As the child of Mexican immigrants, a Harvard graduate, and the Executive Director of the Denver Mayor’s Office for Education and Children, Dr. Maria Guajardo has been a navigator of cultures her entire life. Growing up in labor camps for migrant workers, she found that it was important for her to understand the role that both education and culture played in her life. According to Guajardo, “My parents are both illiterate. My mother went as far as second grade and my father never went to school. So, between the two of them, they’ve never read a book.” Despite her parents’ lack of education, they encouraged Guajardo, along with her five siblings, to do well in school so they could live the “American dream.” Dr. Guajardo’s career has been shaped by these experiences and she considers it her life’s work to make growing up easier for children coming from vulnerable backgrounds like she did. “I think every step along my journey has been about that work, whether I was in state government, in the nonprofit world, or now in city government, it’s been about making growing up easier,” said Guajardo.
This year, Dr. Guajardo will bring this unique perspective on youth development to the Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth Conference as an assembly speaker and breakthrough session leader. As the keynote speaker for the opening assembly, Guajardo will kick off the conference by discussing what it means to be a navigator of cultures—cultures participated in, cultures emerged from, and cultures that individuals continue to find themselves in every day. “As our country continues to become more and more diverse, we have to become better able to navigate through these diverse paths, these diverse cultures and really think about how we can become better navigators in this journey of life” said Guajardo. She wants this focus to challenge participants to connect to the conference and their work in youth development with not only their heads, but also their hearts.
As a seasoned HC • HY Conference participant, Dr. Guajardo has many hopes for this year’s conference. She hopes it will be an experience filled with shared wisdom and self-discovery for attendees. Her goal is that the conference challenges each participant to communicate their gifts and life lessons with others. Guajardo also notes that participants should keep in mind that even though someone is a conference presenter, that doesn’t mean they know everything or they wouldn’t benefit from differing perspectives. Finally, Guajardo believes the conference should be a time to advance Search Institute’s strength-based approach to child development: “Any opportunity in our country to be authentic about a strength-based perspective of children and youth is so important and certainly the conference is one of those opportunities.”
Dr. Maria Guajardo will speak at the opening assembly “A Vision for Thriving” and lead a breakthrough session entitled “Cultural Competence in a Global Society” at 2:00pm on Thursday afternoon in room 206.
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