how to be a chicana role model

my very sweet friend, virginia, asked me the other day, "aren't you proud of yourself?" (referring to the ph.d.)

i thought about it and decided that i was happy, but not "proud of myself."

she told me, "you should be proud of yourself!"

then i had this nice moment yesterday.

i volunteered to speak to a group of students who were visiting UT from texas a & m kingsville . i spoke, along with a couple of other graduate students, about my experiences in graduate school; the idea was to demystify the process of applying and getting through a master's or ph.d. degree program.

i walked into the room and noticed that most of the visiting group was mexican american, and most were young women.

the UT organizer of the panel and one of the deans of the graduate school (whose office we were meeting in) were murmuring about me. then the dean asked me, in a whisper, "did you just defend your dissertation?"

"yes."

both she and the UT organizer congratulated me and introduced me to the group as "doctor n--." all of a sudden, i was grateful that i had dressed semi-professionally for the occasion.

it was a very surreal moment to be standing in front of all of these undergraduate mexican american women in this context. i could feel them looking at me. i could tell that they were thinking, "she's a doctor?"

when it was my turn to speak, i told them about my research in south texas, asking them, "are any of you from the valley?" several hands went up. one of the young women was excited to learn that i had done my research in her hometown. i told her how i loved it there.

and then a funny thing happened. i started to feel proud of myself. i was happy to have done my research in south texas, home to some of these young women. and i was happy to be a mexican american woman, like them. maybe i'm being over-optimistic, but i hope that they thought, if she can get her ph.d., so can i. she's just like me after all (just older!). i kind of started to feel like a ... role model.

here's to being a chicana role model.

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