Summary
Languages: English, Spanish and Portuguese (Intermediate)
I was born in Harlem Hospital when New York City was burning in the late 1970s and grew up in a tenement building in the predominantly Dominican Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights/Inwood neighborhood. My single mother – who didn’t finish high school in her country – worked in the garment district and retired as a janitor from JFK airport where she cleaned the insides of airplanes.
Noticing the dense and impoverished surroundings of my upbringing encouraged me to work hard for the scholarships that would get me to a private high school and afterward college. I attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut and double-majored in International Relations and Latin American Studies. I also have a Juris Doctor from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and a master’s degree from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. For almost two decades I have used all of this experience to promote Latinos, their issues and stories in the news media regardless of the platform or the region of the U.S. or the world. Most recently, I was a technology reporter for CNET en Español.
At the University of Nevada, Reno, I aim to continue to have a positive impact on the number of students who enter journalism and who choose to communicate with Latinos. Reno is a diverse, active and great little city to continue this work.