Build the World You Wish You Had

Day 7 of 10 leading up to the 10-year anniversary of the CareMessage product.

My first introduction to technology and the broader STEM fields came in high school when I was a part of an experiment at South Texas College . They placed a handful of high school students into community college classes in an attempt to have them graduate with an associate degree in Engineering. It must have been in one of the first meetings where I saw the statistics regarding how unlikely it was for a woman, much less a Latina, to get a STEM degree or work in a STEM field. That stuck with me.

The summer prior to my first year at Stanford University , I participated in the Stanford Summer Engineering Academy (SSEA), an incredible program that aims to introduce students from underrepresented backgrounds to the breadth of engineering fields at Stanford. I learned about stereotype threat and imposter syndrome, two terms I had never heard of before but certainly had felt. SSEA was also where I first saw the IDEO shopping cart video, which introduced me to Product Design.

A few years later, I would walk into my first Product Design class, taught by none other than David Kelley. I remember that first conversation, sharing my past experiences. Professor Kelley was the first to tell me I had always been a designer; I just hadn't known it. I started to feel like I belonged.

I spent most of my time at Stanford working for the School of Engineering, leading diversity programs alongside student-led engineering groups representing women, Black, Native American, and Latino students. I wanted other students to feel like they belonged. The statistics detailing what we were up against never left my mind, and unfortunately, I saw it reflected in my job prospects. No matter how many roles or internships I applied for, I did not receive a single interview. The rejections left me questioning if I was qualified for a job in the tech industry, so I turned to academia. I applied and got accepted to a Ph.D. program in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin as the only Latina accepted into the program that year.

During my first year in graduate school, my dad unexpectedly passed away. That experience led me to work on CareMessage. Six months later, I dropped out of my graduate school program to focus on a new personal mission: improve healthcare access for low-income patients like my dad.

I focused my first few years at CareMessage on making our product work. At the same time, I thought a lot about how poorly tech companies treat employees from underrepresented backgrounds. In many ways, they intentionally excluded people like me. I wanted CareMessage to do things differently, and we have. It hasn't always been easy.

I share my long history of looking at these problems to emphasize that I have thought about these problems longer and more deeply than most people. Convincing others that this problem is worth solving at CareMessage has sometimes been even more difficult. As we grew our team, people consistently challenged policies to create an equal playing field.

Over time, I learned that to people with privilege, equality feels like oppression. Even those underrepresented in tech under one of their identities are apt to use whatever power they have to oppress others. I almost burned out due to this.

I will not spend significant time on mental health in this post because I will dedicate an entire post to it, but doing diversity and inclusion work is draining. As draining as it was, I was unwavering in my belief that our organization must reflect the populations we aim to serve. Not because it is 'good for business' as some like to say, but because prioritizing diversity and inclusion is the right human thing to do.

As founders, we have a special gift in creating new products and companies. I see this gift as an opportunity to help create a new world. A world where we tackle wage gaps. A world where work applications are not rejected automatically due to someone's name. A world where we hire based on someone's ability to perform a role and not because of a vague notion of 'culture fit.' Lastly, one where Latina founders can have hundreds of examples to look to and see themselves in tech.