There is magic in seeing others who have traveled paths similar to yours not just make it but thrive in their craft. Inspiration, pride, validation, vulnerability, community, authenticity, struggle, overcoming, resilience, fear, pain, love, courage, and beauty are among the words that surfaced for me when listening to Dulce Orozco, LMHC talk about her experiences. I met Dulce at Mass Mentoring’s Black and Brown Girls and Femmes Joy Fest this summer. We subsequently invited her to speak to our students and alumni at Urban College of Boston.
As a licensed mental health counselor, a Latina, a woman, mother, and an immigrant, Dulce has so much in common with our students. She is a woman who came to the United States from Venezuela alone to study. She figured out how to get her Bachelor’s degree. Then pursued her Master’s and her Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies. She navigated the immigration system to attain her permanent status. She gained experience working for various agencies and leading mental health hospitals and facilities before establishing her own practice. She shared how difficult these processes were and how depressing and energy-consuming they can be. She knows the frustration of having to recount her challenges over and over to new audiences so that she can get a scholarship or get ahead.
Our entire audience of faculty, staff, students, and alumni could relate to Dulce’s story. Her experiences underscored why Urban College strives to be a place where students don’t have to recount their trauma to get the resources they need to succeed. I, too, can relate to that. There is nothing more frustrating than having to relive your most difficult and often personal challenges to validate that you really need help and that you are capable of achieving with the right supports.
What made Dulce’s story unique was how open she was as a therapist. Her self-disclosure around sensitive topics made it comfortable for students down the street in Roxbury, from China, and countries in Latin America to share their experiences. Yes, sometimes it’s good to be able to commiserate with someone who understands how hard the experiences you are going through are, rather than one who has simply read about such experiences in books. Even better is seeing the living proof that there is life at the end of the tunnel. Knowing that you will eventually succeed, and new doors will open. Knowing that those experiences become a source of strength, testaments that you have overcome hard things and can successfully take on challenges that seem insurmountable makes everything else that comes after possible to conquer.
Deciding to go to college as an adult when all the images and the stories fed to you is that college is something for young people can make the idea seem intimidating. Completing college as an adult means successfully navigating a delicate balance of life, responsibilities, family, work, and a vision for one’s future. These are some of the characteristics that help make our graduates successful in the workplace too, not just in the academic realm.
