Crossing the border with a box of dishes, a purple pickup truck and abundant persistence

Dr. Rosalinda Rodriguez keeps an old iron griddle that her mother-in-law gave her. On it, she makes flour tortillas in the kitchen of her home on Tucson’s west side. “It’s made of very good metal. It still lives on my stove,” she says.

The griddle arrived in a box filled with dishes — the same one she mentions in her book, “A Purple Truck and a Box of Dishes.”

Rodriguez was born and raised in the border city of San Luis Río Colorado. When she crossed into the United States in the late 1990s that box crossed with her, in the back of a 1978 purple pickup truck. 

Rosalinda Rodriguez is the director of multicultural curriculum for the Tucson Unified School District and displays her doctorate in education from the University of Phoenix. Credit: Jess Ruvalcaba

“It was our first vehicle, and the only possession we had was a box of dishes,” she recalls. 

Looking back, Rodriguez knows the struggles of being an immigrant in Arizona. But she sees the starting point of her journey marked by the determination of a Latina resolved to forge a path for herself — and for others — within the U.S. education system.

Today, Rodriguez is director of multicultural curriculum for the Tucson Unified School District, a published author, a leader with a doctorate in education and more than 25 years of experience supporting students. 

“Everything happened so fast. I feel like I just blinked and we’re already here,” Rodriguez says in a calm voice filled with memories.

On March 15, Rodriguez presented the workshop “Fostering Hope and Persistence Through Story” at the Tucson Festival of Books. 

The workshop offered strategies to support families, inspire young people and strengthen a community culture rooted in memory and resilience.

For Rodriguez, this gathering is deeply personal. “Hope is the last thing to die,” she says, remembering a moment that would eventually define her destiny.

Before stepping into a classroom, she faced a dozen rejections. She applied for a teacher’s assistant position again and again at the same school in San Simon USD 18. 

“I applied approximately twelve times before they hired me,” she says. “That’s the persistence I’m talking about.”

A decisive moment came in that final application.

“If I had given up, it would have been a crucial lost moment in my life,” she says.

When she was finally called to the superintendent’s office, he got to the point: Do you really want to work here?

Rodriguez didn’t hesitate to answer, “Yes.”

She got the job, leaving behind the days of cleaning houses and working as a waitress.

“Education changed my life,” she says in a firm voice.

At a time when Latino immigrant communities are suffering, how can this workshop serve people?

“Right now things are very critical in our country, and in the world in general. We’re in a society whose priorities are somewhat turned upside down,” Rodriguez says.

We must set an example, she says. 

“We can teach parents how to help their children cope with situations and prepare them emotionally,” she says — educating them through our own actions, through how we respond despite what is happening.

Latina radiance

Rodriguez says writing a book did not come suddenly or easily. Since her college years, professors encouraged her.

“They would tell me I had to write,” she says.

But the idea of becoming an author felt distant. “I didn’t see myself as someone who could write a book — we talk about impostor syndrome.”

While raising her two children and working full-time, Rodriguez steadily advanced her studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education. A master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. A specialization in educational leadership and administration. Then, a doctorate in education.

It wasn’t until she finished her doctorate that something changed. Upon completing her degree, she received an unexpected invitation: to contribute chapters to the “Latina Radiance: Leadership Recipes for Success” trilogy.

That moment, she says, opened the door to what she had once considered improbable: her first book. At the end, Rodriguez left a couple of blank pages as an invitation for readers to write down their goals and the steps they are willing to take to achieve them.

“I have that love for continuing to learn and continuing to help,” she says. “That’s my message: love for yourself and for others. With love, anything is possible.”

Laughing, Rodriguez shares something she often repeats: if she ever wins the lottery, she will go back to college to study another career — just to return and teach someone else.

This article first appeared on AZ Luminaria and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.