Then one day a government welfare worker told Martinez's mother, "You people breed like cockroaches."

Society too often imposes narrow definitions upon people, whether outright racist or subtle, Martinez said Saturday morning as keynote speaker for the "Defining Your Path" career conference for eighth-grade girls. Girls in the process of becoming women often receive the brunt of those limitations, Martinez said, but they can be overcome when girls begin to value themselves apart from expectations fueled by stereotypes.

Two and a half years after hearing that slur against her family, Martinez's family worked its way off government assistance selling squash and chilies door-to-door. Eleven of the 12 children graduated from college, six going on to earn master's degrees. Martinez, now an award-winning associate professor of sociology at the University of Utah, was one of two from her family to earn a doctorate.

"Can you say, 'I am strong! I am beautiful'?" Martinez asked the crowd of girls gathered at the U.'s Orson Spencer Hall auditorium. "You will go through life questioning yourself sometimes, as I have, but let me tell you that you are quite strong and beautiful."

Presented by the U.'s Youth Education program and the Salt Lake City branch of American Association of University Women, the daylong event provided girls with workshops and classes taught by local professional women. Some eighth-graders, such as 14-year-old Lauren Townsend, got up as early as 6:30 a.m. to attend the conference with their mothers.

"It [Martinez' speech] was true," Townsend said. "If I can learn from it, it will help me in life."

Claire Turner, director of Youth Education for the U. who helped organize the event, said persuading girls to consider career options before entering high school is crucial. "If they don't make choices early on it's more difficult for them to get on track to college," Turner said.

Workshops included topics on law school, where students interpreted education statutes, and engineering, where groups competed to design egg-shipment packaging using cotton, toothpicks, a plastic foam cup and other materials.

"You don't need to be scared of math or science," Tejal Shah, an undergraduate student of electrical engineering, told the class.

Jessica Alsop, a 13-year-old from Sandy attending Albion Middle School and considering a career in engineering, said she was grateful for a learning environment free of boys. "This way you really learn a lot," she said.

bfulton@sltrib.com