While some college students are drinking and partying, Camilo Montoya-Galvez is working his tail off trying to become the next Jorge Ramos.
At age 20, Camilo Montoya-Galvez
interns 36 hours per week at Telemundo, the TV network that delivers the news
to Spanish speaking households in the tri-state area.
At Telemundo, he hones his skills
as a journalist by writing scripts for on-air personalities as well as doing
research for promising stories. The journalism student has expressed a strong
interest in national politics but his favorite part of the job is getting to influence
which stories he feels the local Hispanic communities must hear.
Between school and work, there is
little time for Galvez to sleep so sometimes he takes naps in his car, he
claims.
Interns at Telemundo are not just
making copies and grabbing coffee, according to Galvez he and his co-workers
get to give their input on the news rundown for that day, “We pick and choose
which stories will be the best to expose our viewers to.” The news team chases
stories related to health care, crime, and immigration that they know will be
of interest to their target audience of Hispanics.
Interns are encouraged to be
fluent in English and Spanish, which is not a problem for Galvez – he has been
speaking English and Spanish since he was 9 years old.
He and his family immigrated from
Columbia to the U.S. when he was only seven years old. Some of his family remains
in Columbia today, he said.
At first, Galvez says it was a
daunting challenge learning a new language and getting acclimated to a new
culture.
“The first couple of days were
hard, sometimes I wanted to go back to Columbia. But I’m good now, I like it here.”
After taking ESL classes for two
years, he quickly learned English and adapted to his new surroundings. Now,
Galvez writes scripts for reporters at Telemundo in both English and Spanish.
While he recognizes the tense
political climate with regards to immigration and the current white house
administration, Galvez is not taking any sympathy. His head-down, grind-it-out
approach to his work coupled with a contagious attitude of ambition makes it
easy to envision his success.
His thoughts on what it’s like to
be an immigrant in today’s America are thoughtful and reveal his impressive
maturity.
“As an immigrant, I have
experienced first hand the exceptional character of America -- a country which
has and continues to be built by immigrants. If one works hard, the ‘American
Dream’ is achievable. No individual can reverse this, not even the President of
the United States.”
He has a firm grasp on what it
takes for an immigrant to succeed in America, something he learned by watching
his father run his own business for over 20 years. Camilo asserts his parents
are “definitely” his role models and they provide the examples of hard-work
that he tries to emulate.
On his days off from Telemundo, Galvez
is taking 15 credits within the Journalism department at Rutgers in addition to
writing the occasional story for the school newspaper – The Daily Targum.
While most students would have
difficulty handling his work-load, Galvez manages with ease – he still has time
to play soccer on the weekend and catch an occasional Real Madrid game on TV.
No comments:
Post a Comment