispanics/Latinx. These efforts along with the support of our membership and partners create more and better higher education opportunities for underserved populations. HSIs not only educate two of every three of the nearly 4 million Hispanic college students, but also serve nearly one of every five African Americans and a plurality of Native Americans and Asian Americans in U.S. higher education, as well as a sizeable number of non‐Hispanic whites. Their diverse student population of 6.5 million strong makes HSIs a microcosm of twenty‐first‐century America. They at HACU are proud to be the voice of HSIs and of their crucial role in educating and training the national workforce for the high technology, high skills, and high critical thinking acumen required for America to remain competitive in the global economy.

The Latino community's best hope is a strong and thriving HSIs cohort, particularly in STEM fields. The 539 HSIs that HACU represents today may be over 600 in a couple of years as they grow by 26–30 per year. However, federal funding to strengthen and expand their capacity has not been growing concurrently. This has created a major inequity that continues to widen with each passing year. They need the national Hispanic community to engage with HACU in persuading the U.S. Congress and the administration to invest fairly in HSIs for the good of the entire country. They also need their help to scale up and institutionalize HACU's initiative to increase substantive collaboration between HSIs and PK–12 schools with large enrollments of Latino and other underserved populations.

PK–12 schools and HSIs need to revamp their outreach and engagement strategies for greater and better parental involvement in their children's education. Their staffing and faculty resources need to reflect the demographics of the families they serve, including competent bilingual/bicultural professionals. Providing access to informal bilingual educator content to augment formal curricula is also vital. Ad Astra Media has free and ready access to this type of content. With this foundation, they could develop new curricular content and materials that would allow them to engage parents as partners in the education of their children. Parents would need to be trained on how to use community resources and the home environment for improved learning and student outcomes, especially parents of limited‐English proficiency who are unfamiliar with the educational system. Engaged parents can be the key to their children's educational success.

From the time he was 4 until he was 14 years old, Francisco Jiménez's family moved from place to place, following seasonal crops throughout California's Central Valley to earn a living. During that time, they lived in farm labor camps, often in tents or old garages. They finally settled permanently in Bonetti Ranch, a migrant labor camp in Santa Maria, California. His father could not continue working in the fields because of severe back problems. Consequently, his older brother and he worked as janitors 35 hours a week to support their family while still attending school. He studied late into the night after work, seven days a week. In spite of these difficulties, he graduated from high school with honors and received several local scholarships that covered the expenses of his first year at Santa Clara University (SCU). His younger brother, who was a freshman in high school at the time, took over his janitorial job so he could attend college. He was the first in his family to pursue higher education.

Through his writing, public service, and teaching, he promotes diversity and inclusion. He wrote The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (Cajas de cartón), Breaking Through (Senderos fronterizos), Reaching Out (Más allá de mí), Taking Hold (La Mariposa), and The Christmas Gift/El regalo de Navidad to chronicle part of his family's history but also, more importantly, to document the experiences of a large sector of our society that has been frequently ignored. Through his writing he hopes to give readers an insight into the lives of migrant farm workers, whose noble and back‐breaking labor of picking fruits and vegetables puts food on our tables. Their courage, struggles, and hopes and dreams for a better life for their children and their children's children give meaning to the term “American dream.” Their story is an important and integral part of the American story.

Through his roles with the Modern Language Association (MLA), he created an ongoing discussion group on Chicano literature to develop a more inclusive literary canon so that the students may see their stories represented as part of the American narrative. As cofounder and coeditor of The Bilingual Review/La revista bilingue, later the Bilingual Press, he has played a role in giving access to Latinx writers whose high‐quality works are often not accepted by mainstream publishers.

He was appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing by then California Governor Jerry Brown, serving as chair for 2 of his 10 years of service. (The Commission is the state agency responsible for establishing credential requirements for all teachers and administrators in California public schools.) During his tenure on the Commission, he strongly supported bilingual education and the continuation and expansion of the requirement that all teachers, during their training, receive instruction that generates awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity. Likewise, during his 6‐year tenure on the Western Association Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities (WASC) he advocated for integrating diversity in the nine standards used for accrediting colleges and universities in California, Hawaii, and Guam.

As a professor and administrator at Santa Clara, he helped create a community‐based learning program, which currently engages more than 1,100 students – almost a quarter of the undergraduate population – each year in service‐learning placements throughout the Silicon Valley region. He also worked to establish the University's Ethnic Studies Program and the Eastside Future Teachers Project, which provides college preparatory mentoring and, after college admission, scholarships for approximately 30 East San José high school students interested in pursuing teaching careers. As an associate vice president for academic affairs, he administered an “Excellence through Diversity” grant for $1 million from the James Irvine Foundation. The purpose of the grant was to engage all professors in the different disciplines in teaching, research, and service that enhanced ethnic and racial diversity at SCU. Dr. Jimenez advocates for multicultural education at SCU and elsewhere to ensure that students of different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds can appreciate the perspectives of all kinds of people.

As a public speaker, he is frequently invited by county offices of education, school districts, libraries, migrant programs, and community reading programs to make presentations. Oftentimes, he has spent a week in residence visiting six or seven schools in a county prior to holding a community‐wide presentation. In addition, he has collaborated with the PEN International Foundation to facilitate extended visits to rural Oregon and Florida and continues to appear at benefits for nonprofit educational organizations.

His hope is that his writing, teaching, and public service have helped create a more inclusive, compassionate, and humane society.

Based on his traumatic experience of failing first grade because he did not know English, he believes Latinos in educational positions can and should promote equity and equality in education. Professors in teacher education programs, for example, can prepare teachers to value the linguistic and cultural assets of all their students and create culturally relevant curricula for language‐minority students. The foundational goal of Ad Astra Media was to create culturally appropriate informal science content to teach and inspire individuals from underserved communities and grant access to that content to schools and enterprises. Latinos serving on school boards can pressure state boards of education to include early childhood education mandates for providing language support services for preschool ELL (English language learners) students. They can also implement bilingual programs that maintain and develop both the native language and English.

His parents' involvement in his formal education was limited because they did not speak English and, since they were never able to attend school, they were not familiar with school environments. However, they taught their children the important lessons about life—the values faith and hope, respect, hard work, and perseverance. Nevertheless, he believes that his parents would have been able to be more engaged in his education if the school system had offered them more support. As such, there are various things that can be done to improve parent participation in their children's education: (a) communicate with parents in ways that show them respect and appreciation; (b) create a warm, safe, and inviting environment for them so that they feel welcomed; (c) inform them about the benefits of helping their children to maintain their native language and culture; (d) inform them about their rights and the policies of the school system; (e) provide them with language support and translation if they are non‐English speakers; (f) acknowledge and communicate to them the important role they play in the home and in the school for their children to experience and achieve greater gains and academic success; (g) establish an outreach program designed to develop relationships with Latino families; (h) create informal STEM content to inspire future generations of innovators and entrepreneurs. Listen to their concerns, needs, interest areas, and learn about assets and resources within their community.

He and his family lived in a small rural village in the northern part of Jalisco, Mexico, and when he was four years old, they crossed the United States–Mexican border without documentation to escape their poverty and to seek a new and better life. For the next nine years, they moved from place to place following seasonal crops to make a living. At the age of six, he began to work in the fields alongside his parents and older brother, to help make ends meet. During that time, he yearned for stability, for a place to call his own. His desire for a permanent home came, in large part, out of his wish to attend school without interruption. He disliked missing two and a half months of school every year and finding himself way behind in his studies. He enjoyed learning even though school was difficult for him, especially English class. He found a sense of stability and permanence in education, in learning – whatever he learned in school and on his own, that knowledge went with him no matter how many times he moved. It was his to have and to hold.

When he was in the eighth grade, they were deported back to Mexico. Later, he returned to the United States legally, thanks to a Japanese sharecropper for whom he picked strawberries. The sharecropper loaned them money and sponsored them. It was at this time that they settled permanently in Bonetti Ranch, a migrant labor camp in Santa Maria, California. His first year at Santa Clara University was challenging. He felt torn between his responsibilities as a student and his sense of duty to his family. He had self‐doubt about being capable of succeeding academically and had a difficult time adjusting to an environment that was different from the community in which he was raised. But he quickly discovered that his migrant experiences were both an obstacle and a blessing. They were an obstacle to the extent that he did not have the social, economic, and educational experiences that some of my classmates enjoyed. However, they were a blessing because they served as a constant reminder of how fortunate he was to be in college. Those experiences convinced him that he should do everything within his power to forge ahead in his studies and not give up. He used those experiences that initially pulled him down to boost himself up. Whenever he felt discouraged, he would jot down recollections about his childhood and prayed to the Virgen de Guadalupe. For the next three years, he received full tuition scholarships from Santa Clara and free room and board in exchange for being a resident assistant. He also worked in the language lab, assisted a professor in her research, and tutored students in Spanish at Bellarmine High School. In 1966, when he was a senior at SCU, he joined César Chávez in the march to Sacramento. As a result of that transformative experience, he pledged to use his education to help alleviate the plight of farm workers.

After graduating from Santa Clara University, he received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to attend Columbia University where he received a master's degree and PhD in Latin American literature with emphasis on Mexican literature and culture. His education gave him the context for understanding social injustice, and his childhood experiences gave him the courage and drive to help create a more inclusive and just society through his teaching, public service, and writing.

Based on his educational experiences, his advice to students seeking higher education is to believe in themselves, be confident of their talents and abilities, stay true to their goals, meet challenges with courage and faith, and ask for help when needed. He could have never succeeded in college without the help and guidance he received from his professors.

He believes that the Latino community has the talent and expertise to establish Latino colleges and universities. However, the financial resources to realize that goal are a huge challenge. Several years ago, Roberto Cruz founded National Hispanic University in San José, California. It offered degrees in several disciplines, focusing on preparing bilingual teachers. It struggled financially for several years. Eventually, a for‐profit organization took it over, but it too failed due to lack of capital. The campus is now Roberto Cruz Leadership Academy High School, which aptly prepares students for college.

Angel Navarro was born in East Los Angeles. He spent formative years from (ages 4–10) in Mexico with his father's family. Angel returned to the United States in 1974 at age 10 to live with his mother and two older siblings. He and his siblings attended East Los Angeles schools. He is a first‐generation college graduate and the only attorney ever in his entire family. His older sister and older brother both attended and graduated from four‐year colleges. His mother did not have money to pay for college. They relied on student loans, grants, and scholarships. College and law school were both difficult. Coming out of ELA (Garfield High School), he began to learn to speak English at age 10, which proved to be challenging. Law school was particularly difficult for him (UCLA Law class of 1990).

The one teacher Angel remembers that got him through all of this was the iconic teacher Mr. Escalante. Jaime Escalante continues to have a positive influence in his life. He did not know it at the time, but he was probably the most inspirational teacher he ever had. He was part of his AP Calculus class in 1982–1983. Angel's class was the class that followed the infamous class of 1982 that was accused of cheating. He can recall that during his senior year at Garfield High School there was constant media attention and TV crews were routinely in his classroom. They had no idea why and Mr. Escalante never told them why. They all knew it had taken place in 1982 but he purposely shielded them from any media scrutiny. He had taken other AP exams prior to the AP Calculus and he was familiar with the process. Typically, their AP teacher would give them an exam and he or she would monitor them to make sure that they completed the exam in the allotted time. When Angel took the AP Calculus exam in May of 1983, he took the exam in the library and Mr. Escalante was not in the room with them. Angel still remembers that he hugged each one of them as they left the classroom and they headed to the library. At the library, there were some people they had never met before. They were apparently monitors from the Educational Testing Center from Princeton, New Jersey, who had been sent to make sure that they were not cheating. This made him very angry. Angel could only imagine now how horrible Mr. Escalante must have felt knowing that these people still could not believe that a bunch of Brown students were outperforming most other students in this very difficult exam. As it turned out, 31 out of 33 of his classmates passed the AP Calculus exam in 1983. They showed those people from New Jersey they were not cheating.

The greatest lesson Angel learned from Mr. Escalante was to never give up. He always told them they were the best. He can still hear his voice saying things like: “You can do it, kid,” “You are the best,” “Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.” During his years at Occidental College from 1983 to 1987, he would visit him on a regular basis. He was not too happy with him. He wanted him to study engineering, but he had no interest in studying that field. When Angel told him that he wanted to study law, he did not quite understand that either. He felt that he would have been better off studying engineering as opposed to his double major in political science and economics at Occidental College.

In 1986, Angel was preparing to apply to law school and he was thinking of completing a triple major at Occidental College. He had taken a number of history courses and really wanted to do a major in history as well. His college advisor called him into his office and told him that unfortunately he would not be able to complete a third major for the reason that Occidental College was no longer going to be giving him college credit for his AP Calculus score. He was angry after he was told that he would have to take Calculus in college. He had not taken any math classes at Oxy since he had been told that his AP Calculus score was enough to meet the college math requirements. In any event, Angel went back to his high school and talked to Mr. Escalante. He assured him that he was the best and that he should take the college calculus class and show the people at Occidental College just how smart Escalante's kids really were.

Here is a true story: In the fall of 1986, during his first quarter of Angel's senior year at Occidental College, he took calculus with a group of mostly pre‐med students. He was not happy to be in the class since this was preventing him from completing a senior thesis in history and he would not be able to graduate from Occidental College with a triple major. Over the course of the next 10 weeks he received 100 percent in every test and quiz. The final exam was supposed to take three hours to complete. He completed the exam in one hour and gave it to the math professor and told her to use his exam as the key to grade the other exams. She stopped the test and told the entire class that it had been an honor having one of Jaime Escalante's AP Calculus students in her class. This is the influence that Mr. Escalante had on Angel.

He worked as a federal public defender for 18 years (1992–2010). He has been working independently since January of 2010. He is a member of the Criminal Justice Act panel and will continue to represent indigent defendants. He also represents persons in privately retained cases. He enjoys the independence of being his own boss.

The law lacks diversity. Things have not changed much since he became an attorney. The number of attorneys who are people of color is very small. He is always available to mentor and encourage as many people of color to become attorneys.

Angel believes that we need people of color in positions of power to change the narrative. He emphasizes the need for connections, capital, and vision, among other factors.

David was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was a first‐generation college student. He was the second in his immediate family to attend and graduate from college and receive a Bachelors of Arts degree. As an academically underprepared student, he fortunately qualified and participated in a program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) that provided intensive, personal, and academic support and counseling. He also qualified to participate in a four‐year undergraduate work‐study program that exposed him to the field of education and provided him access to numerous dynamic and supportive mentors. The mentoring and intensive academic and personal support (at the undergraduate and graduate levels) were keys to his success. Mentors continued to play a significant role in his growth and development in his subsequent professional experiences as a teacher, college professor, and university president.

Silicon Valley is a leading economic and innovation engine well known across the globe, yet when it comes to wealth, economic, educational, and technological disparities the gap is one of the most significant in this area. It is in many ways the tale of two Silicon Valleys. In the heart of Silicon Valley there are particular zip codes where an overwhelming majority of people live in extreme poverty. These communities, mostly people of color, painfully struggle every day with the high costs of housing, food, transportation, healthcare, childcare, and education. Ironically, many of these low‐income individuals are classified as “essential workers” and are necessary to the functioning of Silicon Valley; yet they find it exceedingly difficult to live and thrive here. The overwhelming majority are not positioned or prepared to compete for higher paying jobs, especially high‐tech industry jobs. Joint Venture Silicon Valley in their 2019 Silicon Valley Index reported that locally only 18 percent of Latinos 25 years and older in Silicon Valley hold a bachelor's degree compared to whites at 62 percent.

For the most part, lower‐income people of color are relegated to low‐paying jobs and remain undereducated, under‐resourced, and undervalued. Leading local employers such as Google, Adobe, Apple, Facebook, and other employers report they can't find enough qualified local talent and continue to recruit heavily from other countries or from other states. In order to address this educational crisis and disparity and not allow people of color to be left behind in the educational, technological, social, and economic advances of this area, we must remove the barriers and prohibitive costs of educational, technological, and socioeconomic opportunities and racism. We must be bold and innovative and strategically invest in ways that level the playing field and have the greatest impact on this historically neglected community. And we must inspire kids of all ages to study and enter STEM careers, as Ad Astra Media states, to show them the magic of STEM.

COVID‐19 has also unveiled the deep and underlying inequities, systemic racism, and white supremacy so prevalent and dominant in our communities here and beyond. The impacts are felt the hardest by Black, Brown, and Asian communities, and the appropriate response and recovery period is going to be critical to the success of these communities moving forward. Investments and interventions must address the specific needs, interests, and challenges of people of color.

In this regard, government agencies, technology powerhouses, other businesses, and nonprofits have a very unique opportunity in the current environment to strategically collaborate and invest the financial and human resources needed to address the devastation in our low‐income communities. What is needed is an eco‐system that supports and guides the success of low‐income people of color from preschool to college to career. Silicon Valley tech giants, other business partners, and nonprofits should work together with select educational organizations and establish a Preschool to High‐Tech Pipeline Prototype (PHTPP).

The PHTPP would be a bold and innovative initiative to create an aligned educational pipeline prototype for select low‐income students and families of color and their schools. A special focus using new and emerging technologies and informal STEM edutainment could help students and their families as they navigate and succeed in pre‐ and post‐secondary education. This prototype would be an intentional vertically aligned educational pipeline commencing with select middle and high schools and eventually adding elementary and preschool feeders.

This prototype would address one of the most nagging and decades‐long persistent educational challenges in the region, state, and the nation, the systemic and successful education of low‐income people of color. This challenge may seem undoable and like a “moon shot.” But what if a tech company took it on as a moon shot? One such company exists in the Silicon Valley and prides itself in taking on the world's toughest problems and finding solutions. Google X is a specially designed organization within Google that has a mission to address large social problems and find workable solutions.

What if? What if Google X spearheaded the challenge along with others in creating a successful and bold educational and technological prototype for educating low‐income people of color? Imagine harnessing Google X's brainpower and other new and emerging technologies and creating a blueprint for success with vulnerable populations right here in the innovation center of the world. What if?

As an educational entrepreneur, David works to create innovative and bold equitable and inclusive solutions in their schools that primarily serve low‐income students of color. The following is an example of promoting equity and inclusion using digital technology to help struggling and vulnerable communities. Because of COVID‐19, all schools have faced a level of disruption unlike any other time in recent history. California's closure of schools and shelter in place to slow down the spread of COVID‐19 have abruptly transitioned teachers and students and their parents to an online instructional format. In these uncertain times, we are not sure about the total impact on our students, families, and their teachers, especially lower‐income students of color. Early on in the pandemic, Harvard researcher Raj Chetty found that “Lower income students saw a 60 percent reduction in learning math online and they did not return to previous levels. Higher income students early on experienced a sharp dip in math and within a few weeks the higher income students were back to previous baseline levels or exceeding them.”

Even though schools have committed to working hard to provide the best online educational and learning experiences possible, it is fair to say that the educational process and academic success for low‐income learners has become much more questionable and challenging.

Educational professionals are challenged in identifying the best and effective online approaches and solutions to help all students, especially the most vulnerable learners. What is known is that low‐income learners have limited access to technological hardware, internet accessibility, and knowledge of how to use the technology. These low‐income families, especially Latinos and African Americans, have to also cope with the pandemic‐related challenges such as the health, economic, and social/emotional tolls experienced by these communities.

As a result of the unrelenting crisis, he has teamed with some educational colleagues and he has launched a small pilot program for “struggling” low‐income middle school students not performing up to their potential in this new environment. The goal of the pilot program is to engage, inspire, and motivate middle school students by having them tutor struggling third‐grade children in math using a technological online platform.

Early indications are revealing that our middle school students are benefiting from tutoring and mentoring third graders. According to school personnel, the middle school students seem to be exhibiting a better sense of belonging and we are beginning to show improvements in their academic and emotional well‐being. Our immediate goal is to demonstrate the positive impact this program can have with middle school students and their third‐grade buddies. David hopes to grow the program into the next academic year and scale it throughout the district's middle schools serving low‐income students of color. Perhaps the program can grow to serve the increasing number of struggling middle school students throughout Santa Clara County. David believes this is a program that will benefit and provide equity and success for many students of color and their families even way beyond the coronavirus.

California's students of color today make up about 70 percent of the state's student population, while teachers of color are disproportionately at about 30 percent. This challenge is more pronounced for Latinos who, according to the California Department of Education in 2015, comprise approximately 54 percent of the total student K–12 population with only 19 percent Latino teachers. At the national level, the new majority of students of color is over 50 percent, the percentage of teachers who identify as white is 82 percent, and teachers of color comprise about 18 percent. Latino and African American males in the teaching field account for only about 2 percent. Bold initiatives are crucial components to finding replicable solutions for the current educational crisis's impact on students of color, as recent studies exemplify. There are myriad studies that show a direct link between the presence of a teacher of color in the classroom and the subsequent success of students of color.¹

Districts in California, Wisconsin, Indiana, Alabama, and other states are pledging to employ more teachers who look like their students, according to a recent Brookings Institute report from 2016. However, the report also suggests that “significant progress is realistically very slim, even looking forward nearly 50 years, and will require exceptionally ambitious patches to fix the leaky pipeline into the teaching profession.” Examples of the “leaky pipeline” in California are how Latino and African Americans students continue to seriously lag well behind their Asian and white peers across the educational spectrum (research conducted by the California Department of Education, 2017). These figures are particularly jarring when comparing their performance against that of their Asian and white counterparts, who hold proficiency rates of 72 percent and 60 percent in reading during the same period, respectively. In mathematics, a recent report entitled “Silicon Valley Competitive and Innovation Project 2016” showed that only 2 out of 10 Latino and African American students in the Silicon Valley region are math proficient at the eighth‐grade level, while 8 in 10 Asians and whites are meeting or exceeding the new state standards.

For students of color, the deplorable statistics above and much lower high school and college graduation rates and lack of interest in entering the teaching profession are “the leaks” in the pipeline to produce teachers in California and beyond.

We must address and remedy the glaring opportunity gaps in the state's educational and teacher education pipeline for teachers of color. The most significant leaks in the educational pipeline for students of color, particularly Latinos and African Americans, are graduation rates from high school and college coupled with interest in pursuing a teaching career. We must encourage programs that identify, recruit, encourage, and prepare students of color to become teachers as early as middle school, high school, and at the community college level.

The Latino community as well as other people should demand that institutions of higher education in the region and state work aggressively with the pre‐K–12 system to address the challenges of producing much‐needed teachers of color. David mentions how we can attract and efficiently fast‐track students of color into the teaching profession and increase the available pool of teachers from underserved and low‐income communities to serve as role models. A movement or a campaign is also needed to promote, support, and encourage Latinos to become teachers.