“Nohemi Gonzalez, an American college student …”
That was the phrase we all heard this weekend. The first American to be identified in the U.S. media after the horrific acts of terrorism last Friday, Nov. 13, in Paris.
Let’s not forget that name—Nohemi Gonzalez—as American as it gets in our diverse society, representing the best the future had to offer.
Indeed the 23-year-old Gonzalez was destined for greatness in design. Called “a shining star,” by Michael LaForte, her professor in design at California State University, Long Beach, Gonzalez was a student at the Strate School of Design in Paris on an international exchange program when she was killed last week.
She was out for some fun with some classmates at one of the restaurants that was attacked.
She was the only one of her friends who left on a stretcher.
If only her name were attached to some breakthrough she had invented instead. The signs were all there. On Facebook, she was proud of her team’s second place finish in a biomimicry global design challenge inventing a biodegradable snack pack that can sprout plants. She had her sights set on greatness and was capable of so much more. The Los Angeles Times reported one of the last things Gonzalez wrote on social media: “Learning a 3D modeling computer program in a language I don’t know is up there in the top 3 hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
