Texas Border Business
By Roberto Hugo González / Texas Border Business
MISSION, Texas — Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva M. Guzman closed the Rio Grande Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Latina Leadership Conference on Thursday with a deeply personal message about resilience, drawing on her journey from a working-class Houston family to the state’s highest civil court and the political disappointments that followed.
Speaking Sept. 11 at the Mission Event Center, Guzman addressed a ballroom filled with hundreds of professionals, entrepreneurs and community leaders after a day focused on leadership, artificial intelligence, business growth and networking.
“Every successful woman I know has a story that looks very different from the polished version,” Guzman said.
She told the audience that professional accomplishments often conceal doubts, disappointments and moments when even successful women question whether they can continue.
“Resilience means that the hardest chapter of your story does not become that final chapter,” she said.
Guzman described herself as the daughter of immigrants who grew up in southeast Houston. Her mother was a homemaker who also worked cleaning schools and in maintenance at the University of Houston, where Guzman said all seven children in the family eventually graduated.
Her own path ultimately led to the Texas Supreme Court, but Guzman said advancement did not come easily.
Before receiving her first judicial appointment, she lacked experience working for a judge, had never run for office, and had no powerful political connections. She applied anyway.
Guzman recalled applying five times for judicial advancement and repeatedly hearing that she was highly regarded, but someone else had been selected. By the fifth attempt, she said, she was tired of being rejected.
“But I did,” Guzman said of applying again.
She ultimately became the first Hispanic woman to serve on the Texas Supreme Court and the first Latina elected to statewide office in Texas.
After more than two decades on the bench, Guzman entered another arena. In 2021, she resigned from the Supreme Court and launched a Republican campaign for Texas attorney general, challenging incumbent Ken Paxton in the 2022 Republican primary. Guzman finished third in the primary, ending that campaign.
She told the Mission audience that the defeat forced her to practice the resilience she was now encouraging in others.
“I had to really take my own advice — get up, keep going, find a different path, open a different door,” Guzman said.
She offered three lessons from her experience, beginning with refusing to treat rejection as a permanent judgment.
“Resilient women don’t confuse a setback with a verdict,” she said.
A missed promotion, lost client or closed door, she said, does not determine a person’s potential. Guzman encouraged women to add one small but powerful word to their thinking — “yet.”
“I wasn’t chosen this time. That didn’t work yet,” she said. Guzman also urged women not to pursue success alone. Chambers of commerce and professional networks, she said, create opportunities by connecting people with answers, contacts, or experience others need.
“Just because you help straighten someone else’s crown doesn’t mean that your crown’s going to fall off,” Guzman said.
Her final message returned to the theme that carried her from repeated rejection to the judiciary and beyond.
“Remember resilience and remember that little word, that three-letter word — not yet,” Guzman said. “It’s coming. It’s in your future.”
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