In 1961, Dr. Antonia Pantoja and a group of Puerto Rican educators and professionals created ASPIRA (which means aspire in Spanish) to address the exceedingly high drop-out rate and low educational attainment of Puerto Rican youth. They were convinced that the only way to free the Puerto Rican community from poverty and promote its full development was by focusing on young people’s education and developing their leadership potential, self-esteem, and pride in their cultural heritage. This was the best way, they believed, of ensuring that youth would become productive members of society and leaders for the development of their own community. ASPIRA conveyed in its name the expectation that Puerto Rican youth could succeed if they dared to aspire.

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Since its formation, ASPIRA has grown from a small nonprofit agency in New York City to a national association with statewide Associate organizations in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, including Puerto Rico, and the National Office in Washington, D.C.

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Presently, ASPIRA serves over 85,000 students each year in over 400 schools through its core activity, the ASPIRA Clubs. ASPIRA provides leadership training, career and college counseling, financial aid, scholarship assistance, educational advocacy, cultural activities, and most importantly, continuing opportunities to implement community action projects.

 

Throughout its existence, ASPIRA’s commitment to its initial mission of leadership development has remained unchanged. All programs still aim to help Latino/youth develop their intellectual and leadership potential to achieve educational excellence and make a long-term contribution to improving their own lives and their community but also reaches out to include all non-Latinos.