Truckee High graduate Marlenne Carrillo is living a storied post-high school career. She studied political science and Chicano studies at San Diego State University, is currently attending Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and this summer will work at a civil rights law firm.
But none of this would have happened without La Fuerza Latina and Truckee High English teacher Craig Rowe.
La Fuerza Latina (the Latin Force) is a free college admissions counseling service and empowerment network for low income, first generation, high-achieving Hispanic students. Started by Rowe in 2015, LFL is a one-man show that has single-handedly changed the lives of local Hispanic youth, opening their eyes to opportunities they didn’t know existed and changing the fates of their futures and that of their families.
Rowe, whose mother is from Mexico, moved to Truckee 10 years ago. When he first started at Truckee High, Rowe said he pulled aside two high-performing Latina students after class and asked them about their plans for taking the SATs and applying to college. He was met with blank stares. He realized these girls had no academic support and no knowledge about the college application process since their parents were immigrants who had never applied to higher education.
“My thing about Truckee is not about should there be a certain list of schools if you’re financially successful and a different list for the Latino community. That’s what was happening,” Rowe said. “It’s about having the same opportunities for everybody. That’s what it’s really about.”
He started meeting with the girls on admission planning at lunch and after school. One got into UCLA and the other into UC Berkeley. From that first year, LFL has grown to currently about five to 10 students per grade a year, adding up to around 100 scholars who have been part of the LFL program.
“At its core, LFL is a private college consultant, but all my clients are broke and all services are free,” Rowe jokes.
Rowe focuses on elite schools because that is where the scholarship money is. He has had students accepted to Standford, Harvard, Tufts University in Boston, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and Connecticut’s Trinity College, among many others.
“If you are low-income kids, your college choices get very small,” he said. “It’s not getting into college that is hard, but actually affording it and graduating is a whole different thing.”
Rowe, who reads his student’s college essays and writes letters of recommendations, does not have set meeting times with his students. His motto is “always and never,” meaning he is always available to LFL kids — they may text and email him 24/7 — but they never have a standing appointment. LFL is not a school club.
“The last thing these kids need is another responsibility,” he said. “They are all working, taking care of younger siblings, acting as a community liaison for their parents — so the last thing I put on them is ‘let’s meet every Wednesday.’”
But Rowe does much more than just guiding kids through college applications — he also strives to help make them more well-rounded and appealing to elite schools. In essence, he has become a life coach to his LFL students. He is an advisor for Truckee High’s Model U.N., which he encourages his students to join. The club goes to three conferences a year, which allows the students to check out campuses in those locations, something they would otherwise not be able to do. He urges LFL kids to join the Nevada County Youth Commission, where he is also an advisor. The commission was started by the Nevada County Board of Supervisors three years ago. Rowe helps students with the application process and drives them to monthly meetings in Nevada City, including one at a board of supervisors meeting where the kids present policy recommendations for youth in the county. Additionally, he nudges his students to take honors and AP classes and sign up for summer programs.
“I had a really influential mentor,” Rowe recounted. “He would say, ‘it’s not about service. You don’t go to the margins to make a difference’ … You go there so people there make you different. These students, I am of them. I am not for them. They are my cousins, nieces, and nephews. I am one of them.”
LFL alum Marlenne Carillo, who graduated Truckee High in 2019, has big plans to become a civil rights attorney. She says that without LFL and Rowe, she would not have gone to college.
“I didn’t know anything about college admissions,” she said. “I didn’t think it was attainable. I come from a low-income family. I didn’t think this was possible, especially for someone like me.”
She said that Rowe taught her LFL group of seven how to prepare for the SATs, provided them with books and tutors, and read all their applications and personal statements. She ended up getting a full ride to SDSU and a scholarship to law school.
“He educated us about the whole system,” she said, noting that Rowe helped her apply to law school as well. “He single-handedly has given me the ability to change my family’s circumstances. When I get my summer jobs in law school and see how much they are paying me, I had no idea I could get paid this much … [Rowe] is changing lives. He is creating gateways to success. He is opening doors.”
Rowe is not only opening doors to individuals, but also entire families.
Arturo Pacheco Martinez and his two younger siblings all went through the LFL program. Arturo, who graduated from Truckee High in 2023, received a scholarship to Santa Clara University and now works for an affordable housing developer in San Francisco. His brother Isaac is currently enrolled at Harvard and his sister Iran at Bowdoin College in Maine; both earned full scholarships.
“My biggest role model before meeting Craig [Rowe] was my older brother, and he was like, ‘how you going to pay for college?’” Arturo remembered. “Up until I met Craig, I thought I would do what my brother did — stick around, work at chill jobs, just another Tahoe local.”
Arturo described Rowe as a role model and father figure who filled a void in his life.
“Craig helped me to see and be more of myself, he changed my whole world around,” he said. “He provides hope for first-gen Latinos that we don’t hear a lot about. He helps us to see our own potential.”
Another LFL alum, Daniella Paniagua, echoes Arturo’s sentiments.
“A lot of us see Craig as not just a mentor but a friend or family member who has supported us and pushed us to our limits that we didn’t’ really know we had,” said Paniagua, who graduated from UC Irvine and now works for Sierra Community House with aspirations to become an immigration attorney. “He is a very important person in a lot of people’s lives.”
Yet another thing Rowe works on in his free time is writing grants. LFL has been the recipient of $10,000 Tahoe Donner Giving Fund grants for the past two years, which he uses for college application fees, academic travel, tutoring, and paying for summer programs for the students.
“A lot of these kids might never have seen themselves as college material,” said Toni Moore, TDGF chair, who points out that more than half of TDGF scholarships have been given to LFL students. “[Rowe] helps them get on that path and stay on that path — the motivation, the support … he’s leveling the playing field by introducing students to opportunities that they may not otherwise have been aware of.”
