POWERGRAMS

PG_July_August_September 2021

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16 fluent in Spanish and English, urged her to apply for a full-time job with the company. That night, Rojas took the plunge and submitted her online application and résumé. "The next morning, I was telling my mom about it, and she said, 'Let's just have a prayer and hopefully something will come through,'" Rojas said. "As we were praying, my phone dings, and I told her to hold on because I got an email. It said they needed a customer service representative who was bilingual, and at that point, I just started crying." After acing the customer service entrance test and undergoing interviews, Rojas said it was only a matter of days before she was hired. She began working in August 2013 as a customer service representative and cashier in the Montgomery Office. "The first day I started, I felt at home," said Rojas. "I felt I was where I needed to be. I wasn't judged because I spoke another language. It was actually a prize for the company." A year later, Rojas transferred to collections. There, she collected unpaid balances from customers who moved to a new home without paying their final power bill. Then, in 2016, she began working in merchandise collections. When she's not at work, Rojas enjoys time with family and loves merengue and bachata dancing. She is at home in the kitchen, where she bakes luscious desserts, particularly bizcocho Dominican cakes topped with Italian meringue and filled with fresh fruit. Rojas often sells the cakes at her sister's Montgomery restaurant, Sabor Latino. IN TWO WORLDS Although she was born in New York City in 1992, Rojas is Hispanic through and through. Her mom hails from Honduras, while her late dad was a native of the Dominican Republic. "It was nothing but Hispanics all around," said Rojas, who lived with her parents and six sisters in a two-bedroom, one- bath apartment in an eight-story complex in the Bronx. "At home, we usually spoke Spanish. But my mother and father made me try to speak English so it wouldn't be so hard when I went to school." Because she was raised in a Hispanic community, Rojas said the languages became so intertwined in her mind that she spoke Spanglish as a child. Rojas made her first entrance into a truly American world when she started first grade. She was the only Hispanic student at the school. Rojas enjoys making Dominican treats with her mother, Denia.

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