Coloring up your future

On Thrusday, November 12, I attended the global awareness workshop during club hours in room 2-125.  The name of this workshop is Coloring up you future.  During this workshop, politician and successful businessman Alfonso Quiroz discussed his political and workplace career.  While the original goal of the workshop was to discuss being openly gay in politics, Alfonso also spoke about other problems he has faced with ethnicity in politics and the workplace.  Alfonso gave us somewhat of a summary of his career since he was in high school and how he got into politics and public work.  Alfonso also discussed how he feels being a mix of multiple ethnicities has effected his career, as people of each of his ethnicities do not see him as dominantly anything, yet they often view him as trying to be something.  For example, he discussed how he is part Mexican, but he has often received somewhat of discrimination from Mexicans because he is not completely Mexican, yet he does establish himself as being part-Mexican.  The main point that Alfonso made throughout the workshop was that in order to live somewhat of a happy life, an individual must simply be what they are and not try to hide anything from his/her co-workers.  By this, Alfonso did not mean to broadcast oneself as being a certain sexuality or a certain ethnicity, yet not to pretend to be someone he/she is not in order to appease anyone.  This workshop was a little out of my comfort zone being that I am not gay, but I am glad that I attended it because Alfonso discussed greater aspects of careers than simply homosexuality.  I would recommend this workshop to another student because it is a great opportunity to learn about the importance of individuality within the workplace.