SAN JOSE, Calif. — As it prepares to turn 100, the Boy Scouts of America is honing its survival skills for what might be its biggest test yet: drawing Latinos into its declining — and mostly white — ranks.
“We either are going to figure out how to make Scouting the most exciting, dynamic organization for Hispanic kids, or we’re going to be out of business,” said Rick Cronk, former national president of the Boy Scouts, and chairman of the World Scout Committee.
The venerable Scouts remains the United States’ largest youth organization, with 2.8 million children and youths, nearly all of them boys. But that is nearly half its peak membership, reached in 1972.
Its rolls took hits through the 1980s and ’90s over a still-standing ban on gay or atheist leaders, and scandals surrounding inflated membership numbers. In addition, teenagers raised on TV and shoot-’em-up games had less use for learning to build a campfire or memorize the Scout oath.
The country changed too. One in five children under 18 is Latino, according to the U.S. census. But they make up only 3 percent of Scouts.
Cronk made Latino outreach a focus after he realized that just translating brochures into Spanish, or combining Cub Scouting with soccer, was not enough to meet the goal of doubling Latino membership by the group’s centennial in 2010.
“We were nibbling around the edges,” Cronk said. “We knew very little about the Hispanic family, how they see us, what they value.”
To work, changes will have to run deep, said Julio Cammarota, a University of Arizona professor who has researched Latino youth.
Scouts will have to work with Latinos’ strong family connections and relax the focus on individual achievement, Cammarota said.
Creating activities where younger boys learn from the older ones — much as they rely on siblings and cousins within the extended family — will also feel more comfortable.
“They’d be better off starting with a carne asada (a meat dish)in a city park,” Cammarota said. “Sending their kids away on their own, that’s not familiar.”
Scouting’s traditional values dovetail well with those of Latino families — respect, discipline and community involvement — said Carlos Alcazar, chief executive of Hispanic Communications Network, which developed the 2009 strategy after conducting a year-long survey of Latino attitudes toward the Scouts.
