Oral History Program Maria Garciaz Interviewed by Josi Rydin 30 March 2016 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Maria Garciaz Interviewed by Josi Rydin 30 March 2016 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Garciaz, Maria, an oral history by Josi Rydin, 30 March 2016, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Maria Garciaz, conducted on March 30, 2016, by Josi Rydin. Maria discusses her life and experiences as a minority leader in Northern Utah. JR: Please start by telling us about your background, such as childhood, teen years, growing up, family values, education, etc. MG: Okay, wow! JR: That’s a lot of things to list. MG: I'm a native of Utah. I was born and raised in Salt Lake City. My family comes out of New Mexico. My family came here because of the coal mines and because of the railroad, so I grew up here, and as a child, we would follow the crops from Idaho to California, picking grapes and potatoes. That was my life until I was about 10 or 11. I went to school in Salt Lake City, so I'm a city girl, a big-time city girl. I really struggled in high school because when I was growing up here in the 60's and 70's, it was not very diverse in Salt Lake City. I went to East High School, I graduated from there, and I think I was one of five kids of color. Very different now, right? I think the schools now are about 50% diverse, which would've been amazing for me growing up. I really struggled. I didn't know if I was going to make it out of high school, but there was an incident where I was nearly kicked out of school because I had such an attitude. Can you imagine that? There was this individual who was this amazing mentor. I was an hour away from getting kicked out school; I'm sitting in the principal's office and I'm angry and I'm hostile and ready to get in a fight with the next person that walks in. I was about 17, and so who walks in is this little 1 guy about this tall [holds up hands], and he has really kind eyes, and he sits down in front. I size him up and realize it wouldn't be a fair fight. I sit back down and he pulls up a chair in front of me and he tells me, "Look, Maria, I know that you hate that they changed your name from Maria to Mary. I know that you hate that they don't allow you to compete in sports because you're a Mexican.” He goes through this list of things, and he goes, "But do you want to be the loser everyone thinks you are, or do you want to prove them wrong?” So what do you think I did? I decided to prove them wrong. My senior year, I did really well in school. I got a scholarship to the University of Utah in engineering. I flunked out of engineering miserably, not because I didn’t like it, but because in the ‘70s there were very few females—especially women of color—in engineering, and to be successful in engineering, you have to work in groups. I was working with Mideasterners, a lot of Asian men. Culturally, they were not used to working with women. A lot of them didn’t speak in English. It was so hard for me to be successful in my classes. I would go and talk to my teachers and my teachers would say, “Well, you need to be a nurse. You don’t want to be an engineer.” Around that time, which would have been in the late ‘70s, was the whole civil rights movement in Utah. I got really caught up in that. I ended up graduating in political science with a minor in English. I went to work for the juvenile court system as a probation officer. Well, I was in college, I worked full-time as a family 2 counselor for youth services, so I did crisis management with families. Then when I graduated, I became a juvenile court officer. JR: That’s awesome. MG: So very different than what I started with. JR: Engineering to… MG: I still dabble. I love anything that has to do with technology and anything to do with design. How I ended up here is a whole different story. JR: So, what experiences did you have in your child years, younger adult years, that led you to believe you wanted to be a leader? MG: I don't know that I see myself as leader. I think leadership is about getting others to act, right? I think sometimes people feel that leadership is about them doing it themselves, but I've always learned that leadership is about getting others engaged and involved. Because I had such a tough childhood, because of poverty and discrimination, there were so many people in Salt Lake City and Utah that helped me. They were not necessarily people of color; they were often white women, often LDS people, people that I wouldn't normally get involved with while I was growing up. They did a lot of outreach, so I saw that they crossed boundaries to make sure that I would be successful in junior high and high school, and I think that really taught me about giving back and bringing people to the table to help others. I think that's how I got involved in what some people would say is leadership. JR: What are your core values, and how have they influenced your experience and your leadership abilities? 3 MG: I think a core value for me is being respectful of the person sitting on the other side of the table. I think being collaborative is very, very important to me, and it's being non-judgmental. I think those are important to me, because growing up, people were so judgmental and so disrespectful. JR: Name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader, maybe your mentor? And why and how did this person impact your life and your leadership abilities specifically? MG: I would say, it would be Robert "Archie" Archuleta. He is the individual who I always say ‘saved my butt’ while I was in high school. He looked the same then as he does now, and you know he's probably in his eighties. I'm in my late fifties, and he's in his eighties, and you know, I still call him. JR: That’s awesome. MG: Yeah, he's pretty amazing. But he was very involved in umm, you know the Cesar Chavez Peace and Justice marches. I was also able to participate in that when I was in college. I think with Archie—which is what we call him—I just saw that he was this quiet force that would speak only when something wasn't said. He wouldn't just talk about what was needed, he would actually get things done. I think that’s how he had a huge influence in my life. JR: How do you think you follow in his example as a leader? Do you take pieces from him and use them as your own? MG: I think take pieces from a lot of different people, you know I had, I think anyone you encounter is a mentor to you, right? Any person that you meet, you should learn from, even if those who don't embrace who you are as an individual. One 4 example would be when I was in a Sam’s store, and I'm buying groceries for an event we’re having at NeighborWorks, and I'm standing behind this young man. He has the camouflage jeans, he has the boots, he has the short haircut, and he has a swastika. I sort of kept my distance, but again, I was trying not to be judgmental. He turns around and he sees me and he starts being really obnoxious and really loud. He's picking on the cashier, saying, "You shouldn't be serving Mexicans here." He was trying to get me riled up, and fortunately, he didn't. But I felt so bad for the cashier because she's looking at me, she's embarrassed. She apologized and I said, "Don't apologize." He's being really belligerent, saying, "You shouldn't help spicks here." Just really derogatory words, and people around her didn’t know what do. I didn’t react and she called security and she said, "I'm so sorry." I'm like, "Why are you sorry? He's not talking about me. I don't know who he's talking about.” He got arrested. There was no incident on my part, but I learned not to react because it was his problem. The minute I would have gotten involved and reacted to him, I would have acknowledged what he thought and what he believed. So even in those very adverse situations, you need to really step back and learn from it. I learned not to give people my power when they act racist and when they make statements like that. I learned [that] from the young people that work here, at this organization. I have a lot of challenges with their families; they might be single parents, it might be their income, a lot of different things. I just 5 think that, again, leadership is about taking advantage of the person sitting in front of you. JR: What do you see as the biggest challenges of being a minority leader in Northern Utah, which is predominately white? MG: I don't know if it's a challenge as much as it is opportunity. Once people learn your story, they see you differently and they look at you differently. When I walk into a room that's predominately white, I just make sure that I take time to get to know people and that they get to know me. Once that happens, it changes the relationship, and people get past the fact that you're a minority, or they get past the fact that you're a female. They start to look at your competencies. Sometimes it's frustrating because I always feel like I'm having to prove myself or have to work harder, those types of things. It's frustrating. Lots of times, it's unfair, and I think sometimes minority leaders become resentful because they're always having to prove themselves. I think it's a challenge and it's an opportunity, but I think once you cross that bridge and you learn somebody's story… JR: What advice would you give emerging young minority leaders in order to be successful? MG: I think lots of times, we bring a lot of baggage to the table as people of color, and it comes to us for very different reasons. I think if we bring that to the table, it’s hard not to come from an area where people might have a lot of perceptions about it. They might not be able to get past that. When I travel, and I tell people 6 I’m from Salt Lake City, they’re like, “Are you Mormon?” and “How does it feel to not have a lot of people of color there?” Well, when I was growing up, communities of color were 1%. We’re now 23%, that’s a lot. That’s huge for Salt Lake City. In Salt Lake City, the neighborhood that I live in, it’s like 40%. It’s very diverse. When I’m working with young people, whether they’re diverse or not, it’s really embracing the people that are sitting front of you and not letting your personal baggage get in the way. It's like police officers and gang members: they each have attitudes about each other until they're willing to set those aside and look at each other as individuals, and have a conversation with them, understanding that, “That's a police officer and that's a gang member.” That is very hard to be successful in a conversation without that. JR: What other insights can you share about being a minority leader in Northern Utah? MG: You know, if I were to share any other insights, it would be to not segregate yourself in terms of your skillset. Again, I started out in engineering and ended up in political science. Here I am, the CEO of a non-profit organization that does neighborhood revitalization. I think if I would not have been open and adaptive, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. It's really about being adaptive and learning from the environment that you're in at that time. It might not be the right one, but it's about learning: always being open to learning and always being adaptive and flexible. JR: Awesome, well, those are all of the questions that I have. 7 Appendix MEDITATION Deep breathing Breath in for a count of 1-2-3. Breath out for a count of 1-2-3 Feel your breath in your chest. Feel your body as you exhale. Pay attention only to your breath, & count as you are inhaling & exhaling. If you become distracted, or your mind starts to wander, gently bring yourself back to your breathing. Body Relaxation Relax your body. Feel your feet, relax them, let go of any tension. Move your way to your lower legs, thighs, stomach, chest, arms, neck and head. If your mind wanders or your thoughts become critical, gently bring your mind back into focus without judging yourself. When you have relaxed your whole body, stay relaxed for a few more minutes. Concentrate on the whole body and the enjoyment of being relaxed. Concentrate - stay focused on what you are working with. Clarity - know exactly what space you are noticing and what is arising. Equanimity - accept whatever is arising internally with a gentle matter-of-factness Internal Awareness Feel: place awareness on the parts of your body where you typically experience physical sensations associated with emotion (stomach, where you hold tension, mouth where you smile with joy). Image: place awareness on the mental screen where you typically perceive images when your eyes are closed. This is usually in front of or behind closed eyes. Think of this as the mind's eye. Talk: place awareness at your ears or around your head, wherever you typically hear the sound of your own voice or mental conversation. 8 External Awareness Touch: place awareness on your physical body and the sensations you experience. Feel you feet touching the floor. Feel your feet in your shoes. Feel your toes. Your ankles. Feel your clothing on your skin. Feel the air on your face. Sight: Place awareness on what you see. Look around the room. Focus your awareness on something that you softly gaze at. Blink normally. Sound: place awareness on what you hear in the outside world. What sounds do you hear in the room? What do you hear outside in the hallway, what do you hear outside? Before you get out of bed each morning, take the time to become aware of your body and your surroundings. Be present in that moment and allow yourself to be still; this is how inspiration arises. It will also make you feel more in control of your day. Mindful Leadership • Maria Gonzalez, MBA ArgonautaConsulting.com 9 ways to create self-awareness, transform yourself, inspire others (p. 6-7). Be present Be aware Be calm Be focused Be clear Be equanimous (equanimity) - accept things as they are, things you can't control, balance - don't fight with yourself. Be positive Be compassionate Be impeccable (do your best every moment of the day, regardless of circumstances includes being honest, having integrity, & being courageous). Lead from a place of authenticity p. 7 Mindful Meditation (p. 26): Individuals who practice mindfulness mediation report greater satisfaction with their lives and greater personal happiness. They describe an improved ability to connect with colleagues, family, and friends. They report less stress 9 and a significantly improved ability to sleep. They experience a vastly improved quality of life. Dr. Richard Davidson, neurosurgeon: ..mental training through mediation can in itself change the inner working and circuitry of the brain. Mediation not only changes the workings of the brain in the short term, but also quite possibly produces permanent changes. (p. 16) Hindrances that impede success Attachment: unrelenting drive to succeed, to compete, to control, the inability to let go. Aversion: fear of losing what you have, including market position Ignorance, Confusion & Delusion: don’t see reality for what it is, confused state of mind, not being fully aware, being stuck in the past and using the past to predict the future Envy & Jealousy: rooted in a place of deep insecurity, wanting what others have, "Keeping up with the Jones"', make you believe that envy & jealousy lie outside yourself. You're never satisfied. Pride: Superior Pride: I am better than you. See themselves as smart, they do everything right. Inferior Price: You are better than me. They feel that everyone is smarter, faster, richer, luckier than they are. Not coachable, don't accept feedback about their performance. Reflect on the hindrances above & what part they play in your life. (p. 72). Leadership isn't a role, it's an activity. Anyone who is in the position to influence another human being is a leader. Mindful leaders behave in exactly the same way whether in the boardroom, with family, on the golf course, or at the supermarket, and whether someone is watching or not. Mindful leaders view leadership as a responsibility and a privilege. Mindful leaders are healthier, more effective & efficient, better able to make decisions, more creative, happier, and less likely to absent from work. AttAverAttac 10