From her home in El Segundo Barrio, wedged between downtown El Paso and the border, Catalina E. Garcia looked out toward the mountains and the big houses hugging the hillsides and dreamed of the day she'd live in a place like that.

Catalina, now an anesthesiologist and a leader in women's issues in Dallas for more than 30 years, quickly learned how far she'd have to climb.

For a Mexican-American girl growing up in the 1950s, the idea of becoming a doctor seemed almost impossible. Even her high school counselor suggested she consider being a file clerk instead.

Undeterred, she entered Texas Western College – now the University of Texas at El Paso – as the civil rights movement was gaining a foothold across America, though not necessarily at Texas Western.

"Once one of the fraternity boys asked me to a dance," she recalled, "but he came back apologetically and said he couldn't take me because they couldn't take Mexicans."

When it came time to register for classes, she learned that an influential biology professor didn't cotton to women doctors. So she took the catalog and checked off the courses she'd need, and announced her career plans only after she'd taken them.

"It took subterfuge to succeed," Dr. Garcia said.

Her first impression of Dallas, where she attended the UT Southwestern Medical School, seemed no more welcoming.

"They took me on a tour of Parkland [Memorial Hospital] and the 'colored' signs were still up and I had a crisis," Dr. Garcia said. "I think of myself as a 'brown' person, but I'd never been called 'colored.' I grew up near a big Air Force base and we had all these kids of all different colors."

But in Dallas in 1968, she was very different. In her class of 100 at UT Southwestern, only six were women, and Dr. Garcia the only Latina.

"Some of my classmates were a little rude. I think I bothered them more as a girl than as a Latino."

Even after graduating in 1969, then completing her internship and residency, she faced challenges most young doctors never considered.

"I had great difficulty finding a [medical] group that would be interested in me," she said, "but finally the group I joined called me. 'Can we meet you and your husband?' That killed me."

Much the same happened when she applied for a bank loan to pay for a very expensive insurance policy.

"I had the medical degree, but they wouldn't lend me the money. My husband had to co-sign the loan," Dr. Garcia said.

"That was all part of the legacy that women faced," she said. "You had to understand the playing field and stay within the rules. But we still found ways to accomplish what we needed to do."