When the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA) set out to host a luncheon celebrating Latinx voices on Nov. 15, a problem arose: the guest speaker couldn’t attend.
The group scrambled to resolve this issue, inviting Bradley alumna Alicia Martinez to speak in the intended guest’s stead. Martinez, now the manager of insurance company Chubb, saved the event with her insightful journey into the workforce as a Latina woman.
Recounting her time majoring in business leadership at Bradley, Martinez noted the mindset that many students start with.
“I started off at Bradley as a first-generation student. I made my goal once I got here to really put myself out there, so I joined a lot of organizations,” Martinez said. “One that really stuck with me was ALPFA.”
The organization that brought her back to campus served as more than a launching pad for Martinez.
“I really identified with the people on the board and how they were on those presentations,” Martinez said. “I wanted to be that person with others: a resource.”
Attendees connected with the sense of belonging Martinez expressed and felt inspired by her journey.
“I know that she [is] definitely more in the business side, but business could be related to animation, no matter what. It keeps me in an open mind,” Carla Cervantes, sophomore animation major and community outreach director of ALPFA, said.
While to Cervantes, the universality of Martinez’s experience stood out, others found her tenacity to succeed more inspirational.
“I’m kind of in the spot where I don’t know what I want to do, and I only have like six, five months left. So I’m just kind of just starting now,” Drew Berry, a senior marketing and management leadership major, noted. “It’s more than just getting good grades, doing all that stuff. [You have to] just put yourself out there any way you can.”
For those wondering about the realities of the workforce and the professional struggles one might face, Martinez shared the early hardships she faced and the guidance she received in her own career.
“My dad and my mom both barely reached third grade, came here and really instilled in me [that] your education is so important,” Martinez said. “My mom cleaned bathrooms, and she made me help her clean the bathroom. She was like ‘I’m teaching you this because I don’t want you doing that in the future.’”
Some in the audience found their own struggles reflected in the vivid stories and professional backdrop narratives.
“I think I’ve gained confidence, because I saw that she just told her story and it was very similar to mine, where I’m only a sophomore; I don’t really have that experience yet,” Daniel Gutierrez, a business analytics major, said. “I see how she progressed through her career at college for four years, and I just saw that it’s possible.”
Closing the presentation, Martinez narrated the latest step in her journey – the interview preceding her current role at Chubb – and how this interview asked her to go back to the beginning.
Her childhood.
“I got to third, fourth grade, and I still didn’t really get a grasp of the English language because [my family] always spoke Spanish at home,” Martinez said. “So the way and [my sister] kind of tried overcoming that was we would be watching videos online and pretending to speak English, we didn’t know.”
“I do still catch myself with a little bit of [an accent],” Martinez continued. “It still reminds me of who I am and how I started – how we overcame.”
While that struggle could have been a personal pride and a circumstantial setback, sharing it with the interviewer helped Martinez the most.
“I remember after we recapped the interview, [the interviewer] started crying,” Martinez said. “I think being very vulnerable with him really helped him see who I was outside of that professionalism, why I was there, and what I wanted out of it next.”
With the encouragement and support Martinez offered, the gathering at the Romeo B. Garrett center transformed a simple luncheon into something more, turning logical advice into human stories that Bradley students could see themselves in – now, and in the future.
