States, and provide her only daughter with a different future. But the experience still left scars for many years afterwards.
“Stay away from politics, always stay in the shadows,” Maria’s mother would tell her whenever she expressed interest in politics. “Don't make any noise, don't make any waves.”
Following her mother’s death Maria was surprised to learn that her mother was, in fact, a strong advocate for other women.
“While she was a very devoted Catholic woman, she was also someone… that people would come to her for help, mostly battered women or others at a crossroad due to unexpected pregnancies. Keeping that a secret from me was just amazing,” she says.
At the end Maria pursued a career in medicine, but politics would always stay in her blood.
The Death of Self
Maria remembers her mother as a very religious woman, though not a fanatic. She was also someone who really “lived” her faith through service to others.
“I remember her saying, ‘Tonight we’re gonna have this small dinner, because I gotta give so and so, this neighbor, money because her child is sick, and she can’t buy her the medication, or give this money, because this child doesn’t have a winter coat.’”
Maria has a theory about what prompted this sense of compassion and commiseration in her mother. “It really occurs when the death of self occurs, so it sound like for [mother] it had occurred through the stories: one, losing her husband, two, being pregnant [and] having to manage, and three going to a new country and having to manage it. All three important transitions.”
Knowing Yourself
As a teenager Maria attended the Western High School, which is when she became conscious of her separate identity. She thought she mixed well with Caucasians and African American students, but found herself at crossroads with other Hispanics.
“[I was] one of the few Hispanics that were there. And then the ones that were there were Puerto Ricans, which were very different. I really didn’t really relate too well with Puerto Ricans,” says she. “It's a very different culture in many ways. They're very open. Colombians are much more reserved and very proper. It's always, ‘Yes ma'am, and no ma'am.” To Puerto Ricans, it’s like, ‘What is happening?’”
And yet her mother reinforced Maria’s strong sense of identity, reminding her never to forget her
culture, her Spanish, her religion, and her family. Maria recalls painstakingly practicing Spanish by writing letters to her family in Colombia.
Her longing for self-discovery grew, as Maria graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and started working at the DC Department of Health. She soon realized how much she still had to learn about herself, her values, and the city where she was living in. To find that out for herself, however, meant that Maria would leave behind her mother’s home in Washington, DC, and travel to the West to pursue a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley.
“I remember the first time I got there and I said to ‘Chicano’ person, ‘How does it feel to be Mexican?’ Oh my God, I thought it was going to have my head chopped off,” laughs Maria. “They pulled me aside, and told me about the Chicano culture. They're Americans, I think, that there was a whole different culture I had to learn.”
This was also the time Maria realized that she had never taken the time to really identify who she was. Back in Washington, DC, she would find her calling.
Mary’s Center – Where Inspiration Resides
The 80s brought an influx of immigrants from Central America to the Nation’s Capital.
And yet her mother reinforced Maria’s strong sense of identity, reminding her never to forget her culture, her Spanish, her religion, and her family.
culture, her Spanish, her religion, and her family.