By Liam Shannon
A brisk wind trickled down Alden Street on another late September evening. Around 7 p.m., Most students are at the dining hall, having dinner with their friends, simply in their dorms, or studying for a quiz the following morning.
But taking a step into the Dodge Room on the upper level of the Richard B. Flynn Campus Union, a collection of students and faculty were watching Marjorie Rodriguez throw rocks on the floor.
Rodriguez, a professor in the social work department at Westfield State University, gave a presentation on her struggles of being a Latina woman going to college in the United States.
She opened her presentation with an image of a donkey: it was buried under a well telling the tale of how people of the village tried to bury the donkey with dirt and rocks.
However, the donkey kept shaking off the dirt and was able to climb out of the hole. She used the example as a metaphor, which highlighted how every rock is a comment or a person trying to bring you down.
“Look at the color of your skin, you’re not gonna get anywhere,” Rodriguez recalled being told as she moved from Puerto Rico to Massachusetts in pursuit of furthering her education.
Both her parents suffered from mental health struggles, as well as substance abuse.
All her life she was told “You’re gonna be just like your parents.”
When meeting new people, Rodriguez urges the audience to step back and ask themselves “Who is this person? What makes them unique?” Despite being clinically diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety and agoraphobia, Rodriguez was still able to push forward and pursue her education.
“[I had the] heart of a warrior,” Rodriguez said. “Willing to learn whatever I need to learn to walk out of this experience victorious.”
After arriving in Massachusetts, she began to change herself based on the comments she was receiving. She changed the way she acted and dressed all because she wanted to fit in at her predominately white institution.
Rodriguez was slowly losing herself behind the mask that she had put on, and no one bothered to ask if she was okay.
Thankfully, Dr. Jennifer Propp, one of her professors, asked to speak with her after class one day.
“I cried because someone was noticing me,” Rodriguez recalled.
Propp, who was in attendance at the presentation, urged Rodriguez to pursue her master’s degree. Although initially just wanting to accomplish a bachelor’s degree, Rodriguez will be pursuing her Ph.D. starting in the fall of 2024.
Rodriguez and Propp co-founded the Fostering Students Success Network, a support network that provides books and computers to underprivileged students at Westfield State. During the coronavirus pandemic, they successfully raised over $40,000 for students who did not have the materials needed to successfully learn at home.
Rodriguez credits Dr. Anthony Hill, now a Springfield College professor of Social Work, with helping her realize her academic potential. While still attending Westfield State, Dr. Hill asked Rodriguez if he could use one of her papers as an example. Rodriguez was worried that it was an example of poor writing, but in fact it was quite the opposite.
“I was really impressed with her resilience, she was someone who always tried,” Hill said. “The content with which she was writing was very, very heartfelt, and was very, very inspiring and moving.”
With the help of both Hill and Propp, Rodriguez was able to return to her true self.
“It’s not other people’s perceptions of you, it’s what you bring into the world,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez still feels her past is as much of a part of her life today as it was then.
“The same wall is still there, just in a different perspective,” she said. “But it’s only when you reflect on your past, that you see [how hopeful your future is].”
Following the conclusion of her presentation, many attendees lined up to speak with Rodriguez.
“I think [Rodriguez] did an amazing job at engaging the audience by being very real,” graduate student Thomas Donato said. “She was able to connect with us – especially me – by being herself, telling personal stories and anecdotes, and sort of breaking out of that professional speaker, formal image that we have.”
As the audience was leaving, Rodriguez urged everyone to take a rock, to keep it with them throughout their lives as a reminder that ‘no matter what people say about you, you can push through and bring the light into any room.’
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Flickr