Remember that old saying abuelita used to say – “Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres?”

Well then, if you happen to be hanging out with Veronica Cedillos, then you must be  a captivating, intelligent, and beautiful person.   Yes, Veronica will make you look good – esa sonrisa y rostro!  But unfortunately, she will also make you – yes, YOU sterereotypical “overachiever”  LAM member- look bad.  With the brains of a genius (she has a B.S. from MIT and an M.S. from Stanford) and a face that reminds you of Shakira during her Pies Descalzos phase (she was a beauty pageant contestant in El Paso), it’s easy to want to hate Veronica!  But then, darn it, you talk to her and become a witness to her amazing personality that at the end of the day, you just want to be her BFF! Llamame, Vero! ¡no seas gacha! you write on her Facebook wall the day after you meet her, hoping to hang out with her sooner rather than later.

¿Qué tiene de especial esta chica? you ask.  Well,  yo te diré. With this post, I’ll provide a little glimpse of who Veronica Cedillos is and what she has done in her 26 years of life.   But if you want to know more, then you will have to go to a LAM event and check out the Vero phenomenon for yourself! Vale la pena….

Let me start off with her most recent achievement – she just received an award form the American Society of Civil Engineers; she has been named one of the New Faces of 2010! ¡Felicidades, Vero!

If that wasn’t enough to impress you, then here’s a brief laundry list of her many accomplishments:

• Performed with the following music ensembles: Mariachi Los Pasajeros (El Paso), University of Texas at El Paso Symphony Orchestra, MIT Symphony Orchestra, Mariachi Internacional del Tecnológico (MIT), Greenwich Village Orchestra (NYC), AMEROPA Chamber Music (Czech Republic), Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Mariachi Cardenal de Stanford, and San Francisco Sinfonietta.
• GeoHazards International Grant (her current employer) for Tsumani relief in West Sunamatra, Indonesia (2008)
• Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar (2004)
• Academic Excellence – MIT’s Office of Minority Education (2005)
• Presidential Excellence Scholar (2001)
• Outstanding Violin Soloist at UIL All-State Competition (2001)

Wow, if I didn’t like this girl so much, I’d be green with envy! Ja.

The thing is, chicos y chicas, this “resumé” Vero is pretty spectacular, but you haven’t seen anything until  you see her in her beautiful mariachi skirt and chaleco with her chin hugging the violin – an instrument she has been playing since she was nine – and seeing the emotion she exudes when she plays!  Alli mismo, te quedarás bocabierto/a.

To top it off, Vero is also extremely involved in two projects: Project in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia which studies how evacuation structures can be integrated into the infrastructure in order to facilitate evacuation from tsunamis AND  Mariachi Tierra Linda which promotes regional Mexican music in the Bay Area – their website will be available to the public soon, stay tuned (if you want to hire the group or learn more about them, send an email to info@latinosamorir.com)!

Here’s to Veronica, una tejana muy mexicana,  who makes Latinos a Morir and its members look extra good.

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Thank you to Laura Gomez for being LAM’s best blog author and helping with this and other posts! (www.latinageek.com)