My Virginia Experience

Still weird… name on a door sign.

Thursday (9/19/2013) I was the Hispanic Heritage Month keynote at Virginia Tech. I presented my new “Abuelitas Hands” speech for them and had a fantastic time. It is a hard presentation for me to give because it is a very personal story for me. I haven’t done it many times, and each time I am working to make it a little bit better. This crowd was great because it was the perfect audience for the speech… mostly first generation college students, nearly all immigrants and all ready and prepared to think about our futures and dreams.

I still never get used to seeing posters on campus with my name, and they had some huge banners for their month of events. Then smaller signs for just my program, it was very well promoted! Even some faculty were tweeting about the program. Such a great community and I am so blessed they invited me, and also glad my travel issues didn’t keep me from making the program.

Students sharing with each other about their “Abuelita”

I made some tweaks to my workshop and this time included some opportunities for students to pair up and share with each other more time. In the past it was just twice, and this time I did it three times. It really worked well, and I made some changes to the timing of the presentation. I think it all went really well together, I had several students hang around and want to talk to me after the program and two faculty/staff! Wow.

I enjoyed a quick dinner with the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) Board afterwards. I am still amazed at how much students today put on their plates with work and class but still take on student clubs and leadership positions. Great job LASO!