Don?t Ever Tell Me ?You Can?t! is an inspiring true story of grit and resilience of an immigrant Asian woman who battles absolute poverty, language barriers, racial and gender discrimination and succeeds in a male-dominated field. During the VietNam war, Celia Ruiz, already an established civil engineer in the Philippines, responds to the United States? announcement of engineer shortage. She comes alone, confident that $300 and her civil engineer?s diploma are enough to find a new life in the land of opportunity, or so she thinks. When she sets out to look for work, she is told she can never find a job as a civil engineer. She braces herself for a hard fight that she is determined to win. Celia traces her strength to her upbringing and experience in the late 50s when females were openly harassed in engineering school. For two decades, Celia formulates strategies and stays the course. Finally, before age becomes yet another hurdle, Celia finds the way to clear the path to the American Dream ? for her, owning an engineering company! The book closes with pointers on how to pursue a dream to fruition.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Celia Tomlinson, PE, is the President & CEO of Rhombus P. A., Inc., a rare professional engineering company founded, owned and operated by a minority female engineer. Since its founding in 1983, Rhombus has completed projects in AZ, AK, NM, NY, TX, WA, and WY. Ms. Tomlinson was named 1992 Minority Entrepreneur of the Year by the National Park Service.
The recipient of New Mexico’s Outstanding Woman and Trailblazer Awards, Ms. Tomlinson speaks four languages including American Sign Language. Her travels have taken her to Brunei to sell American real estate to the Sultan; to Guatemala to pursue a World Bank project; to the Jamaican jungles to meet the Maroon commander; and to the Philippines on a Friendship Force mission. She co-founded a non-profit organization, New Mexico Affordable Housing, Inc. She mentors students and upstart businesswomen. The author of "The Woman’s Guide to a Successful Career in Construction" (PPI Publications, royalty contract), she is also the author of CELIA (Computerized Evaluation of Lived-In Areas), an inspection program that has been used by housing authorities. Magazines including Civil Engineering, Woman Engineer, Engineering Times, Minority Engineer, People on Parade, and People in Action have published her articles.
Ms. Tomlinson has merged her diverse experiences into entertaining, compelling speeches. Her self-deprecating humor and down-to-earth delivery helped her win second place in the 1998 Toastmasters International District Humorous Speech Contest.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Incredible Book to Read on the Fighting Human Spirit,
By Connie Osborne (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Don't Ever Tell Me You Can't (Hardcover)
The book touched on so many things so let me attempt to enumerate them:1. "How to Get Beyond Poverty" -- the way the author described that life in the ghetto was unbelievable! I had no idea! And for someone to come out of it with a College degree, help her family (with the amazing support of the family also) get out of the poverty, was covered so touchingly, so vividly! I could almost visualize the market where her family lived, smell the pigs, feel the dirt under my feet, imagine the brawls around the water faucet, fighting for each drop of water, etc...In this environment, she got up every morning, went to school, studied(what, no desk, no computer?), harassed by her male peers while she was going through her Civil Engineering courses, and received a degree! To top that, she went to the States (from a Third World country) and made a name for herself! Everybody should be poor and get that kind of strength and wisdom! 2. "How to Get Beyond Discrimination" -- The author was discriminated against because she was a woman (and a foreigner at that!) in a very technical profession. Yet, she kept on hanging in there! Glass ceiling? They never even allowed her accessibility to the normal "regular" things, let alone get close to what we refer to as glass ceiling. She kept on getting passed up for promotions that she finally had it -- she started her own company! Her perseverance paid off! Gosh, she has more chutzpah than anyone I know! Did I get all this by reading the book? You're darned right I did! 3. "How Not to Let a Husband Get the Worse Out of You" -- she saved her husband from being a nobody! He didn't have it...she did! But she didn't give up...she let him believe in himself, she let him believe that he can do it too. She could easily have been the "worse of the two" and ended up keeping house for him and staying in a poverty cycle, if she had let him (and his terrible brother)! No, she was too big for that. She was definitely the best thing that happened to him. The subplot here could have easily been an entire book altogether. I would have loved to see more of this in a bigger picture. 4. "The Importance of Your Psyche" -- this is the all-encompassing facet of who the author is, how she was shaped by her environment, her parents, how people treated her, etc...This is what makes the author. Everything that happened to her could have been just baggage. Instead, she turned everything around! Her story is quite an inspiration, not just for women, but anyone who thinks the whole world is against him/her! A leading psychologist, Martin Seligman, explains "gratification" in life to be "the enduring fulfillment that comes from developing one's strengths and putting them to positive use". This latter phrase explains how the author, Celia Tomlinson, did it. She had the endurance (her experiences were laid out very well in the book), she had the stubbornness (how else could she have gone as far as she has?), she had the sense of humor (this is what nurtured her in the bad times), and she knew she couldn't go back to her home country as a failure! She could only go forward! So she decided to use everything she was armed with and put them to good use! And, from what I can tell, it has served her very very well! This story is a tale of human passion, human struggle, perseverance and winning in the end. You get a glimpse of the indomitable Filipino spirit embodied by a woman who came from a poverty-stricken but very supportive, warm family. It is certainly a tale of "how we can". Remember the little train chanting "I think I can, I think I can"? That was Celia Tomlinson, the author and yes, she got to her destination!
4.0 out of 5 stars
True Story of a Female Civil Engineer Immigrant to USA,
By
This review is from: Don't Ever Tell Me You Can't (Hardcover)
I've had the good luck to meet the author Celia Ruiz who during the Vietnam war was already an engineer in the Phillipines....and comes to the USA but finds that female job descrimination is almost overwhelming....she stays the course and overcomes one challenge after another and finally owns her own engineering company....she is the recipient of New Mexico's Outstanding Woman and Trailblazer awards-- amazingly talented and strong and courageous -- she speaks 4 languuages and is a wonderful speaker and Toastmaster winner....About a dozen chapters follow Cellia from her roots to her dream and decision and what it's like in a Man's world....and then a new beginning and her climb on the corporate ladder....and an occasional manhole along the way to yes, the AMERICAN DREAM....very inspirational book for any young woman or any engineer to read....great for women's studies programs at colleges....
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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