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Biography

Born in Des Moines, raised in Omaha, San Diego and Des Moines, Adrianna Welton has pushed herself to succeed. Her first job was pumping gas; her current job is as an Outreach Specialist for the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa. This, however, is only a stopping place on her journey to fulfill her dreams.

Transcript

Date of Interview: 24 March 2008

Ebony: My name is Ebony. So what brought you to Des Moines?

Adrianna Welton: What brought me to Des Moines? Actually, I was born and raised here. For a time my family lived in Omaha Nebraska and for a time, I lived in San Diego, California and I pretty much born and raise here in Des Moines.

Ebony: Have you found any of those places different like, with race like being accepted there or here?

Adrianna Welton: Omaha was very accepting, that was back in the mid ’70’s. I found in Omaha it was a little bit easier to communicate with people of different color even African Americans, a little bit, there was a easier communication process in Omaha. I don’t know if that had something to do with city being bigger than Des Moines that there it was easy. San Diego, very diverse and I found it was a very easy thing to communicate there with other races so.

Ebony: Do you remember your first job as a teen?

Adrianna Welton: My first job as a teenager. Believe it or not, I pumped gas at a gas station. I attended a gas station at age fourteen. That was my very first job.

Ebony: What do you like most about being African American?

Adrianna Welton: About being African American? I think opportunities, a rich culture, and a rich tradition, family oriented, grace, we stick together, our love for, I think, just for each other and our compassion that we have for each other as a family. I think that’s what I enjoy most and a strong, we’re a strong race, I think. We have much adversity, but we tend to build the strength as we go along. In other words, that adversity makes us a stronger people and that’s what I love about it.

Ebony: What is your profession right now?

Adrianna Welton: My profession right now is an Outreach Specialist with Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa. I love it because it puts me in the community and it allows me to give back to the community, which I may have utilized or had some part of when I was younger so it allows me to give back as an older adult.
Ebony: Has being an African American provided any challenges during the course of your career?

Adrianna Welton: Yes. I believe it has. I tend to think, or feel, that there might be some sort of, it’s harder to access, maybe, the jobs that are maybe upper level, upper level management and I think our skin color has a lot to do with it. Especially when you know that you’re educated and you know that you have the experience and the background to do it. There just seems to be a, what I like to say, a glass ceiling, you can see it. You’re gonna get so far but, being who we are it tends to, it’s harder to get there and you have to work, you know the old saying used to be 110%, 150 you have to really be willing to work really hard and just keep pushing and pushing and reasserting yourself and doing what you have to do. It happens, but to get past that color bearer for the higher level position, you just have to keep pushing and keep reasserting yourself, keep believing and showing what you can do.

Ebony: Do you face any challenges daily in your work area because of your race?

Adrianna Welton: Not per se, inside the work area, but, sometimes in the community. I do a lot of recruiting for Girl Scouts, and sometimes, I’m gonna say, I feel even though that’s probably not a safe thing to say, but sometimes when I have that contact with the community I just feel like I have to work harder at it once that they realize what I am. Maybe I talked to them on the phone and they didn’t realize, but once they see me in person, kind of like a guard goes up so I have to work extra hard to break that ice and get through it.

Ebony: How long you being employed with Girl Scouts?

Adrianna Welton: I’ve been here since November 2007.

Ebony: What is some advice you would give a young African American woman about being employed in Iowa?

Adrianna Welton: My first advice would be, it is very, very important to get your education. And with that it’s very important to know exactly what it is that you want to do. And that’s where you have to remain focused. You get your education; you focus in on what it is that you want do and you make that your drive for your employment. But you got to really focus on what it is that you believe that you’re good at doing or that you want to do it and it just makes it a lot easier. So education and focus would be probably, I think, would be the most important.

Ebony: Is this where you see yourself in this same field the rest of your life?

Adrianna Welton: In a sense, I love working with the community and I love working with people in the community and I love working with children and teenagers, and the reason why I say, maybe sound like it’s questionable, it’s because my main focus or my main believe is, or something that I always wanted to do, is be a teacher. I always wanted to help children learn and so I keep saying that someday I will return to school to get the teaching degree and someday I will teach at high school.

Ebony: Well that’s all the questions I have for you.

Adrianna Welton: OK, thank you.