Elvia Perez

Meet the Founder

About Me

My name is Elvia Perez and I am a current freshman at Brown University.

I am a first generation low-income Latina, who was raised in a community that did not provide me access to a lot of resources that would solidify a college bound path and I wanted to do something to change that. Latino Empowerment has worked persistently, organizing meetings, events, and activities to provide students access to resources such as scholarships, summer programs, and other opportunities that would propel them to become successful individuals. We have given presentations about summer programs at Yale University, UCLA, and USC. I have been incredibly fortunate and have been able to attend summer programs at both Yale and UCLA and the most astonishing aspect was seeing how underrepresented the Latino community was at these programs. That is something I strongly hope to change by informing our community about the many resources and opportunities out there and by encouraging more students to apply to them. I want to help Latinos/Latinas all around the nation have more access to resources.

What Inspired You?

I clearly remember hearing the news of President Trump repealing DACA. This social injustice inspired me to take a stand. I founded the Latino Empowerment Club at my school in hopes of creating a stronger sense of unity within our community, as well as empowering Latino youth to obtain higher education. “People without education are like weapons without bullets.” I strongly believe that education is the only way to empower our communities, enabling us to break the perpetual cycle of crime and poverty prevalent within them.

What We Have Accomplished

In addition to giving presentations about scholarship and summer program opportunities, Latino Empowerment has been able to get guest speakers to talk about their experiences to students. These extremely inspirational Latinos/Latinas in our communities included: Melisa Santizo: a Harvard sophomore that advocates for the rights of undocumented immigrants, Andrea Martinez: a Brown alumni that received her masters at USC and is now working in Kaiser Permanente, and James Alva: a Stanford alumni that is now the Senior Vice President and California Market Manager of Citibank. (James is the youngest person in the nation to have this position) We hope that by having guest speakers come in and share their life stories, our members will realize that getting into top schools and obtaining executive positions is a possibility for them despite what others may think or say.