The Common Sense Latino Story

Researched-backed, community-grounded resources for Spanish-speaking families.

Common Sense was founded in 2003 to help all families make smart media choices. Since the beginning, we have looked for ways to serve Spanish-speaking families. In 2007, media outreach efforts helped us spread the word about our work in the Latino community. In 2009, we launched our pioneering Digital Citizenship Curriculum in schools nationwide -- and made sure our classroom materials were also available in Spanish.

As part of our 2015–2017 strategic plan, our senior leadership team decided to launch a full initiative to serve Latino families. As a result, Common Sense Latino was launched in August 2015. Our comprehensive approach blends culture and language to connect with Latino families and respond to their unique media and technology needs. Today, we have an engaged and growing community online and offline. We support lower-income Latino families with practical advice, educational technology tools, and much more to help them thrive in today's fast-paced digital world.

Watch the Common Sense Latino video collection to learn more about our program and hear stories from the families who inspire our daily work.

For more information on how you can get involved and help grow our program, please contact:

Viviana Reverón
Senior Director, Family and Community Engagement
[email protected]

2015: Latino Starts Taking Form The beginning of our story shows a national campaign in partnership with Univision that allows us to reach the Latino community through the media and on the ground. In parallel, we launch Common Sense Latino, a dedicated space within the website, and start building our content library

2016: Entering Year 2 As we wrap up the campaign with Univision, we focus our efforts on media syndication and social media partners. One of our early wins: A local story that airs on Univision 14 (Northern California) based on our white paper about body image receives an Emmy.

2017: Latina Moms Know …
With a touch of humor, some of our frequent users tell us about their families' experiences with media and technology. Latina moms are not afraid of setting rules for media use, they know technology is important, and they love Common Sense Latino.

2017: Mary Chuy's Story We share the story of a Mexican immigrant who came to the U.S. looking for better opportunities for her family. On top of the challenges she faces as an immigrant, she has to deal with the ever-changing world of technology that her kids are consumed by. Common Sense Latino provides the support she needs to navigate the digital world.

2018: Our On-the-Ground Work in Los Angeles The video that made us one of the finalists of the My LA2050 Activation Challenge explains in depth our work on the ground with Latino families in Los Angeles. This is how we connect with parents who don't have email accounts but who want to guide their children and don't know where to start.

Common Sense Latino: The Whole Story This is the story of how Common Sense Latino evolved to become a full program that reaches Latino families through multiple channels. This video shows how we went from media outreach to a program that combines high-quality content, social media presence, and syndication partnerships with on-the-ground efforts.

2018: Outdoor Screening of Coco in Spanish Hundreds of Latino families gathered in LA State Historic Park in a culturally immersive event with children's Ballet Folklórico groups, mariachi youth, pintacaritas (face painting), and a screening of Disney Pixar's Coco en español with English subtitles. Kids, parents, and abuelitos celebrated their heritage and received fun giveaways as well as Common Sense Latino resources.

2019: Outdoor Screening of Coco in Spanish Partnering with LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in LA, we co-hosted a Coco screening and Día de los Muertos Family Day. We had over 3,000 attendees enjoying the various activities, from face painting to youth performances to art and food workshops. It was all completely free and open to the community.