Cecilia Aragon - Flying Free: My Victory over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team

Praise for Flying Free

Flying Free should be required reading for everyoneDr. Aragons struggles as a youth, and her fight to win those struggles, provides motivation to others facing similar situations.

ANN QUIROZ GATES, professor, University of Texas at El Paso, and director, Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions

I loved watching Cecilias transformation as she discovered her love of flying and just went for it, challenging all the stories that her upbringing had taught herThrough cheering her on in this book,
I also started cheering on myself.

SARAH E. MCQUATE, science writer and biochemistry PhD

Dr. Cecilia Aragon in her book Flying Free tells a story of courage
and perseverance, one that needs to be heard. Her story is one
laced with grit and determination.

DR. TELLE WHITNEY, cofounder, Grace Hopper Celebration Conference

This is a must-read book for anyone who has ever had any doubts about what they can achieve! Cecilia chronicles her path from a young Latina, who experienced racism verbally and physically, to a confident and very successful professor in computer science at a top university. Her passion for flying provided a path to face and overcome her fears to become the first Latina on the US Aerobatic Team and medalist at the World Aerobatic Championships. Her passion for flying gave her a strong voice for her personal and professional life!

VALERIE TAYLOR, CEO and president, Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology

Copyright 2020 by Cecilia Aragon
E-book published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Alenka Vdovi Linaschke
Some names and identifying details have been changed
to protect the privacy of individuals.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission
of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-982642-48-8
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-982642-47-1
Biography & Autobiography / General
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com

To my parents, Sergio and Katinka Rodriguez,
who always believed in me.
To Dave, Diana, and Ken,
whose love and support have always sustained me.

Courage is the price that Life
exacts for granting peace.
Amelia Earhart

Introduction

In 1985, which is when this story begins, I, Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon, was twenty-five years old and scared of elevators. My graduate school administrator once found me crying in the ninth-floor womens restroom after Id climbed eight flights of stairs, too frightened to jump onto the elevator. My fear immobilized me even in situations that didnt seem to bother anyone else, like when I climbed a ladder, shook hands with a stranger, or talked on the telephone. It seemed that whenever I had to perform, my brain circuits got jammed and I froze. I was terrified that people would find out the truth: that I was a Failure with a capital F . I believed my personality had been stamped into my genes from birth: INTFIncompetent, Nerd, Terrified, Failure.

But by 1991, just six years later, I was hanging upside down a thousand feet in the air, performing loops and rolls at airshows in front of millions of people in California and across the country. That same year, I beat the national record for fastest time from first solo in an airplane to membership on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team. I became the first Latina to win a place on this team and earn the right to represent the US at the Olympics of aviation, the World Aerobatic Championships. I jumped out of airplanes and taught others how to fly. I learned how to fundraise and earned money to compete at the world level. I worked as a test pilot and contributed to the design of experimental airplanes, crafting curves of metal and fabric that shaped air to lift inanimate objects high above the earth.

Flying became my art, my science, and my passion. I used my training in math to optimize split-second performances in the air. In a span of just six years, I taught myself to overcome my self-doubt, shyness, and deep-seated fear of heights to become one of the best aerobatic pilots in the world.

But flying, it turned out, was just the beginning. Learning to face death at a few hundred feet above the runway was merely preparation for dismantling my self-doubt in the classroom and the workplace.

When I was a child, I was bullied by classmates, although it never occurred to me I might be a focus of discrimination. I also never understood why certain teachers looked at me the way they did, with a barely perceptible hostile expression hidden beneath a polite veneer. In books, quiet girls who did their homework were teachers pets. I was a quiet girl who did her homework, so why didnt they like me?

The little girl I was thought it must be a flaw in my character. I was simply a bad person. And that feeling grew with me. As a teen, I didnt question why my math teacher mentored the second-best student instead of me, or why my English teacher graded me down for creating a disturbance in class, when it was the two kids behind me who talked all the time. These experiences left me with the feeling that there must be something intrinsically wrong with my personality, that my dreams were too big for my reality.

After the World Championships were over, I retired from the team and applied the strategies Id used there to go after the dreams Id deferred. In 2003 I went back to complete my PhD in computer science, the program Id quit because I thought I wasnt smart enough. After that, I worked with astronomers to solve some of the greatest mysteries of the universe. I worked with Nobel Prize winners, taught astronauts to fly, and created musical simulations of the universe with rock stars. Then I applied for my dream job, a career Id all but given up on because the odds against it were so great. I received six offers and landed what seemed to me to be the best job on the planet: professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington. My students challenge and thrill me to this day. Ive won major awards for my research, raised millions of dollars, and in 2009, President Obama shook my hand and congratulated me for my work in data-intensive science. Oh, and in the middle of all this, I did a stint at NASA designing software for Mars missions.

Ive lived the kind of life I never would have dreamed of as a shy, awkward child in Indiana, a child no one expected much of, a child who was bullied because of her gender and race. And whats more, I found that the mathematical techniques I developed to overcome my fear of flying could be applied to other aspects of my life, leading me to accomplish many goals, both small and large.

This is my story of breaking free from expectations and prejudice, of rising above my own limits. I did it through a series of simple and rather ordinary steps by combining math and logic with passion in an unexpected way. But you dont have to be a math whiz to learn from my story. You just have to want to break free and learn to soar.

Chapter 1

Want to go flying? my coworker Carlos shouted over the clatter of cooling fans in the machine room.

It was July 1985, and I was a new software developer at Digital Equipment Corporations latest research lab in Palo Alto. Id only been on the job a week, but I already knew Id found a friend in Carlos with his love of the Unix operating system and ability to deliver rapid-fire banter on all things programming. A geek after my own heartthat was my initial impression of him. But this flying idea crossed a line. I froze, and the circuits of my brain jammed with fear for a moment.