A Profile Narrative by Jillian Palmieri

Fall 1999

Roll is taken. The meeting commences, and with it the critical issues in the agenda are addressed. In contrast with their significance, the issues lull repetitiously by. As she sits in the Southwestern Student Congress meeting, quiet yet attentive, one would not necessarily associate Hilda Gutierrez with the passion that so often spurs within her, or the lack of hesitance with which she often employs to express such feelings. Her mannerisms thus far would not have called attention to an energy level that exceeds that which surrounds her. All is composed. Overall, her countenance has taken on a serious tone. Her eyes gleam watchful and inquisitive, yet perhaps more so than others. Look at the tenacity of her posture, her arms prominently folded against her chest and yes, her foot. Look at it dangling in mid-air, shaking back and forth violently, almost uncontrollably. Engaged, she listens. Loudly she proclaims "Nay" in a sea of voices. It is a majority that, within the split-second that has just passed, decided to ratify a breach of procedure.

The meeting draws to a close. Precedent is being set: the president has encouraged members to share dates of upcoming events that organizations outside of congress are hosting. Hilda speaks up. The next meeting for Feminist Voices is coming up; she encourages all to attend, especially guys. Just recently, in an opinion article printed in the Megaphone, she concluded that "As a member of Feminist Voices I would like to say that I for one would greatly appreciate having more male students in our organization. Females and males should unite as one and fight for the same basic goal: equality. You do not have to be a female to be a feminist." However, this truth, that Hilda considers rudimental yet quite significant, must not have had any bearing on her audience. Half-repressed snickers and responses that echoed after the meeting, such as "I wonder why!?" formulate into a wave of murmured reactions. Her comment has managed to incite the relatively unresponsive crowd: an occurrence most certainly unprecedented at the meeting.

Hilda’s face emits no sense of uneasiness, nor does her intense gaze withdraw from those around her. She remains unshaken. In response to anyone who thinks that they could shake her resoluteness, that they could sum her up with the utterances of what she recognizes as mere stereotypes, she says, "I disregard whatever…whatever they think. . . I disregard whatever stereotype I fall under" Her hands fling up in a pause of sheer defiance at the ignorance which internally unnerves her. "I mean… they think that way, but I’m like… whatever…I’ll just prove them wrong."

And what about herself? Is she herself free from the deeply wrought stereotypes which she vehemently denounces? "By joining Feminist Voices I just wanted to get more in touch with my feminist side and stop being ignorant," she emphasizes, "and stop playing-into-stereotypes," she continues, the last three words rolling off of her tongue in an unabated breath that reveals her slight Mexican accent. " ’Cause I even see myself -- that I stereotype women; today I was like ‘Oh, women write girly…like y’know, about flowers’, and my teacher kept on telling me, ‘you keep on saying that’. . .and I couldn’t stop myself. It was horrible, it was horrible…" she repeats, "I’m like, damn, I’ve been conditioned to this!" she remarks in a tone that reveals she is at least able to laugh at her own shortcomings, that she obviously takes very seriously.

At the Feminist Voices meeting, which she implored members of congress to attend, gathered a small group of students. All but one of which was female. In the course of the organization’s discourse, clear leaders emerged. Throughout the meeting these students were shockingly overbearing, especially for such a small informal assemblage on which equality would seem to be assumed among those present.

When asked how she felt the meeting went, Hilda remarked, "Um actually, I was really, really disheartened…I don’t know. Every time I spoke it was like something negative was said." With rapid succession she adds in a tone of a reformer, "I wanted to quit. . .right there-- lets go, let’s go ladies! She says with the heightened rhythm of a drill sergeant "Nuew, we don’t need this …no-uew!" she emphatically adjoins, drawing her added no into the same spontaneous noise she had just made. Along with her sweeping hand, this sound effaced the issue at hand. Enough said, the sound seemed to signify, as if even talking about such absurdness gave it a merit it obviously didn’t deserve. With a finality that was not imposing, but inclusive, those around her shook their heads in agreement; no qualification was necessary.

One should not misjudge her, though. Although frustrated, she is not discouraged that easily. She will most definitely go to the next meeting and help plan their next event: sponsoring a forum on the subject of privilege. Hilda, it seems, is incredibly aware of privilege, and the ways in which she is both at an advantage and a disadvantage in relation to others. Growing up with very little money, she recalls as a kid how hard it was to grasp why she couldn’t have what everyone else had.

"You can’t do a lot of stuff," she says, "My mom never gave us a dollar to take to school. . . .like, it was that bad. Money has always been real tight. It’s a real big deal . . . especially when you’re small, you know?" Gaps in income don’t bother her so much now though. "A lot of people are anti-Southwestern … they say we’re a bunch of rich kids. I just tell them to forget about it. It doesn’t bother me. I’m not rich. Why should I care?" What does stir emotion within her is the thought of her own kids going through what she did in order to realize this. "I’ve always wanted to do something so that when my children grow up they have everything,"

Growing up in a large family of four sisters, two brothers and her Mom, she saw the affects of cultural difference. Her mom is a native of Mexico who came to the United States a mere three years before she was born. She describes her mother as a woman of strength, who manages with extreme ease even though she only speaks Spanish. Hilda identifies with her culture and openly admits her annoyance at those who fail to recognize their background and take an active and aggressive role in it. "Why would someone choose not to speak their native language, to talk with their grandmother?" she asks rhetorically.

As an active member of Latinos Unidos, an organization on campus, she relishes in the community work the members do. In discussion, her face reveals the sincerity with which she enjoys such service. She especially enjoys the opportunity to tutor young bilingual kids. It may be her own positive experience with a teacher in high school, who she affectionately and proudly deems "her mentor", that draws her to play a similar role for others. She knows the importance of being recognized for one’s potential vs. being stifled by the low expectations that others have so often cast upon her.

"He (her history teacher) was the one who told me that ‘you are not going anywhere but Southwestern and you can do it and you’re going to work hard.’ Later he disclosed his first impression of her. "He expected other people in the class to stand out, ‘and it was you’. ..and I was like Wow!" Breaking through that initial barrier, of not being thought of as equal much less of possessing special talent, is what she hopes that the kids she tutors can learn to do. They can, she hopes, then live their lives accordingly. It has certainly made all the difference for Hilda. One can only imagine the outcome if she had bought into the assumptions of her community or, in a broader sense, of popular culture. It is popular culture which embraces stereotypes of her race, whether it be the exotic sexuality of the Latino woman, or the immediate assumption of lower intelligence which she always aims to supercede.

In the face of sex, race, economic standing and language Hilda is aware of not only the privileges each yields, but also the result of these privileges on her individual character. Even the geographical location of her home, within the outskirts of the small town of Elsa, is a circumstance she does not forget to acknowledge. She has lived the entirety of her life there, a duration of time that has had bearing on the way in which she defines and views herself.

"It is extremely small," she states "like small, like smaller than Georgetown. Our biggest thing is we have a Whataburger…oh, and an HEB." When reminded of how similar this sounds to Georgetown, she quickly says…"no no no no…y’all have Applebees, y’all have lots more." Continuing, she states, "The size has its advantages …I mean you know everybody." It is the size of this community, she believes, which has allowed her "to really find herself" without getting lost in the crowd of a "big group."

Leaving Elsa is a feat that Hilda, as the second youngest in her family, considers her greatest achievement. " Nobody in my family has ever moved away, everybody is at home…they are all together." "The major thing I had to fight against was my boyfriend," Hilda reveals, "Like, I had to fight for myself," she says, her fist markedly digging into her chest. Internally, it was a struggle that tested her resolve to the point where she almost didn’t come to Southwestern.

When asked what she thinks is her greatest weakness, Hilda responds with a characteristic that one might hardly believe. "Sometimes I can’t speak my mind…its like my vocabulary is too limited or something." Her friends, overhearing her statement, scoff. Admittedly, Hilda does pick her moments. However, when she utters her opinion, the eloquence and energy that seems to suffuse the air around her always magnifies her intelligence. It seems obvious however, that while such words seem to come natural to her now, they haven’t always been projected with such ease, nor without pains taken to accurately construct them.

Her perceived strength is in alignment with her daring persona, "I think I can do anything," she says confidently. This belief in herself is evident in her everyday life. A wall in her dorm is plastered with a poster of women in the millenium who have affected change. Beside it a picture of a woman with a red-bandana stands, bicep flexed, in the famous pose above which can be read "You can do it". This picture boldly hangs on her bulletin board next to a host of memorabilia representative of what she has participated in since her arrival to Southwestern. "I have my advisor’s name there because I just went and talked to her . . I’m trying to create yoga as an FRA," Hilda says, as if this propositioning within the system is an ordinary occurrence. The student congress calendar is thumb-tacked high on her board. The number of the office phone number, which she recently called to protest an issue, is sketched into it.

Among the scattered papers strewn on her floor one would most likely find information about Mask and Wig, a theater organization on campus she has just begun to show an interest in. "I never acted, I just wanted to try it," she says with a matter-of-factness that conveys not one iota of doubt about the future. She very well knows, however, that theater may not be anything in which she is successful. Successful or not, such outcomes will not likely faze her in the slightest. As with her involvement in softball, she says, "I tried it in high school," and in just as candid of a manner she adds, in the midst of a reflective smile, "I failed."

Her desire to try new venues and experience life from a different perspective directly parallels her goal to travel the world. She plans to study abroad through the programs offered at Southwestern. When asked why, her body responds with a passionate reply, "Because, if you look at a map, like the places where you’ve been is, like, this small" she says as she motions with her hand a space tiny enough that not even her finger could pass through, "and the world is so huge. . . I want to eat different food, listen to different music and so on and so forth," she exclaims. Even now, when you ask her what her favorite music is, Hilda rattles off genres, from country, to alternative, to tejano.

As the skinny girl who her classmates used to fear, and whom she categorizes as a tomboy, Hilda made her way through grade school and junior high. At the onset of high school, she kept to herself, recognizing and heightening the differences between such classmates and herself. As a senior she could look back in astonishment at the contrast between this solitary mind frame and the sense of belonging she now had with those around her. Her arrival and assimilation into Southwestern, unlike high school, has been barren of conflict.

Throughout her lifetime, Hilda has dealt with who she is, what identifies her in relation to others and what sets her apart. She has realized that there are more lenses through which she may view the world. By finding a place within such settings, she will continually re-define and refine herself as an individual.

Hilda refuses to hold the culture in which she is defined as a model for all others. She recognizes flaws in the Mexican heritage she is so proud of, such as when she observes, "the women always serve men. Like when we are eating, they are served first." In addition, she remarks in her submitted newspaper article that, "It is odd how we as a society view third world countries as inferior when even they are more open-minded than we might be in some respects. For example, some of those nations have female presidents. What can’t we have female presidents?"

Hilda Gutierrez is an individual that engages in all that she does. She is an individual whose smile and positive outlook on life radiates into others, and whose rage at the ignorance of others is respectively directed. Like most, she wants to make a difference in the world. First, she wants to experience the world. She realizes the constraints that her narrow life has had and the influence with which it has shaped her life. Hilda possesses a spirit that seeks to see the world from a view untainted by societal stereotypes. She seeks to prove herself in a society that has tried, but to no avail, to limit her. Through her resolve, embodied in the passion her body yields, she challenges the past and present and dares the future to prove her wrong. Hilda expunges assumptions, all the while the reverberations of her defiance penetrate those around her long after their cessation.

Author’s Afterword:

This was my second article for Journalism, however only my first profile. In other words, unlike my first article, I was going to have to interview someone else. I chose Hilda since she was in a few organizations I was part of and she seemed like a unique first-year that I would have liked to have gotten to know better anyway.

I really recommend interviewing someone you don’t know that well for your first profile. It causes you to be thorough and puts you in a situation in which you have few pre-conceived judgements about them. You truly have to bridge a connection between yourself and that person that is not already there.

For example, I not only interviewed her, but I went to every activity that she did for remainder of the week. I made it a point of telling her that I would like to be her shadow for the next few days and when the interview was up I just asked her what she was doing the next day. It wasn’t awkward after a while and through doing this I got to know how she acted around her friends and in other organizations that I knew nothing about.

You only see pieces of someone’s life through an interview and through the questions you ask. By following Hilda around, I took a backseat and let her lead me through her everyday life. By seeing how she lived I could then probe deeper into comments she’d made in the first interview, especially regarding what she valued in life and what struck a cord within her.

I recommend doing a second interview with the person you profile after you have seen more of their everyday activities. It allows you a chance to follow up with them with questions you have as a result of listening to what you talked about and experiencing the various trips they have taken you on.

The ultimate story that you create is yours and the angle you take, or the message you intend to send, is something that you alone must decide on. It is a story about them, however, and when I wrote this I thought it was very important to try and represent Hilda as accurately as possible. It is something I recommend keeping in the back of your mind at all times. This doesn’t mean that I crammed in everything she said or we did together within this essay. You have to pick and choose. Hopefully, by going through the process I did — and perhaps a few creative ideas of your own- you will have lots to choose from.