Orfelinda C. Coronado
University of Houston, GCSW
Married to:
Ave. Anthony S. Coronado
Three children:
Cherish, Emma, and Miguel Coronado
My name is Orfelinda Coronado, a Graduate College of Social Work student at the University of Houston. In this college, I had the fortune to meet Dr. Brene Brown, a Clinical Social Work professor who teaches a course about Shame and Resilience. It was Dr. Brown who helped me understand that my life was just as painful as everybody else’s was. I opened my eyes to other people’s shame sources and processes and to the understanding that shame is universal. In my own definition, shame is a tool people use to make one feel diminished, belittled, and small. For me, the triggers of shame come when people attack my intelligence, appearance, and cultural backgrounds; but I would have not known this about myself if I hadn’t taken Dr. Brown’s class. Read on so that I can share some of my shame sources and triggers.
My Story
I was born, and also raised in Los Herreras, N. L. Mexico until the age of 14. Since then, I have lived in California, Arizona, Texas, Alabama, and Florida. During the 4th year of living in California, I met my husband and his daughter, Cherish. Anthony and I got married in 1988, and moved to Houston, Texas in 1989 to find better jobs.
Our Marriage
Anthony is a wonderful man, and together we have been happy for 20 years. We were blessed with three children, three grandchildren, and a dog. My happiness started since I met my husband, while at the same time; my life with him also turned into a source of torture. The torture started when I asked my husband to help me to learn the English language because I wanted to obtain a Bachelors of Business to be at his level. He agreed.
The first thing he did was to ask me to read every English written magazine that I could find and to listen and sing nothing but English music. So I did, and I had great results. I wanted to take the General Education Development (GED) test within two years. What a dream ha? Start a Bachelors Degree as a Hispanic female who could not speak the English language was a concept that I did not fully understand until I began my mission. The barriers were many and mighty, but I did not expect that those barriers would come from the people I love, my own family.
My Barriers
After I began to take GED classes at the local library, our relationship with my extended family took a turn for the worst. Family reunions and visits turned into a search for do wrongs, put downs, and ways to belittle any plan or project my husband and I were trying to engage into. Visits, invitations, and requests for help happened so often that I hardly had time to study for class. We lived about three blocks away from them, and it was difficult to say no to their frequent requests. Slowly, I began to request that they didn’t visit because I had to study, but they would still come to ask me to let go of the books and to go have fun with them.
I was somehow allowing my relatives to slow me down, and to make matters worst, I was working full time. One of the most horrible tactics they used was my inability to have children. My husband and I got married in 1988, by 1990 they were already calling me “jorra,” a Spanish word used to describe animals who cannot procreate. My pain was unimaginable, and the focus on my classes began to diminish. After so many tries, and tears every month, I decided to lift my head and strike them with what I knew they did not like. The weapon I used was to ignore the topic and pretend they could not hurt me with it and that I did not care about having children just yet. I buried my pain behind a big smile and lots of make up.
Soon after, my relatives found another two weapons to put me to shame: work and pregnancy. I continued to work and go to night classes, later I would become pregnant, something that was also a matter of conflict while visiting my relatives. I can clearly remember my sisters’ attempts to make me feel like my husband was not worth anything. The oldest one stated in many occasions “her husband would not allow her to work because he was the man in the house and she did not have to work until he died.” Those words, in my culture, are so commonly used when they are trying to put somebody down for not being a homemaker. I swallowed my pride and ignore them, but it was impossible to not to feel pain. Later, in 1991, and before I could accomplish my educational goals, I became pregnant with my first child. Emma was born in 1992.
My relatives also used my pregnancy to put me to shame. Working during my pregnancy was the worst attack to my culture’s principles, and my father was devastated to see me working while pregnant. I truly believe that my sisters had to do with his persistence on believing that I should stay home while pregnant with my first child. However slow, I was still studying and going to the library for classes every so often.
Realizing that giving up on my goals was not an option, I decided to speed up my studies. One night, while my mom accompanied me during one of my husband’s business trips, I understood some of the pain they were going through. The pain in her voice and her eyes while she said to me “ My daughter, education and brick houses are not for people like us, please stop dreaming because you are setting yourself up for disappointment” is something I will never forget. To me, what I saw then was pure defeat, and fear of seeing me in distress. The worst feeling for me was not to be able to get her out of that fear, that self defeat that made her worry about me, and to think that I would not accomplish what I wanted. It was time to leave.
We moved to Alabama in 1994, when Emma was two years old, and I took the GED exam and began college during the same year. We moved to several different states and did not come back until I was almost done with school. I had my second child in 1998, Miguel; he was one year old when we moved back to Houston. Even when we moved back, I talked to my husband about not getting a house close to my family, and we agreed to live far away from them. Not because I do not love them, but because I refuse to live in pain and to allow my children to learn to live like that.
Today
Today, I have a Bachelor of Business Administration, I am in the process of obtaining my Masters in Social Work, and my new goal is to help people understand that they will always find somebody trying to make them feel ashamed about something. Words should not be a reason to prevent anybody from accomplishing their goals. Furthermore, I want people to know that we can live with shame if we learn to process it in a positive way and to not allow shame triggers to set them up for failure. We need to fight against shame barriers and develop the resilience to continue living with pride.
