The bullet remains in her heart, lodged in the right ventricle, a permanent reminder to Jessica Rodriguez of how far she's
traveled from that desperate night in Oakland in March 1991. "It was 3 a.m.," she says. "I was standing at Grand and
San Pablo, waiting for the next person who'd pay me to do whatever they needed done.
"A car came around the corner. I didn't see who was driving it. They shot me point-blank in my chest. I looked down,
and there was blood all over my shirt. "I remember being in the ambulance. I asked the attendant if I was going to die.
He had tears streaming down his face. He said, 'No, you'll be OK.' " He didn't believe it. Neither did she.
It's a quiet spring afternoon in the Robert Else Gallery in California State University, Sacramento's Kadema Hall. A few
students browse through "Deja Vu," the retrospective exhibit of senior art majors' work.
Rodriguez, 51, has two pieces on display here. Nine more of her paintings were shown earlier this month in the first
Cinco de Mayo art exhibit at the California Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters.
Rodriguez graduates next week with a degree in studio art and a list of campus accolades that includes several
scholarships and membership in the National Scholars Honor Society. The first person in her family to attend college,
she's applying to enter a Harvard University doctoral program.
She grew up rough, and she overcame. Rodriguez began drinking, she says, at age 7. And she used one sort of drug or
another from that time until she finally got sober in 1992, after 14 rehab attempts. She says her childhood was one of
abuse, emotional chaos and foster homes. As a teen, she worked in the fields and the canneries. As a young woman, she
worked as a paralegal. She made money, and she spent it on drugs. "I just couldn't stop," she says.
She was released from the hospital three months after she was shot, the tracks of 52 surgical staples still fresh in her
chest. She was supposed to enter yet another rehab facility. She didn't. "I lived in a makeshift cardboard house under a
bridge, smoking crack," she says.
Her mother eventually found her and enrolled her in a rehab program in Sacramento, which Rodriguez quickly left. She
was wandering the streets when two Sacramento police officers stopped her. It was the spring of 1992. She was four
months pregnant with her twins, the youngest of her four children. It was time for her to save her own life.
She says she wanted to show her daughters, Lynelle and Shenelle, a different life than the one she'd always known.
"My daughters deserve to have a life that is rich, not a life that takes from them," she says.
Her faith has helped her find her way. So has her art.
When she enrolled at CSUS in 1994, she intended to go into drug and alcohol counseling. She received her certification,
but she also discovered painting and sculpture, which proved, she says, to be a way for her to communicate what's too
difficult for her to say in words.
"Jessica's so refreshing," says Marcellene Watson, CSUS' Educational Opportunity Program learning communities
coordinator. "It's like a cup of water every time I interact with her."
Rodriguez's work reflects her roots - Mexican on her mother's side, Puerto Rican and Apache on her father's. More than
that, her art reflects her commitment to moving beyond her past.
"My art is 51 years of survival lessons," she says. "I'm really committed to making a difference, especially to women
who are at the re-entry stage. It's never too late." And so the students wander in and out of the gallery as the afternoon
grows late.
Jessica Rodriguez is at home here, among the art, among other people looking forward to the next step in life's education.
She's survived. She's earned her place.
***
The Bee's Anita Creamer can be reached at (916) 321-1136 or acreamer@sacbee.com.
Copyright 2003 The Sacramento Bee
Record Number: SAC_0404874004
HER ART SPEAKS WHERE WORDS FAIL
(Sacramento Bee, May 14, 2003)
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