Gov. Susana Martinez
The Santa Fe New Mexican went in-depth this weekend in a profile of Gov. Susana Martinez, pointing out that she has been “scaling walls since she was a kid.”
From the article:
“At 11 and of a mind to ignore her mother’s warning, she couldn’t stop herself from trying to conquer the garden wall bordering her family’s three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot Thomas Manor brick home in El Paso.
“‘Don’t run on that wall, Susana,’ her mother, Paula Aguirre, would tell her. ‘You’re going to fall.’ Little Susana would climb the cinder-block wall anyway and start racing with a friend along the narrow, rounded top of the wall.
“‘I fell and cut my thigh,’ Martinez said. ‘I didn’t cry. I just remember thinking, ‘Oh no!’ I was more afraid of my mom.’
“‘Martinez’s father, Jacobo Martinez, was a boxer, so her mother had experience caring for wounds. When Aguirre poured peroxide onto her wound, Susana clenched her teeth. The peroxide foam gurgling from the bloody gash caused her to throw up the cherry Icee in her tummy.
Advertisement“But she did not cry.
“It was a moment of truth that has lasted a lifetime in ways big and small. Now, 41 years later, that little girl has grown up to be governor of New Mexico, and Martinez still bears the elongated, almond-shaped scar on her left thigh.
“In a larger sense, the challenge of the wall and her mother’s talent for patching things up became symbols. She learned the quality of perseverance in her Hispanic home, and has used it to succeed as a prosecutor and politician.”
The article includes some insight about New Mexico’s governor that I’ve not read elsewhere. Check it out by clicking here.