Despite Digital Divide Latinas Are Empowered By The Internet

By Laura Donnelly Gonzalez, co-founder Latinitas

Navigating the youth conference circuit, I’m always astounded by enthusiastic representatives from corporate curriculum companies who swear the digital divide is declining, often through flashy multimedia commercials. Those of us working in the trenches of non-profit minority youth technology training stare quizzically at each other when these entities boisterously exclaim: “The gap is closing!”

For whom? We wonder, as over 93% of the girls and teens we serve with digital media education in Central and West Texas do not have a computer at home, and of the 7% who do, phone and Internet service is spotty, to say the least. I’m wondering where my enthusiastic colleagues are getting their data. Palo Alto High School?

Serving thousands of young Latinas ages 8 to 18 with Latinitas, I’m floored each year as this statistic barely budges, 11 years into the 21st century, decades into the Digital Era. Essentially, these kids have less access than my baby boomer parents, who at least, were using my Atari 800XL in high school to play solitaire.

The statistics are alarming, but in the spirit of Latino youth in the United States rising above adversity as a way of life, sometimes, Latina girls and teens are finding their own way. They find online resources, despite lack of access to laptops and Internet terminals. According to the Pew Research Center:

• Teens from low-income households are much more likely than other teens to go online using a cell phone and
• 35% of Hispanic teens use their cell phones to go online, compared with 21% of white teens.
• 21% of teens who do not otherwise go online say they access the Internet on their cell phone.

So what does a mid-sized non-profit focused on empowering young Latinas using media and technology do about this? We have created a series of activities girls can complete in after school clubs using available Internet access, but also at home through a family smart phone, which (crossing our fingers) we hope to see as the standard of cell phone technology soon.

Girls are not only using cell phone applications, but are creating them too.

My favorites generated this semester include “Trackarama,” developed by a Mexican-American student in a Central Texas middle school that keeps track of your most important deadlines and appointments existing in your head. I told her I’d be her first investor. She has to define its cost, purpose, competition and value in a short business plan. While other apps help with homework and others send off a bully-signal when one is approaching, others get comical assisting with ordering Church’s (or as many say down here in Tejas – “Churchy’s”) Chicken.

For my corporate peers claiming they empower youth with technology, I have yet to see one of your infomercials really put Latina girls at the helm of technology development through the avenues in which they have the most access — and that’s okay because we will continue to do so.

Latinitas is a non-profit organization focused on informing, entertaining, and inspiring young Latinas to grow into healthy, confident, and successful Latinas.