Nivyukuri Kazimire

Emily Dibble
HUMA 1100
12/12/2016
Lupe Valdez
Lupe Valdez is the current Sheriff of Dallas County, Texas. Lupe was born October 11,
1947 in San Antonio, Texas to Mexican-American migrant worker.
Background
Lupe is the youngest of seven children in her family. Her family were migrant worker
who traveled constantly picking green beans, corn, beets, and sweet potatoes. When Lupe and
her old brother reached school age, the family permanently settled in San Antonio Texas so the
last two children could go to school. After struggling to convince her dad to allow her to go to
school, she eventually attended her primary/high school in San Antonio. Lupe had rough time
throughout her primary/high school career because San Antonio was strictly segregated at the
time. And she was way behind with other students in class. After high school, Lupe attended
Bethany Nazarene College in Oklahoma. She worked in the school Cafeteria to earn funds for
her tuition.
After College
Upon successfully completing her Business Administration degree, Lupe applied for a
low-level government job in San Antonio. She and other four Anglos candidates, were subject to
take civil service exam for the position. Lupe scored the highest but didnt not obtain the position
because she was Hispanic. Lupe moved to Kansas City where she worked as substitute teacher
for a while before joining the Army Reserve. After spending thirteen years in the Army moving
up the rank of captain, she became correctional officer at local prison and worked as Federal
agent.
Sheriff Career
After retiring as DEA in 20004, Lupe ran for the office Dallas county sheriff. On January
2, 2004, she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Dallas County Sheriff.
Lupe won the election by 2 % and became the first female Hispanic and openly gay to ever serve
as sheriff in the history of Dallas County. Despite Lupes gender and the fact that she is lesbian,
Lupe has managed to squeeze in four terms under her law enforcement career belt so far.
Relation to Humanities
I relate Lupes story to several humanity themes. Such as How culture defines gender,
Minorities and mixed races, and how we define our identity. Throughout Lupes profession,
nothing was easy. She faced challenges along the way.

First she battled her father who was against her idea of attending school and becoming law
enforcement personnel. I believe Lupes father draw his ground basic on what he was observing
happening to Minorities and mixed races within the community of San Antonio. San Antonio
was Segregated when Lupe was young there for making it not equal. This probably influenced
Lupes father to conclude that Lupe going to school would be a waste of time because she would
not get in. And even if she did become a police officer, she would end abusing her power on
other Hispanic like her. At one point Lupes father told her that she would become like all other
cops. That she would beat up Hispanics.
The second obstacle Lupe faced was being female. Even more difficult to that part was being
minority female. Now during Lupes Law enforcement career entry level, it was time when
females were starting to take management roles in law enforcement. This sure give her relief
knowing that she wasnt the only female out there looking to get in the law enforcement industry.
But did not erase the fact that she was the only female and minority. At least in her unit.
The third and the last obstacle was her being gay. Lupe know that she was different when
growing up. She says at times when watching romance movie with her girlfriends, she would
describe herself as the guy whos saving the her. This obstacle is relating to the struggle of how
we define once identify in humanities. For Lupes case her religion played big role making very
difficult for her to accept the statue of being lesbian. Lupe was taught since child that she could
not be in relationship with god and be homosexual. It wasnt until at age 30 after joining
Metropolitan Community church, a church that has a special outreach to the gay and lesbian
community, that Lupe realize that she wasnt going to hide from the fact of her being lesbian
forever.
Lessons learned
Lupes story is very inspiring given how she made it to the top against all the odds.
Despite having poor education, being minority female, and gay, Lupe never the less managed to
set an example to Hispanic young people, and other group of race that no matter your
background and what you have gone through, you still have chance of making different to your
life. And that once culture can have negative or positive impact on our future. It is up to us to
choose what we want to stand for. Lupe Valdez knew that she was minority and things would be
difficult for her. She know she was female looking to enter into males type job defined by the
society, making it once again hard journey for her. She knew she was also gay making her
chance of being hired very slim. But she went about putting all this on the side and focused on
the positive.

Work Cited
Wikipedia contributors. "Lupe Valdez." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia, 26 Nov. 2016. Web. 26 Nov. 2016.
Johnson, Beth. Voces Latinas: Hispanic Adults Speak to Hispanic young People. West Berlin The
Townsend Library, 2010.Print.