April 11, 2023 • 32 mins
Katya Echazarreta is a Mexican electrical engineer and Citizen Astronaut and Activist. She shares with us how she is helping change the landscape of space exploration in Mexico, and how she learned to navigate unfamiliar territory by using her voice.
You can follow Katya on Instagram at @katvoltage . Also follow Latinas Take the Lead on Instagram @LatinasTakeTheLead
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Naibe Reynoso is the Host and Executive Producer of Latinas Take the Lead.
Production Assistant is Sophia Monzon.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
We all re dealt a different set of cards, and
so you have to ask yourself to questions, who are
you truly? Who who are you? And what do you want?
And without listening to what other people are telling you
that you should want, do you want it though? Is
(00:29):
this still truly what you want? Welcome to Latina's Take
the Lead, a podcast about all things Latina. For our
very first episode, we have the honor of having as
our guest the first Mexican born woman in space. In
case you haven't heard about Goatia, she is a rock star.
(00:53):
At twenty seven years old, she's already traveled to space.
She's contributed to five NASA missions. She's based activist in Mexico,
and more on that in our interview. She's been on
the cover of Vogue and named Glamor Woman of the Year,
while at the same time pursuing a master's degree in
electrical engineering. She even recently got her own custom Barbie.
(01:16):
Goatia shows us and shares with us why there's nothing
Latinas can't do. Goatia continues to use her story and
platform to inspire future generations of women. Let's go, So,
I want to welcome the first Mexican born woman in space.
(01:37):
Welcome to Latinas take the lead. Hi, thank you for
having me. Of course, of course, so you became the
first Mexican born woman to go to space in June
of twenty twenty two. Right, talk to me about your
vision of returning to space. Is that in the plans? Absolutely?
(01:58):
But I think for me, something that I realiz after
this flight is that I didn't want to continue on
with the opportunities in the life that I already had.
That kind of seemed like the easy way out. I
know that I could have gone on and continued and
applied for the NASA Astronaut Program or some of these
(02:19):
other companies that are currently already working on training their
own astronauts for future work, future missions. And that was
the goal originally, and it sounds really exciting, but I
knew that I had been given a platform, a voice,
and an opportunity to help an entire country. So if
I do go back, and when, if and when I
(02:40):
do go back, I want to do it with Mexico.
So I'm currently working very hard to be able to
get them to that point. Right, And that is fascinating
because you travel to space, but you did realize, according
to what you're saying or what I'm getting, is that
the work is really here on the planet, on planet
Earth right to uplift our community and to inspire little
(03:04):
girls and even little boys that look like you, right,
that have those dreams of maybe maybe not necessarily going
to space, but have dreams of becoming an engineer or
doing something in the stem field, which in this country,
in the United States, we don't have a lot of
role models and representation. So I commend you for recognizing
(03:25):
that the work starts here on the planet Earth. Yeah,
and you are obviously very big on social media, and
I was looking at your social media account and one
particular post really got my attention and really resonated with me.
Your ig posts say that you come from a long
line of star watchers, astronomers and dreamers. So can you
(03:49):
expand on how our ancestors were already advanced in studying space. Yeah,
absolutely are the ancestors that we have as Latinos. They
were so rich and not necessarily with material items. I
heard a story recently during one of my trips to
Mexico which just touched me so much. And essentially when
(04:14):
some of the Spanish colonizers, because let's call them what
they were. When they came to Mexico, they went to
some of the leaders of these different tribes and they said,
bring me your most valuable and precious items, right, thinking
that they were going to bring gold, thinking they're going
to bring jewelry and gems and precious metals, and they
(04:37):
bring back a bunch of feathers, feathers with the most
beautiful colors you can imagine, feathers of all kinds, and
they said, here, these are our most precious items. And
that is just so beautiful to me, because when I
think about that, and when I think about how advanced
they really were to think that these societies were thinking
(04:59):
of them as, oh, you know, they don't know what
they have, they don't even understand the types of riches
that they have, But really they did. They understood that
the most important aspect of their lives was that nature
was their part in the universe and their understanding of
(05:19):
the world, without having to sacrifice any of the different
living beings that already are on this planet. And so
when I think about all of the learnings that they
had and the way that they would observe their own
place in this solar system, their own place in this universe,
without maybe really fully understanding the magnitude of it. But
(05:41):
the fact that they were able to do all of
that and learned so much and advanced so much as
society as a civilization, but also remained in peace with
the natural world around them. I think that that is
so important to me, and it's something that I really
try to go back to constantly because it is one
(06:04):
of the most important things you can learn as a
human being, right, Yes, like the advancement of the Mayan calendar,
or how how advanced that was. And I feel like
I think I've heard somewhere that it's been so difficult
to replicate because it was so perfect, right, um, and
they had all sorts of wisdom by looking at the stars,
(06:24):
and we as a community have the right to pursue,
you know what, our ancestors started so many hundreds of
years ago, right And so I'm so happy that we
have more representation in the field of of you know,
electrical engineering and astronomy and stem and all of that.
These are fields that our ancestors were experts in, and
(06:48):
like you said, unfortunately when they were colonized, it wasn't valued. Um,
but we're gonna we're gonna reclaim that that piece. Um.
So we went back in time and then we went
to to you know, we talked a little bit about
your journey into space, but I want to know what
you're doing now? Are you I understand that you are
(07:10):
pursuing UM your your education. You're you're you're pursuing your
master's an electrical engineering. Correct, Yes, I am, amongst a
million other things. So it's kind of just like my
little night activity and what. So you're you're pursuing your
master's an electrical engineering. You're obviously very active on social media.
(07:32):
You are a host for UM, a YouTube Netflix series.
You are starting a foundation right to help advocate for
more people in astronomy throughout Latin Mexico and Latin America. UM,
what else are you doing? Talk to us about, you know,
give us a peek into your world. Yeah, right now,
(07:53):
this particular moment is extremely stressful because all of the
different things that I've been working on and all the
different ideas that I had after my flight. We've been
working on them slowly, but everything is kind of starting
to come together all at the same time, which has
been a lot and very overwhelming for my entire team.
But I'm just so grateful that they feel so passionate
(08:15):
about the projects just like I do, because truly, I
wouldn't be able to do one tenth of the things
that I do if I didn't have a team with me,
which I think is something really important to acknowledge. Right
We're not doing this by ourselves. There's absolutely no way
we could do that. To give a little summary of
everything I've been up to right now, I have three
major projects and one of them is probably the taking
(08:39):
the highest priority right now, and that is a constitutional
reform for the Mexican constitution. So essentially, back when the
Morelos one and two satellites were going to be launched
almost forty years ago, Mexico needed to create some laws
and reform their constitutional little bit in order to allow
(09:02):
these satellites, you know, to have the full legal permissions
in order to be able to use them, build them,
collaborate with NASA so that they could launch them. And
that is also how they set their very first Mexican astronaut,
who was doctor Rodolfon Villa, so he was in charge
of understanding these satellites they were going to be sent
(09:24):
out with NASA, but they didn't want NASA to have
to be responsible for having to learn everything about how
they worked, and so they sent him with a team
of NASA astronauts so that he could oversee the operation.
Now that was almost forty years ago and nothing has
happened since then. So Mexico has not been able to
do more than basic satellite work for the past forty years.
(09:45):
That's all they've been able to do. And so the
first step that we need is to start opening up
those laws to create basically the legislative base necessary for
Mexico to have a space sector. Now, politics is something
that I was not really familiar with prior to this,
other than, you know, voting and getting educated on the
(10:09):
different topics so that you can be an educated voter,
but actually being in politics and working with politicians and
working with trying to pass laws, that is something I
had no experience with. So it has been kind of
a learning curve. But I think something that really helps
me is the fact that I'm not a politician, and
so I can go to pretty much any politician and
there isn't this issue of oh, but I'm from this
(10:31):
party and you're from this party. And we shouldn't really
be talking, and I'm able to talk to them human
to human. This is what we need. Mexican to Mexican,
and they're a lot more receptive about it. The only
problem we have at the moment is that we have
to pass this before September because it just like it
works here also in the United States, if it gets
to a certain point, then the current elected officials are
(10:55):
going to decide to wait until the next political term.
So the people that are listening that aren't that familiar
with the constitution and policies and all of this. If
you change the constitution, what will that allow Mexico to
do or Mexicans to do what's talked to us. Explain
(11:15):
it in a few words. Absolutely so a lot of
people don't actually know this, but Mexico cannot launch a
rocket legally. Wow. Wow. Mexico cannot have a space program
like they have in the US or in Europe legally,
and so that is what we need to create. We
(11:35):
need to create the laws necessary so that Mexico can
begin to regulate the airspace now not only for airplanes
but also for outer space activities. That is the number
one thing we have to accomplish because the problem here
is sure the laws don't exist, and so the government's
not able to do it, but private industry cannot do
(11:57):
it either. That's the thing. Wow, And we need to
explore space, right because it's the next frontier. Like they
keep saying, I really admire how you go, you know,
you grab the bull by its horns and go into
these industries that are so male dominated, such as electrical engineering,
such as politics. Yeah, is there a mantra or a
(12:20):
saying that you say to yourself when you're about to
enter a room full of men, when you're about to
be questioned by a man about what you want, what
you want to accomplish. Some of these spaces have been
very scary, particularly within politics, because if you walk into
some of these rooms, and it's possible that they'll give
(12:41):
you a microphone and they'll give you the floor, but
whether they listen to you is a whole other story.
I was especially shocked when I went into the Mexican
Congress because you would just see congressmen over here, congresswoman
over there, congresswoman over here, congressmen over there talking with
five other people when they're supposed to be you know,
sitting down listening to the speakers, but they're not. They're
(13:04):
just all over the place, and they're giving you a microphone,
they're giving you the stand and it is you know
your time. You have five minutes only you cannot go
past that. And I'm seeing people come before me speaking
and absolutely nobody listening. And so I realized that something
that I do before events like this, when I know, Okay,
(13:28):
it's gonna be hard, they're not paying attention, and this
is my five minutes. I don't get another opportunity. In
my head, I just kind of repeat, all right, I'm
gonna make you listen. I'm gonna make you listen. You're
gunn listen to me. And that really riles me up,
which is necessary because when you show up to spaces
like this, being confident is one of the most important things.
(13:52):
When you walk into that room, and if they see
you and you're hunching and your eyes are looking down
and you refuse to meet their eyes, you know they're
not going to listen to you, and they're not going
to take whatever you say seriously, even if you believe
it so wellheartedly, and you know that this is the
right way to go. That is one of the hardest
(14:12):
things to accomplish, and particularly when I was in the Congress.
I remember I walked up there and everyone is chattering
all over the place, and they're standing all over the place,
and I remember that I just I looked up angled
my microphone and I talked as loudly as I possibly
could into that microphone with such a strong, solid voice
(14:37):
that it shocked them. Every single one of them stopped
whatever they were doing to look up at me. And
the important part is, once you're able to accomplish that,
now you have to keep them there. You cannot allow
their gaze to move away at once you're able to
capture it. And so that is one of the most
important skills that I've had to learn, because I'm actually
(14:59):
a very quiet, shy, introverted person. But I like to
say I'm an extrovert when I have to be. I'm
taught myself how to be one when I need to
get something right. No, And that's great, that's a great
tool that you've developed in order to take up that space, right.
And we need to use and have these tools in
(15:22):
all kinds of different places in the workplace when we're
asking for a raise, right or when we're asking for
a sponsorship or a loan for our business or anything
in life. So I think it's such an important skill
to learn and we should all learn it as as women,
especially women of color. Right that sometimes we are used
to being sometimes ignored, dismiss put aside, or just you know,
(15:46):
not taken as seriously as we should. So thank you
for also being that example. When we get back, got
Ya tells us about how she's started training to become
an astronaut at age seven, and also her advice on
the question you need to ask yourself in order to
(16:08):
achieve anything you want. Talk to us a little bit
now about your journey to like realizing that you wanted
to become an astronaut. I heard you say that it's
something you've always wanted to do, right, because your mom
told you that that was the most difficult career to pursue.
(16:32):
So I had that conversation with my mom when I
was about seventy eight years old. And the important part
of that is that my mom wasn't just pulling random
things out of her head. You know, she was seeing
what I was interested in, and she was seeing that
I would naturally gravitate towards science and STEM and space particularly,
and so for her it's sort of like, yeah, I
(16:54):
was one of the first things that popped into her head,
but based on me, based on who I already was,
which I think is so special. I took it so seriously.
To me, it was like I had just decided that
at seven years old, and I said, Okay, my training
starts now, because in order to start training to go
to space, first I need to get a college degree.
(17:16):
But before I can get a college degree, I need
to graduate high school. And before I graduate high school,
I need to graduate middle school. And before I do that,
I have to do really well in elementary school, which
is where I am now. So that's kind of the
way that I looked at it, as I am training
to be able to train, right. But I really love
what you say because I think I actually write children's
(17:39):
books for little, you know, people of color, and especially
Latinos bilingual books, and I always instill the importance of,
you know, following your passion and not allowing voices or
things to get in the way, because I do truly
believe that we kind of already know we're already born
with something within us that is is guiding us to
(18:01):
a certain profession, right to a certain you know whatever
profession or passion, walk us through what you were like
as a little girl. So I was kind of interesting
because when I was a lot smaller, I definitely love
playing right. I love to play with my siblings. I
love to climb trees. I love to get in trouble,
(18:22):
go into places where I'm not supposed to be. I
loved exploring if we found some random right that's like,
no one's supposed to go in there. But as I
started to grow up, I realized that I was having
a hard time fitting in with my peers because a
lot of the things that I really liked and was
passionate about, I felt like they were weird to other people.
(18:45):
And so I would find myself wanting to just be
with the grown ups, and I would just be there
with my book and just hang out with the grown ups,
and it was this constant come on, come play with us,
and just no, no no. I also realized that I
was working really hard to try to hide myself in
order to avoid being seen in a way, and so
(19:08):
I was constantly wearing sweatpants and sweatsuits and these big
hoodies and these big jackets, and my hair was just
always a mess. But it was intentional, it was it
was kind of just my way of saying, I don't
want you to approach me, and so I'm going to
make myself as unapproachable as possible, because whenever I do
(19:32):
go out of my way to try to join, I'm
just seen as weird. And so it was kind of
all right, I'll give you weird, so you'll leave me alone.
Kind of so like, what kinds of things did you
did you play with? Yeah? I mean I just I
loved learning. I loved it so much. I would sign
(19:53):
myself up for online classes afterwarding I was probably nine. Wow,
oh wow, Yeah, I just loved it so much. That's
what I found happiness in. If I wasn't being taught
a particular subject in school, like astronomy, then I would
go home and I would look it up and look
(20:14):
up videos and look up classes and give myself homework.
And I just took it so seriously. School to me
was the number one thing. And I think a big
reason for that is that for me, even as a child,
I understood that education was going to change my life.
I didn't want to live the life my mom was living,
and my mom didn't want me to live the life
she was living either, what kind of life was, and
(20:37):
my mom was living the life that is very common
to a lot of Latina women. You have to stay
at home. Your responsibility is the household and the children.
But at the same time, we didn't notice this at
the time as children, but my mom was also being
very severely emotionally, mentally, psychologically abused by my dad. And
(20:58):
so even though I did it fully grasp it, I
did see sort of the dynamic and I didn't like it.
I didn't know it was wrong, but I knew that
I didn't want that for me. I never wanted to
live in a place where as soon as the man
comes home, everyone just immediately stiffens up, right right now,
(21:21):
everyone goes runs and hides. And my mom has to
be all dressed up and her hair all done and
her makeup all done to receive her husband and to
serve him as food. And she's not allowed to eat
until he is eating already. And if you know, she's
already eating and he's eating, but he needs something that
she gets up and goes and gets it, and her
(21:41):
food gets cold and to me that life. It just
it seemed so inappropriate to treat somebody like that, somebody
that I mean, I cared about so much to see
her living in that way. And my mom always told me,
you know, you don't have to live like this, but
it's gonna take school, it's gonna take a career, it's
(22:03):
gonna take you being independent. So for me, it wasn't necessarily, oh,
I have to go to school because I'm being told
to by my parents. It was I have to do
this because I don't want to live like that. Right.
It was your way out right, your way out of
that that that cycle, that vicious cycle that we see
(22:25):
in so many Latino families. I have so many the
ass that didn't learn how to drive because the dad,
you know, their husbands they did not want to let
them learn how to drive and get a driver's license.
And g I wonder why they didn't want them to drive.
They wanted not to give them that independence. Right. So yes,
(22:46):
it's it's amazing that we can have a bigger vision
than that and and like know that it's wrong, identify
that it's wrong, and break away and change the future
for our children and for future generation. You had mentioned
that education was super important to you and continues to
be obviously, But I also read that your first round
(23:08):
of grades at UCLA were a series of d's and f's.
I have two questions about that. First of all, is
that true? And second of all, I love that if
it is true, because it just proves that we all
have to work hard to get our you know, to
get whatever our goals are. We're not all born geniuses,
(23:29):
and we all struggle, and we all, you know, maybe
don't succeed at first. So talk to us about that.
Is it true that you got dsnfs And if so,
how did you overcome that? Yeah, so it is true
when it comes to tests, But I've never actually gotten
a d r n F in a class like at
the end, right after everything is said and done. But
(23:52):
I've definitely struggled with grades like that during the class.
You know, if I get a test back and I realize, oh,
well this is great, I'm actually the lowest score out
of the entire class, out of three hundred, or I
would get a homework back and it would just be
read all over completely wrong, scribbled over my first quarter
(24:14):
at UCLA, it was probably the hardest one academically for me,
because there are a few things happening with this. First
of all, it's my first time being away from home,
being away from the city where I grew up, being
away from the city that I've been in since I
was eight years old, And on top of that, on
my own which is San Diego. Correct, that's where you diego? Yeah.
(24:38):
And secondly, I'm on a scholarship. My GPA cannot go
below a certain amount or I lose it, And that's
a lot of pressure. You're constantly thinking, I'm going to
lose this money and I'm not going to be able
to graduate because of this one F or because of
this one D. And so it gets so overwhelming, that
(25:00):
stress and that anxiety of not being able to fix
it before the final grades come out, and getting kicked
out of school because now, first of all, your grades
are bad, and second of all, you cannot no longer
even pay for it. But when you're in a place
like that, you forget the rest of the world. You
forget that even though you may not be doing so
well in this classroom, still cumulatively, the two hundred of
(25:24):
you that are here are probably like the top five
percent of students in your entire state. But you forget that, right,
It's all relative, right, But I think it's so important
to acknowledge that work that we all fail, and failure
is part of life and if you're failing, that means
you're trying. So I think it just humanizes you when
(25:47):
I read that, because it's like, Okay, you know we
all struggle at achieving a goal. Yeah, and we don't
always get it right the first time, but it's about
getting up and keep on trying and trying, and it
obviously worked because look at you now. I know that
our time is running out. So I had a few questions.
(26:09):
One of them was do you have a favorite space movie?
There are so many amazing space movies out there, like
you know, Gravity or Interstellar, so many do you have
a favorite? So for me, I was definitely that annoying
little kid that understood a little bit more about the
(26:30):
science and would just gets so frustrated with space movies. Yeah,
because you're like, that couldn't happen, That didn't happen, This
is so wrong. The first one that I think really
caught my attention once you turn your brain off was
Space Odyssey two thousand and one. Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick,
(26:53):
and I just love it because it starts off so well, like,
all right, yeah, some of this is like very far
fetched and all right, but like let's just keep going.
And then it just ends in the most ridiculous way possible,
with like a person becoming a space soul baby, which
just what they're more ridiculous. It makes it easier to
(27:15):
enjoy because now you're not just trying to compare it
to reality. Now it's like, all right, this is no
longer reality whatsoever. So let's just watch right, So that
makes total sense, total total sense. Another question I wanted
to ask you before we log off is you know,
obviously you're a role model to so many Latinas little
(27:36):
Latinas listening and watching you give them an inspiring message about,
you know, pursuing their dreams and goals. Some advice that
I have that is really important for me is I
think it is so common for us to try to
look to others for what should we do? How do
(28:00):
I do this? I want to do what you did,
so tell me exactly what you did so that I
can replicate it. But I've found that the way to
create a guide actually comes from within yourself, because all
of us are on different journeys, we're all in different paths,
we all were dealt a different set of cards, and
(28:22):
so you have to ask yourself two questions, who are
you truly? Who are you? And what do you want?
And without listening to what other people are telling you
that you should want, just sit yourself down in a
quiet room or wherever you feel comfortable and block everything
(28:45):
out and just ask yourself those two questions. Because even
when something is really difficult and you're struggling so much
and you don't know whether you're going to be able
to get through it, do you want it? Though? Is
still truly what you want? Because if so, then there's
only one way to go after that, right, love it.
(29:07):
That's that's a beautiful message and I totally one hundred agree.
Sometimes we get caught up in the glamour or the
image without really looking within ourselves. So love it beautiful.
Last question, the name of the show is latin us
take the lead. Tell us how you're taking the lead. Currently,
(29:31):
I realized that we have so much more power than
we think. And the more that I meet so many
people that have achieved a certain level of success, or
an appeared certain level of success. Right, success is different
to everyone. But I've met some very very well established people,
(29:55):
very well known people, very successful people, and every single
one of them, I can promise you, is so normal.
They are, there are people, we're healing. We're just human beings, right,
We're not extra terrestrials, and we did not come from space,
(30:17):
although there is a theory that star dust to the earth.
But for you know, for lack of better interpretation, we're
all human beings. I mean, at the end of the day,
with feelings and emotions and fears and struggles. It's been
so beautiful to realize that. And so the more that
I interact with these individuals, the more that I'm able
(30:39):
to sort of step into that leadership role and say, well,
if all of these people, who are completely normal, we're
able to do all of that, then imagine what I'm
capable of. And I think that that gives me a
lot of confidence in myself as well, and so no
thing is too big for me anymore, you know. And
(31:00):
I'm being told, oh, yeah, you want to do all
of this, but first you have to change the Mexican constitution, Like, okay,
let's do it. Yeah, you want to do all of this,
but first you have to get the approval of the president. Okay,
let's do it. You know, it's just sort of letting
go and shutting that fear and hearing words and saying okay,
(31:24):
I need to do all of that. All right, It's fine,
I can do it. Let's just go do it. Amazing,
It's possible. Every anything is truly possible if we can.
I mean there's certain things that are not possible. You know,
we can't become invisible, but like it. Oh wow, you're
gonna have to tell us about that later and you
(31:46):
have the inside scoop. But see even that, even that
is possible, becoming invisible. Well, thank you so much, Goathia.
Really enjoyed talking to you. I'm gonna be watching you
from a distance, watching your career, and thank you for
taking the lead. Thank you so much. Katia is definitely
(32:11):
a Latina taking the lead. If you want to follow
her journey, you can find her on Instagram at cat
Voltage and on her website dot com. Please like and
subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Instagram at
Latina's Take the Lead, and remember, don't be afraid to
(32:32):
break barriers and Latina's take the lead.
We all re dealt a different set of cards, and
so you have to ask yourself to questions, who are
you truly? Who who are you? And what do you want?
And without listening to what other people are telling you
that you should want, do you want it though? Is
(00:29):
this still truly what you want? Welcome to Latina's Take
the Lead, a podcast about all things Latina. For our
very first episode, we have the honor of having as
our guest the first Mexican born woman in space. In
case you haven't heard about Goatia, she is a rock star.
(00:53):
At twenty seven years old, she's already traveled to space.
She's contributed to five NASA missions. She's based activist in Mexico,
and more on that in our interview. She's been on
the cover of Vogue and named Glamor Woman of the Year,
while at the same time pursuing a master's degree in
electrical engineering. She even recently got her own custom Barbie.
(01:16):
Goatia shows us and shares with us why there's nothing
Latinas can't do. Goatia continues to use her story and
platform to inspire future generations of women. Let's go, So,
I want to welcome the first Mexican born woman in space.
(01:37):
Welcome to Latinas take the lead. Hi, thank you for
having me. Of course, of course, so you became the
first Mexican born woman to go to space in June
of twenty twenty two. Right, talk to me about your
vision of returning to space. Is that in the plans? Absolutely?
(01:58):
But I think for me, something that I realiz after
this flight is that I didn't want to continue on
with the opportunities in the life that I already had.
That kind of seemed like the easy way out. I
know that I could have gone on and continued and
applied for the NASA Astronaut Program or some of these
(02:19):
other companies that are currently already working on training their
own astronauts for future work, future missions. And that was
the goal originally, and it sounds really exciting, but I
knew that I had been given a platform, a voice,
and an opportunity to help an entire country. So if
I do go back, and when, if and when I
(02:40):
do go back, I want to do it with Mexico.
So I'm currently working very hard to be able to
get them to that point. Right, And that is fascinating
because you travel to space, but you did realize, according
to what you're saying or what I'm getting, is that
the work is really here on the planet, on planet
Earth right to uplift our community and to inspire little
(03:04):
girls and even little boys that look like you, right,
that have those dreams of maybe maybe not necessarily going
to space, but have dreams of becoming an engineer or
doing something in the stem field, which in this country,
in the United States, we don't have a lot of
role models and representation. So I commend you for recognizing
(03:25):
that the work starts here on the planet Earth. Yeah,
and you are obviously very big on social media, and
I was looking at your social media account and one
particular post really got my attention and really resonated with me.
Your ig posts say that you come from a long
line of star watchers, astronomers and dreamers. So can you
(03:49):
expand on how our ancestors were already advanced in studying space. Yeah,
absolutely are the ancestors that we have as Latinos. They
were so rich and not necessarily with material items. I
heard a story recently during one of my trips to
Mexico which just touched me so much. And essentially when
(04:14):
some of the Spanish colonizers, because let's call them what
they were. When they came to Mexico, they went to
some of the leaders of these different tribes and they said,
bring me your most valuable and precious items, right, thinking
that they were going to bring gold, thinking they're going
to bring jewelry and gems and precious metals, and they
(04:37):
bring back a bunch of feathers, feathers with the most
beautiful colors you can imagine, feathers of all kinds, and
they said, here, these are our most precious items. And
that is just so beautiful to me, because when I
think about that, and when I think about how advanced
they really were to think that these societies were thinking
(04:59):
of them as, oh, you know, they don't know what
they have, they don't even understand the types of riches
that they have, But really they did. They understood that
the most important aspect of their lives was that nature
was their part in the universe and their understanding of
(05:19):
the world, without having to sacrifice any of the different
living beings that already are on this planet. And so
when I think about all of the learnings that they
had and the way that they would observe their own
place in this solar system, their own place in this universe,
without maybe really fully understanding the magnitude of it. But
(05:41):
the fact that they were able to do all of
that and learned so much and advanced so much as
society as a civilization, but also remained in peace with
the natural world around them. I think that that is
so important to me, and it's something that I really
try to go back to constantly because it is one
(06:04):
of the most important things you can learn as a
human being, right, Yes, like the advancement of the Mayan calendar,
or how how advanced that was. And I feel like
I think I've heard somewhere that it's been so difficult
to replicate because it was so perfect, right, um, and
they had all sorts of wisdom by looking at the stars,
(06:24):
and we as a community have the right to pursue,
you know what, our ancestors started so many hundreds of
years ago, right And so I'm so happy that we
have more representation in the field of of you know,
electrical engineering and astronomy and stem and all of that.
These are fields that our ancestors were experts in, and
(06:48):
like you said, unfortunately when they were colonized, it wasn't valued. Um,
but we're gonna we're gonna reclaim that that piece. Um.
So we went back in time and then we went
to to you know, we talked a little bit about
your journey into space, but I want to know what
you're doing now? Are you I understand that you are
(07:10):
pursuing UM your your education. You're you're you're pursuing your
master's an electrical engineering. Correct, Yes, I am, amongst a
million other things. So it's kind of just like my
little night activity and what. So you're you're pursuing your
master's an electrical engineering. You're obviously very active on social media.
(07:32):
You are a host for UM, a YouTube Netflix series.
You are starting a foundation right to help advocate for
more people in astronomy throughout Latin Mexico and Latin America. UM,
what else are you doing? Talk to us about, you know,
give us a peek into your world. Yeah, right now,
(07:53):
this particular moment is extremely stressful because all of the
different things that I've been working on and all the
different ideas that I had after my flight. We've been
working on them slowly, but everything is kind of starting
to come together all at the same time, which has
been a lot and very overwhelming for my entire team.
But I'm just so grateful that they feel so passionate
(08:15):
about the projects just like I do, because truly, I
wouldn't be able to do one tenth of the things
that I do if I didn't have a team with me,
which I think is something really important to acknowledge. Right
We're not doing this by ourselves. There's absolutely no way
we could do that. To give a little summary of
everything I've been up to right now, I have three
major projects and one of them is probably the taking
(08:39):
the highest priority right now, and that is a constitutional
reform for the Mexican constitution. So essentially, back when the
Morelos one and two satellites were going to be launched
almost forty years ago, Mexico needed to create some laws
and reform their constitutional little bit in order to allow
(09:02):
these satellites, you know, to have the full legal permissions
in order to be able to use them, build them,
collaborate with NASA so that they could launch them. And
that is also how they set their very first Mexican astronaut,
who was doctor Rodolfon Villa, so he was in charge
of understanding these satellites they were going to be sent
(09:24):
out with NASA, but they didn't want NASA to have
to be responsible for having to learn everything about how
they worked, and so they sent him with a team
of NASA astronauts so that he could oversee the operation.
Now that was almost forty years ago and nothing has
happened since then. So Mexico has not been able to
do more than basic satellite work for the past forty years.
(09:45):
That's all they've been able to do. And so the
first step that we need is to start opening up
those laws to create basically the legislative base necessary for
Mexico to have a space sector. Now, politics is something
that I was not really familiar with prior to this,
other than, you know, voting and getting educated on the
(10:09):
different topics so that you can be an educated voter,
but actually being in politics and working with politicians and
working with trying to pass laws, that is something I
had no experience with. So it has been kind of
a learning curve. But I think something that really helps
me is the fact that I'm not a politician, and
so I can go to pretty much any politician and
there isn't this issue of oh, but I'm from this
(10:31):
party and you're from this party. And we shouldn't really
be talking, and I'm able to talk to them human
to human. This is what we need. Mexican to Mexican,
and they're a lot more receptive about it. The only
problem we have at the moment is that we have
to pass this before September because it just like it
works here also in the United States, if it gets
to a certain point, then the current elected officials are
(10:55):
going to decide to wait until the next political term.
So the people that are listening that aren't that familiar
with the constitution and policies and all of this. If
you change the constitution, what will that allow Mexico to
do or Mexicans to do what's talked to us. Explain
(11:15):
it in a few words. Absolutely so a lot of
people don't actually know this, but Mexico cannot launch a
rocket legally. Wow. Wow. Mexico cannot have a space program
like they have in the US or in Europe legally,
and so that is what we need to create. We
(11:35):
need to create the laws necessary so that Mexico can
begin to regulate the airspace now not only for airplanes
but also for outer space activities. That is the number
one thing we have to accomplish because the problem here
is sure the laws don't exist, and so the government's
not able to do it, but private industry cannot do
(11:57):
it either. That's the thing. Wow, And we need to
explore space, right because it's the next frontier. Like they
keep saying, I really admire how you go, you know,
you grab the bull by its horns and go into
these industries that are so male dominated, such as electrical engineering,
such as politics. Yeah, is there a mantra or a
(12:20):
saying that you say to yourself when you're about to
enter a room full of men, when you're about to
be questioned by a man about what you want, what
you want to accomplish. Some of these spaces have been
very scary, particularly within politics, because if you walk into
some of these rooms, and it's possible that they'll give
(12:41):
you a microphone and they'll give you the floor, but
whether they listen to you is a whole other story.
I was especially shocked when I went into the Mexican
Congress because you would just see congressmen over here, congresswoman
over there, congresswoman over here, congressmen over there talking with
five other people when they're supposed to be you know,
sitting down listening to the speakers, but they're not. They're
(13:04):
just all over the place, and they're giving you a microphone,
they're giving you the stand and it is you know
your time. You have five minutes only you cannot go
past that. And I'm seeing people come before me speaking
and absolutely nobody listening. And so I realized that something
that I do before events like this, when I know, Okay,
(13:28):
it's gonna be hard, they're not paying attention, and this
is my five minutes. I don't get another opportunity. In
my head, I just kind of repeat, all right, I'm
gonna make you listen. I'm gonna make you listen. You're
gunn listen to me. And that really riles me up,
which is necessary because when you show up to spaces
like this, being confident is one of the most important things.
(13:52):
When you walk into that room, and if they see
you and you're hunching and your eyes are looking down
and you refuse to meet their eyes, you know they're
not going to listen to you, and they're not going
to take whatever you say seriously, even if you believe
it so wellheartedly, and you know that this is the
right way to go. That is one of the hardest
(14:12):
things to accomplish, and particularly when I was in the Congress.
I remember I walked up there and everyone is chattering
all over the place, and they're standing all over the place,
and I remember that I just I looked up angled
my microphone and I talked as loudly as I possibly
could into that microphone with such a strong, solid voice
(14:37):
that it shocked them. Every single one of them stopped
whatever they were doing to look up at me. And
the important part is, once you're able to accomplish that,
now you have to keep them there. You cannot allow
their gaze to move away at once you're able to
capture it. And so that is one of the most
important skills that I've had to learn, because I'm actually
(14:59):
a very quiet, shy, introverted person. But I like to
say I'm an extrovert when I have to be. I'm
taught myself how to be one when I need to
get something right. No, And that's great, that's a great
tool that you've developed in order to take up that space, right.
And we need to use and have these tools in
(15:22):
all kinds of different places in the workplace when we're
asking for a raise, right or when we're asking for
a sponsorship or a loan for our business or anything
in life. So I think it's such an important skill
to learn and we should all learn it as as women,
especially women of color. Right that sometimes we are used
to being sometimes ignored, dismiss put aside, or just you know,
(15:46):
not taken as seriously as we should. So thank you
for also being that example. When we get back, got
Ya tells us about how she's started training to become
an astronaut at age seven, and also her advice on
the question you need to ask yourself in order to
(16:08):
achieve anything you want. Talk to us a little bit
now about your journey to like realizing that you wanted
to become an astronaut. I heard you say that it's
something you've always wanted to do, right, because your mom
told you that that was the most difficult career to pursue.
(16:32):
So I had that conversation with my mom when I
was about seventy eight years old. And the important part
of that is that my mom wasn't just pulling random
things out of her head. You know, she was seeing
what I was interested in, and she was seeing that
I would naturally gravitate towards science and STEM and space particularly,
and so for her it's sort of like, yeah, I
(16:54):
was one of the first things that popped into her head,
but based on me, based on who I already was,
which I think is so special. I took it so seriously.
To me, it was like I had just decided that
at seven years old, and I said, Okay, my training
starts now, because in order to start training to go
to space, first I need to get a college degree.
(17:16):
But before I can get a college degree, I need
to graduate high school. And before I graduate high school,
I need to graduate middle school. And before I do that,
I have to do really well in elementary school, which
is where I am now. So that's kind of the
way that I looked at it, as I am training
to be able to train, right. But I really love
what you say because I think I actually write children's
(17:39):
books for little, you know, people of color, and especially
Latinos bilingual books, and I always instill the importance of,
you know, following your passion and not allowing voices or
things to get in the way, because I do truly
believe that we kind of already know we're already born
with something within us that is is guiding us to
(18:01):
a certain profession, right to a certain you know whatever
profession or passion, walk us through what you were like
as a little girl. So I was kind of interesting
because when I was a lot smaller, I definitely love
playing right. I love to play with my siblings. I
love to climb trees. I love to get in trouble,
(18:22):
go into places where I'm not supposed to be. I
loved exploring if we found some random right that's like,
no one's supposed to go in there. But as I
started to grow up, I realized that I was having
a hard time fitting in with my peers because a
lot of the things that I really liked and was
passionate about, I felt like they were weird to other people.
(18:45):
And so I would find myself wanting to just be
with the grown ups, and I would just be there
with my book and just hang out with the grown ups,
and it was this constant come on, come play with us,
and just no, no no. I also realized that I
was working really hard to try to hide myself in
order to avoid being seen in a way, and so
(19:08):
I was constantly wearing sweatpants and sweatsuits and these big
hoodies and these big jackets, and my hair was just
always a mess. But it was intentional, it was it
was kind of just my way of saying, I don't
want you to approach me, and so I'm going to
make myself as unapproachable as possible, because whenever I do
(19:32):
go out of my way to try to join, I'm
just seen as weird. And so it was kind of
all right, I'll give you weird, so you'll leave me alone.
Kind of so like, what kinds of things did you
did you play with? Yeah? I mean I just I
loved learning. I loved it so much. I would sign
(19:53):
myself up for online classes afterwarding I was probably nine. Wow,
oh wow, Yeah, I just loved it so much. That's
what I found happiness in. If I wasn't being taught
a particular subject in school, like astronomy, then I would
go home and I would look it up and look
(20:14):
up videos and look up classes and give myself homework.
And I just took it so seriously. School to me
was the number one thing. And I think a big
reason for that is that for me, even as a child,
I understood that education was going to change my life.
I didn't want to live the life my mom was living,
and my mom didn't want me to live the life
she was living either, what kind of life was, and
(20:37):
my mom was living the life that is very common
to a lot of Latina women. You have to stay
at home. Your responsibility is the household and the children.
But at the same time, we didn't notice this at
the time as children, but my mom was also being
very severely emotionally, mentally, psychologically abused by my dad. And
(20:58):
so even though I did it fully grasp it, I
did see sort of the dynamic and I didn't like it.
I didn't know it was wrong, but I knew that
I didn't want that for me. I never wanted to
live in a place where as soon as the man
comes home, everyone just immediately stiffens up, right right now,
(21:21):
everyone goes runs and hides. And my mom has to
be all dressed up and her hair all done and
her makeup all done to receive her husband and to
serve him as food. And she's not allowed to eat
until he is eating already. And if you know, she's
already eating and he's eating, but he needs something that
she gets up and goes and gets it, and her
(21:41):
food gets cold and to me that life. It just
it seemed so inappropriate to treat somebody like that, somebody
that I mean, I cared about so much to see
her living in that way. And my mom always told me,
you know, you don't have to live like this, but
it's gonna take school, it's gonna take a career, it's
(22:03):
gonna take you being independent. So for me, it wasn't necessarily, oh,
I have to go to school because I'm being told
to by my parents. It was I have to do
this because I don't want to live like that. Right.
It was your way out right, your way out of
that that that cycle, that vicious cycle that we see
(22:25):
in so many Latino families. I have so many the
ass that didn't learn how to drive because the dad,
you know, their husbands they did not want to let
them learn how to drive and get a driver's license.
And g I wonder why they didn't want them to drive.
They wanted not to give them that independence. Right. So yes,
(22:46):
it's it's amazing that we can have a bigger vision
than that and and like know that it's wrong, identify
that it's wrong, and break away and change the future
for our children and for future generation. You had mentioned
that education was super important to you and continues to
be obviously, But I also read that your first round
(23:08):
of grades at UCLA were a series of d's and f's.
I have two questions about that. First of all, is
that true? And second of all, I love that if
it is true, because it just proves that we all
have to work hard to get our you know, to
get whatever our goals are. We're not all born geniuses,
(23:29):
and we all struggle, and we all, you know, maybe
don't succeed at first. So talk to us about that.
Is it true that you got dsnfs And if so,
how did you overcome that? Yeah, so it is true
when it comes to tests, But I've never actually gotten
a d r n F in a class like at
the end, right after everything is said and done. But
(23:52):
I've definitely struggled with grades like that during the class.
You know, if I get a test back and I realize, oh,
well this is great, I'm actually the lowest score out
of the entire class, out of three hundred, or I
would get a homework back and it would just be
read all over completely wrong, scribbled over my first quarter
(24:14):
at UCLA, it was probably the hardest one academically for me,
because there are a few things happening with this. First
of all, it's my first time being away from home,
being away from the city where I grew up, being
away from the city that I've been in since I
was eight years old, And on top of that, on
my own which is San Diego. Correct, that's where you diego? Yeah.
(24:38):
And secondly, I'm on a scholarship. My GPA cannot go
below a certain amount or I lose it, And that's
a lot of pressure. You're constantly thinking, I'm going to
lose this money and I'm not going to be able
to graduate because of this one F or because of
this one D. And so it gets so overwhelming, that
(25:00):
stress and that anxiety of not being able to fix
it before the final grades come out, and getting kicked
out of school because now, first of all, your grades
are bad, and second of all, you cannot no longer
even pay for it. But when you're in a place
like that, you forget the rest of the world. You
forget that even though you may not be doing so
well in this classroom, still cumulatively, the two hundred of
(25:24):
you that are here are probably like the top five
percent of students in your entire state. But you forget that, right,
It's all relative, right, But I think it's so important
to acknowledge that work that we all fail, and failure
is part of life and if you're failing, that means
you're trying. So I think it just humanizes you when
(25:47):
I read that, because it's like, Okay, you know we
all struggle at achieving a goal. Yeah, and we don't
always get it right the first time, but it's about
getting up and keep on trying and trying, and it
obviously worked because look at you now. I know that
our time is running out. So I had a few questions.
(26:09):
One of them was do you have a favorite space movie?
There are so many amazing space movies out there, like
you know, Gravity or Interstellar, so many do you have
a favorite? So for me, I was definitely that annoying
little kid that understood a little bit more about the
(26:30):
science and would just gets so frustrated with space movies. Yeah,
because you're like, that couldn't happen, That didn't happen, This
is so wrong. The first one that I think really
caught my attention once you turn your brain off was
Space Odyssey two thousand and one. Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick,
(26:53):
and I just love it because it starts off so well, like,
all right, yeah, some of this is like very far
fetched and all right, but like let's just keep going.
And then it just ends in the most ridiculous way possible,
with like a person becoming a space soul baby, which
just what they're more ridiculous. It makes it easier to
(27:15):
enjoy because now you're not just trying to compare it
to reality. Now it's like, all right, this is no
longer reality whatsoever. So let's just watch right, So that
makes total sense, total total sense. Another question I wanted
to ask you before we log off is you know,
obviously you're a role model to so many Latinas little
(27:36):
Latinas listening and watching you give them an inspiring message about,
you know, pursuing their dreams and goals. Some advice that
I have that is really important for me is I
think it is so common for us to try to
look to others for what should we do? How do
(28:00):
I do this? I want to do what you did,
so tell me exactly what you did so that I
can replicate it. But I've found that the way to
create a guide actually comes from within yourself, because all
of us are on different journeys, we're all in different paths,
we all were dealt a different set of cards, and
(28:22):
so you have to ask yourself two questions, who are
you truly? Who are you? And what do you want?
And without listening to what other people are telling you
that you should want, just sit yourself down in a
quiet room or wherever you feel comfortable and block everything
(28:45):
out and just ask yourself those two questions. Because even
when something is really difficult and you're struggling so much
and you don't know whether you're going to be able
to get through it, do you want it? Though? Is
still truly what you want? Because if so, then there's
only one way to go after that, right, love it.
(29:07):
That's that's a beautiful message and I totally one hundred agree.
Sometimes we get caught up in the glamour or the
image without really looking within ourselves. So love it beautiful.
Last question, the name of the show is latin us
take the lead. Tell us how you're taking the lead. Currently,
(29:31):
I realized that we have so much more power than
we think. And the more that I meet so many
people that have achieved a certain level of success, or
an appeared certain level of success. Right, success is different
to everyone. But I've met some very very well established people,
(29:55):
very well known people, very successful people, and every single
one of them, I can promise you, is so normal.
They are, there are people, we're healing. We're just human beings, right,
We're not extra terrestrials, and we did not come from space,
(30:17):
although there is a theory that star dust to the earth.
But for you know, for lack of better interpretation, we're
all human beings. I mean, at the end of the day,
with feelings and emotions and fears and struggles. It's been
so beautiful to realize that. And so the more that
I interact with these individuals, the more that I'm able
(30:39):
to sort of step into that leadership role and say, well,
if all of these people, who are completely normal, we're
able to do all of that, then imagine what I'm
capable of. And I think that that gives me a
lot of confidence in myself as well, and so no
thing is too big for me anymore, you know. And
(31:00):
I'm being told, oh, yeah, you want to do all
of this, but first you have to change the Mexican constitution, Like, okay,
let's do it. Yeah, you want to do all of this,
but first you have to get the approval of the president. Okay,
let's do it. You know, it's just sort of letting
go and shutting that fear and hearing words and saying okay,
(31:24):
I need to do all of that. All right, It's fine,
I can do it. Let's just go do it. Amazing,
It's possible. Every anything is truly possible if we can.
I mean there's certain things that are not possible. You know,
we can't become invisible, but like it. Oh wow, you're
gonna have to tell us about that later and you
(31:46):
have the inside scoop. But see even that, even that
is possible, becoming invisible. Well, thank you so much, Goathia.
Really enjoyed talking to you. I'm gonna be watching you
from a distance, watching your career, and thank you for
taking the lead. Thank you so much. Katia is definitely
(32:11):
a Latina taking the lead. If you want to follow
her journey, you can find her on Instagram at cat
Voltage and on her website dot com. Please like and
subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Instagram at
Latina's Take the Lead, and remember, don't be afraid to
(32:32):
break barriers and Latina's take the lead.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!