PARIS — For Nohemi Gonzalez, a bubbly and determined first-generation Mexican-American from California, studying industrial design in Paris was the culmination of a dream.
Ms. Gonzalez, a student at California State University, Long Beach, was spending a semester at the Strate School of Design in Paris. Friends and colleagues said she could barely believe her good fortune to be in the glittering French capital — her first time living in Europe — and had been giddily crisscrossing the city, from the Eiffel Tower to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.
But when terrorists armed with assault rifles and explosives attacked restaurants, a stadium and a concert hall in and around Paris on Friday night, Ms. Gonzalez, 23, was one of the 129 people killed.
The victims came from 19 countries, including Germany, Chile and Tunisia. Ms. Gonzalez was the only American known to have died in the attacks. But she was emblematic of dozens of the other victims: Young. Ambitious. Chasing dreams. And eager to absorb the sophisticated swagger of a city rich in history and culture where generations of young hopefuls have come in search of excitement, aesthetic nourishment and reinvention.
As an American, she was also representative of the packs of cheerful, starry-eyed foreigners studying abroad for a semester. At any given time, more than 17,000 students from the United States are living and studying in France.
They fill the Métro, the museums, and the concert halls of the French capital, and are a gregarious, sometimes loud and giggling, presence in the cafes and bistros where Parisians also live out their lives.
On Friday, Ms. Gonzalez and a group of friends were out for a night on the town and ended up at La Belle Équipe, a lively bistro on Rue de Charonne. Minutes into the meal, a group of militants sprayed bullets at the restaurant’s terrace, killing 19 people, including Ms. Gonzalez.
Her friend Niran Jayasiri ran for cover when the firing began and narrowly escaped, according to California State University, where Mr. Jayasiri is a student.
“I lost one of my good friends and I’m still trying to process this all but it’s just too much to take,” he wrote in a post on Facebook the day after the attack. “You were one of the most down to earth, cheerful, bubbly, helpful and honest people I knew. I’m grateful that you were my classmate and a true friend.
“Rest in peace Nohemi (little one),” he added. “I hope heaven has unlimited supply of baby pugs for you.”
Ms. Gonzalez’s family, friends and faculty at California State have given accounts of her as a spirited, hard-working and disciplined young woman, who walked purposely down the halls of the university, laughed easily and enjoyed mentoring other students.
Students in the industrial design program recalled that they would sometimes see Ms. Gonzalez in the same clothes from the previous day because she had spent all night working in the design studio. She could become annoyed if others left the studio untidy, they said.
Her mother, Beatriz Gonzalez, a hairdresser, said in a television interview with The Associated Press that her daughter, whom the family called Mimi, had “big dreams.”
“She was so happy, every day, because she loved to go to school and she was hoping to have a different life,” she said. “Not only like most of our people — like, go to work and come back home every day. She wanted to have a career and a family.” She said the F.B.I. had said that because of the investigation, it would be weeks before her daughter’s body would be sent back to the United States.
In a school assignment that required her to create a brand reflecting who she was, Ms. Gonzalez emphasized her Mexican-American heritage, her drive and her independence.
“I am Mexican-American and I also happen to be first generation born in the United States,” she wrote, according to Terri Carbaugh, a spokeswoman for the university.
“I grew up in Whittier and had a very hardworking mother that raised me to be extremely independent,” Ms. Gonzalez continued, referring to a city in Los Angeles County. “If I had to describe myself in a few words I would say I am very high-spirited, clean, orderly and self-driven.”
Ms. Carbaugh said Ms. Gonzalez had stood out at the university as a promising and innovative designer, and a review of some of her work shows a natural flair for memorable designs that are at once contemporary, playful and functional.
On Oct. 7 she posted on Facebook that she and a group of students had won second place in a design contest for a biodegradable cardboard container for snacks that could also double as a plant holder. Her designs included Coppertin the Turtle, with a head that bobbed in and out, which she described as an uplifting “desk buddy.”
Ms. Gonzalez had also designed intricate and elegant bathroom hooks and a lighting fixture with undulating geometric shapes that drew inspiration from the “majestic landscapes” of Southern California’s beaches and the Grand Canyon, she wrote.
Explaining her approach during a recent university design show, she strode on to the stage in a red dress, apologizing that she was a bit nervous.
“We’re really lucky to be here,” she said in a video of the event, posted on YouTube, “There’s a lot of people that go through their life and they don’t find their passion. I feel fortunate because not a lot of people get to have higher education. We do get to follow what we love and do it every day.”
She explained her design philosophy as an attempt to be eye-catching as well as simple, but with details that would be memorable. She invited students to come talk to her, directing them to her booth in the corner, “away from everyone,” she said, drawing laughter.
Her last post on her Facebook page, on Oct. 20, made it clear that she was in Paris to do more than soak up culture. “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,” she wrote.
On Sunday, more than 2,000 students and teachers gathered at the university to remember Ms. Gonzalez. Her boyfriend of nearly four years, Tim Mraz, wore a black armband with the French flag. He said he called her Pocahontas, after a tattoo on her left arm.
She would have hated seeing herself in the news because “she didn’t like all the attention,” he said.
“She was,” he said, a “firecracker.”
