Stories

During the 2019-2020 academic year, Santa Clara University hosted Grammy Award Winner, Rhiannon Giddens as the Frank Sinatra Artist-in-Residence. Rhiannon rocked the campus with her beautiful and complex sound that came from her masterful integration of a wonderfully winding origin story.

In her words, “People often talk about the different sides of the track, to be born on one side and to learn how to cross over to the other. Well, as I look back over the sum of my life to this point, I realize I was born on the track, right smack dab in the middle of a lot of different dualities...racial, class, locational, caste, and I spent a good deal of the early part of my life trying to find a home on one side or the other, until, after a great deal of frustration, aggravation, and exploration, I realized that I already had the key to the ultimate adaptation. That in a world where the folks in charge like to try to force you to deal in absolutes, the trick is to stay on the track, to nestle in the nexus, to live on the bridge, to never lose sight of both sides at once.”

Adriana Meza Gutierrez Ma '15, MA '18 is a pro at nestling in the nexus, walking between worlds, and integrating identities that normally live in opposition to each other. For the last two years, Adriana has served as the Program Director for the Ignatian Center’s Thriving Neighbors program. Adriana likes to say that she has grown up in the Ignatian Center, starting as a Program Assistant in undergrad and continuing that work through her grad program. In August of 2021, she began a new career working for the Santa Clara County Office of Education as a Supervisor for the Early Learning Services/ERSEA. We at the Ignatian Center have been dealing with our dualities, thrilled as we are for Adriana’s new adventure, and sad to see her leave her home at 990 Benton Street. 

Although Adriana works very hard to make sure others get the spotlight, we recently had the opportunity to sit down with her and discuss the trajectory of her career as a “person for others.” Unlike many of her first-year peers, Adriana, a transfer student from a very diverse hometown, struggled to find her place in her new home at SCU. Had the University been looking for someone to teach an upper-division course about the challenges of in-group / out-group dynamics and the elusive nature of belonging - Adriana would have been their star lecturer. Socio-cultural and geographic challenges aside, Adriana was also adapting to new forms of privilege: proximity to folks that had grown up with designer brands, a card to swipe for all your food, a personal computer that came by way of a Provost Scholar Research grant. We think of access to education as a good thing, and while it certainly is, given the educational disparity in our country, and Adriana’s experience, it would seem that gaining access demands a remarkable level of ingenuity and maturity that may not always be evident or visible to those unfamiliar with such a transition. That apparent lack of understanding did not only exist in Adriana’s social circles, but in the classroom as well. Adriana said that learning about poverty in her studies, among students that did not come from that experience, made her feel like she was being stripped in the classroom, without anyone else noticing. She admitted that studying sociology meant that she was studying the adversity that she had already experienced. At times, she felt reduced to a statistic, a piece of a demographic that did not belong in higher education. She had trouble putting to test questions like, “Am I the diversity? Am I deserving? Was my educational career an act of charity? Why me?”

Nevertheless, she used her education and passion for social justice to land her first job with the Ignatian Center and start her work with the Thriving Neighbors program. In the process, she described the need for code-switching on a daily basis. Not only does she switch fluidly between two languages, depending on her professional responsibilities, but her professionalism itself has historically been a challenge to integrate authentically. 

The formality of office culture would not seem to be a hurdle for someone that speaks her mind so eloquently but Adriana admitted that it does not come naturally and that it is a habit she has honed over time. Furthermore, there are some people that always look professional and put together, (my sister likes to remind me I am not one of those people) but Adriana certainly is, even though those norms have forced her to wrestle with her own authenticity.

Working with community members in the Thriving Neighbor programs, she described herself feeling comfortable and natural. Depending on where she was working on a given day she would have to decide who she was going to be. And bringing community members to events at the Ignatian Center would create a strange dichotomy as if she had to be “two people at once.” 

Despite this tension, or perhaps because of it, Adriana created a unique shape in the Ignatian Center that did not quite fit the “boots on the ground program coordinator” role partner alone nor the office-professional archetype. Instead, she formed an elegant bridge between the lived experience of programs we promote and the processes by which they get developed. Her work has been a “both-and” thanks to her ability to combine worlds in new ways every day, losing neither by creating her own, “neither nor, but something more,” as Rhineon Giddeons proudly described her experience. And how lucky we’ve been for Adriana’s innovation! Thanks to her one-of-a-kind creativity, everyone around her got a different dose of grace. 

Defining herself on her own terms means that going forward she will bring “belonging” with her, sharing it, wherever she goes. In fact, she mentioned that because she is conscious of her lighter skin tone and the unearned privilege it gives her, she makes sure to listen and make room for the voices that usually get ignored in our organizational systems. We are all indebted to Adriana’s practiced awareness and living advocacy. The Ignatian Center has built a deeper, more authentic bond with the Thriving Neighbors community because of Adriana. Likewise, so many of the community moms get to celebrate their pseudo-daughter’s development, a role model to their children, and a product of community compassion. Adriana is quick to give all the credit to her family and community connections, conscious as she is of the source of her superpowers: the communities that have shaped her, the places she feels most comfortable, but the places that have also encouraged her to explore new worlds and build better places, as a bridge, as something entirely unique. And now she is off to help others walk between worlds, making new worlds of their own. Thank you Adriana for the gift of you! We wish you all the best in your next adventure!

by Drew Descourouez '20