On Thursday November 12th, we went to our last freshmen workshop in the Global-Community Awareness category. It was about a former council man named Alfonso Quiroz as he “sheds light on the issue of being an openly gay man while holding political power.” Before the workshop, there was a little confusion, apparently the speaker and the sponsor didn’t know that this was promoted as a community awareness workshop, they would not let us in and kept saying that the room is reserved for a class. But after the misunderstanding had been resolved, we went in and sat down, and grabbed sandwiches and drinks.
The workshop was mainly the speaker Alfonso Quiroz talking, he talked about his experience in media and in politics. He said when he was little he wanted more to do with the media, he dreamed of being an actor. But later when he was trying to pick up an Abe Lincoln accent, he started to be interested in politics. Then slowly he got involved more with his community, and the big break was him getting an opportunity of being a white house intern. He worked under the Clinton administration, and he said he learned a lot and it was an experience of a life time. But the whole speech didn’t have a lot to do with the fact that he was openly gay. So later when the question session began, people asked questions about how he came out of the closet, and how did it effect his career at all. He answered them nicely and claimed that being gay really didn’t matter as much as people would think.