Sundays are for Mexicans...

I know, I know- the title is a little cheesy- still it caught your attention, right? I sure hope so. My name is Christine Enid Nieves and I am a rising junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. I am majoring in Communication & Public Service with a minor in Consumer Psychology. Currently I am working for Pfizer (you may know them as the creators of Viagra) as a Pharmaceutical Sales Intern. My job is on the field-which means Pfizer pays for gas, provides the car & pays a regular rep’s salary (great benefits considering the state of the economy). I have to shadow other reps most days but every week I get a day to visit my own set of physicians. Because of the nature of the job, there is little administrative work to do and a LOT of hands on experience. Furthermore, I have been assigned an investigation project to understand the value that pharmaceutical representatives bring to a healthcare provider’s office in order to increase the time they devote to us. The remarks I have received fall all over the spectrum.

Now, my true investigation & passion is to understand how the underrepresentation and quality of stereotypes of Latinos on TV affect perception of self in the younger generation and its possible implications in a democratic society. I was awarded a fellowship from Penn to continue formative research for an educational TV show designed to help solve this particular concern of mine. Nevertheless, reading & writing papers does not fulfill my desire to be part of the solution immediately. For that reason I have been volunteering on Thursday nights at a local clinic called Puentes de Salud that treats the growing Mexican population in South Philadelphia. My interest is to help develop health communication interventions for common conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity that will potentially help instill better lifestyles. Similarly, my Sundays are reserved for a language exchange program where I teach English to Mexican immigrants that are struggling with things as basic as the alphabet. It is challenging, yet highly rewarding.

My commitment and determination to look for more effective ways of destroying the glass ceilings over Latinos has taken me as far as to consider a career in television. Yet, with the digital era upon us, it is hard to know whether TV will continue to be the media channel of choice and influence - take YouTube as an alternative... Bottom-line is, in the last year that I have had the pleasure to take classes in Annenberg, my intellectual and professional perspectives have expanded at an unprecedented rate. Yet, the more I learn and know, the more I want to find out and discover. Hence the beauty of having two more years at Penn. The only thing I regret is not having the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico- my home. Maybe next time I will tell you how a mainland Puerto Rican ended up in an Ivy League university against the odds.

Until then…

CEN