FREMONT -- When Judith Fonseca began attending Ohlone College two years ago, she noticed something was missing.

"You don't see many Chicanos or Latinos there," she said. "You see a few, but not that many. It makes me feel bad that Latinos might think that school's not for them. They have a chance, but they just don't know it."

Latino students are under-represented by 50 percent compared to the district's general population, said college President Doug Treadway, who has made Latino outreach one of the college's major goals during his first year at Ohlone.

"Currently, only 9 percent of Ohlone students are Latinos, and we want to double that number," he said. According to the 2000 Census, nonwhite Latinos make up 17.8 percent of the Tri-City area population.

"Our goal is to reach out to the Latino community and let them know what Ohlone College has to offer them," Treadway said.

To meet that goal, several new outreach efforts are now under way, said Lisa Waits, vice president of student services.

Former and current Ohlone Latino students are visiting area high schools in the "Para mi Raza" (For my People) tour ending today. The college also has planned an early Cinco de Mayo celebration Thursday and is scheduled to start a new Chicano studies course at Newark Memorial High School next year.

Fonseca, a member of the Chicano student group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, said the college is heading in the right direction.

"A lot of Latinos just don't see any future for themselves," she said. "Many Latinos are thinking, 'I have to go to work,' and there is no one telling them they should go to college."

While the total percentage of Latinos at state community colleges has increased in the past five years, the percentage of Latinos at Ohlone has decreased steadily.

Latinos made up 12.4 percent of the college population in the 1999 spring semester, according to the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. The figure was down to 10.9 percent in the 2003 spring semester.

Brenda Arteaga, a financial aid counselor at Ohlone, said money is one of the major obstacles keeping Latinos from higher education. And Newark Memorial counselor Ade Villaseor said a reduced number of guidance counselors -- some with a caseload of 500 students -- also could be part of the problem.

Many Latino students are first-generation college students especially in need of guidance, Villaseor said.

"Their parents cannot offer enough insight on the college experience because they haven't been there," she said. "Applying to college with your child is an overwhelming experience -- that's the bottom line -- but on top of that, if you've never been to school in the United States, or to college, it's even more overwhelming."

One student, who received a full scholarship to the university of her choice, asked Villaseor to help convince her parents to let her go, she said.

Ohlone's outreach efforts already show promise, Villaseor said. Within a day of receiving the invitation for the Para mi Raza visit, more than 50 students had accepted -- an unusually high number for an educational activity, she said.

Instructor of Chicano studies Ralph de Unamuno said the college needs to do still more to promote itself within the Latino community.

"As we look at the demographics in public schools in California, Latinos make up the majority and represent the future," he said. "If they are undereducated, that doesn't make a bright future for the state."