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Published during ³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ’s first National Hispanic Heritage Week, this article reflects campus conversations around identity, education, and pride. More than 40 years later, its language — alongside other archival fragments— would be revisited as part of a contemporary creative response shaped by care and remembrance. 

SE LO QUE SOY
National Hispanic Heritage Week at UT El Paso 

In the panel on “The Hispanic Woman: How Does She Define Success?”, Pat Gallegos, counselor at El Paso Community College, used the word aguante and her audience smiled and nodded. I had a puzzled expression until Sonny Castro, ³ÉÈËÍ·Ìõ Union Services Director, whispered to me, “coping . . . enduring . . . ‘taking it.’” 

I nodded and jotted. 

The whole panel was quite excellent. Helen Castillo, assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Allied Health, spoke on the traditional double role—home and work—of Hispanic women and how education, being a student, alters that pattern. Pat Gallegos said that the level of education does not necessarily correlate to the level of success, but the determined Hispana, with her goals planned early, who is willing to take risks and “let her talents shine through,” will succeed. 

Pat Mora, moderator of the panel, is assistant to the Vice President for Academic Affairs at UT El Paso. She spoke of daring to dream big dreams and to risk failure en route to success. 

Genny Galindo, a student in the College of Education who will graduate next August, said “I am still trying to prove myself. I have been isolated, taking care of my family, for a long time. My children are all grown, working on law degrees and in graduate study. I just did not want to be left behind.” 

Corina Morales-Delgado, a member of the UT El Paso Alumni Board, spoke of feminism and marriage and the “sense of self” that takes root when Hispanic women begin to have pride. 

In who they are and in the particular qualities they possess as individuals and as a group. 

And there were discussions among the panelists and members of the audience on the need for Hispanic women to make a push into non-traditional fields—mathematics, science, computers, among them. It was pointed out that at UT El Paso, over 20% of the engineering enrollment is made up of women students. 

“Don’t be passive about your fate,” the panelists told their audience and nobody doubted the wisdom of the words. 

“Orgullo es Fuerza” (Pride is Strength) was the theme of the University’s first celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Week, September 12–16, and it was an auspicious and well-planned week of symposia, panel discussions, entertainment, open houses, lectures, readings, displays, exhibits. The variety, and impact, of the week could be seen in the topics listed in the program: “The Development of Anti-Mexican Sentiment in the U.S.,” “El Paso’s Hispanic Business Community: A Preliminary Analysis,” “Hispanic Culture in American Society: A Tradition of Misunderstanding,” “Hispanic Alumni in Their Careers,” “Hispanic Pride as an Issue and Opportunity,” and “Hispanic Success: A Touch of Class,” among them. 

The significance of the week’s program, or of the entire observance of National Hispanic Heritage Week on campus, is no mystery at UT El Paso, where nearly 43% of the student body is Hispanic, or in El Paso County, where the percentage is even higher. Nor should it be a mystery anywhere in the United States, where 14.6 million Hispanics make up 6.4% of the entire populace and where, by the year 2020, according to sound statistical studies, Hispanics will displace blacks as the second largest segment of the American people. 

But the observance and significance of the week went far beyond mere numbers. There was ethnicity but no ethnocentrism nor ethnophobia; there were meaningful lessons and reminders for Anglos and Blacks and Orientals—and Hispanics, too—on the contributions of Hispanics, in particular the contributions of Mexican Americans, to the American way of life. 

Not long ago, Rolando Hinojosa, professor of English at UT Austin, was on the campus as a guest speaker in the Chicano Studies Program. In the course of his visit, Prof. Hinojosa used the phrase Se lo que soy (I know what I am) to answer questions on the meanings and differences between such words as Hispanic, Chicano, Mexican American and Latino. 

Orgullo es fuerza.
Se lo que soy. 

You do not have to be Hispanic to benefit from these words. 

— Dale L. Walker