SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s ever-growing Latino community is being offered support and resources to help members gain academic success with the help of the Mexican Consulate of Salt Lake City's Binational Education Week.

"Education Builds Bridges" is the theme of this year’s event, which began Monday and extends through Nov. 24. During the week, various workshops will be available across the Salt Lake Valley to help Latino families, both migrant and natural-born, learn and understand what access they have to higher education and classes, such as English as a second language.

Tuesday’s opening ceremony aimed to establish that these resources aren’t solely applicable to students, but to every person within the community and outside the classroom.

"We need to recognize that learning can happen in so many ways. It doesn’t just happen in classrooms and on campuses," said Sen. Ann Millner, R-Ogden. "It happens with work experiences and in a broad range of lives. We have to align our systems to be able to recognize that and make them more permeable."

Oftentimes, recruitment is done and information regarding one's ability to attend school is given during a student’s junior or senior year of high school, said higher education representatives from Utah Valley University and Weber State University. This, however, isn’t the norm for Latino students, as they should understand that their presence in higher institutions is not only valued but wanted.

"We cannot wait to reach out to the Latino population when they’re in the 11th and 12th grade; it doesn’t work that way," said Yudi Lewis, director of the Latino Initiative at UVU. "We need to start that conversation much earlier, about higher education; and not just that, but about the fact that they (Latino students) belong there."

Knowledge about where these students come from, such as their backgrounds and primary languages spoken at home, are some of the driving factors in helping them pursue secondary educational goals.

Richard Pater, CEO and executive director for Guadalupe Schools, helps oversee and plan the academic success of its five programs, which include education classes that start in the home when the student is a baby and continue up into adulthood.

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Salt Lake City's Mexican Consulate helps give migrants the resources to find educational success

The Mexican Consulate is hosting the opening ceremony Tuesday for its third Binational Education Week, a program dedicated to helping immigrant Mexicans find ways to return to, or continue, their education.

According to Pater, approximately 90% of the families they help speak very little to no English at all in the home. Their program prepares both the child and their parents to obtain academic success while seeking advancement in a different culture and using education to change their life.

"Our whole focus is literally to help the families and the parents interact with their child's education in a way that retains power and focus," said Pater.

Not all Latino families in the community have the support and guidance that is offered up in a way that occurs at the Guadalupe Schools. Systemic barriers, politically charged climates that may cause fear and insecurities within the community, can affect the way Latinos look at their educational goals and accessibility.

Nonprofit centers like Comunidades Unidas help to empower Latinos by offering resources to help each individual take part in community engagement and facilitate positive change. Luis Garza, executive director for Comunidad Unidas, says regardless of issues involving legal status or immigration, parents should be involved in their children’s education.

"Parents have a voice and they have a right to speak out about issues that concern them and their children," said Garza.

The general overview of an event like binational education week isn’t solely based on getting Latino children and adults into a university, rather it’s helping them understand their education pathway shouldn’t be — and isn’t — limited by costs of school, language barriers or sense of unimportance within the educational system or in the workforce.

"We need to make sure we keep in mind the changing demographics here in the state of Utah and how we connect with partners and local, state and federal government to provide funding for these types of services to be successful," said Enrique Romo, executive director of access and diversity at Weber State University.

Throughout the week, workshops and informative sessions about scholarships, ESL classes, primary education programs and legal rights for undocumented Utahns will take place. The full list of events and their times can be found on the Mexican Consulate of Salt Lake City’s website.

Those who are looking to volunteer within the Latino community and learn about programs available to them, as well as information regarding DACA and immigration, can check out the Comunidades Unidas website.

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