ETSU Student Profile: Pamela Avendaño-Rubi

From East Tennessee State University:

Language is what ties everything and everyone together for Pamela Avendaño-Rubi, whose native language of Spanish has been the key to relationships and opportunities throughout her time at East Tennessee State University.

“I was born and raised in Mexico, and it wasn’t until maybe seven or eight years ago that I first learned English. That was the biggest thing ever,” said the senior pre-medical student. “So, I empathize with a lot of people for whom English is a second language, even the professors here who have English as a second language and they struggle to express themselves. I am able to connect with them in ways that a lot of other students cannot.”

When she saw the number of Hispanic people in the Appalachian Highlands who do not speak English, Avendaño-Rubi found ways to help fill the need for interpreters in the region. “That in itself – the language – is what means the most to me,” she said.

The native of Puebla, Mexico, moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, with her parents and sister as a result of her father’s work in international relations for Volkswagen.

“I came from a very, very, VERY big city in Mexico – almost comparable to New York or Mexico City – so going from that to Tennessee was a little bit shocking,” she said. “We were used to traveling a lot, but this was our first international move. It was just our nuclear family, starting in a new place. And then I decided to enter ETSU.

“Never in a million years, if you’d asked me when I was 10 years old where I’d be now, I would never have told you ETSU.”

When she visited ETSU, Avendaño-Rubi was most impressed by the university’s people. “There was the ‘Southern charm,’ but it goes beyond that,” she said. “It goes to the point where I asked Heather Levesque (Director of Undergraduate Admissions) a question about something related to pre-med, and even though she didn’t know the answer, she still took me personally to go see another person, and to another person until we found the right person, who was able to give me the answers that I needed. And no other university did that, and that spoke to me more than just a beautiful campus or a big school name. It was the personal connection that ETSU gave that brought me to ETSU.”

As a freshman pre-med student, Avendaño-Rubi assisted with a Remote Area Medical clinic, where she noticed a patient who did not speak English.

“I stood up and said, ‘Hey, I know Spanish, and I’ll help you,’” she said. “I was the only female in the RAM clinic who could was able to communicate in Spanish”

Because a female interpreter was needed especially in the area of women’s health, she was asked to come back and has helped with ETSU’s RAM clinics ever since.

Avendaño-Rubi’s efforts caught the attention of Dr. Felipe Fiuza, Director of ETSU’s Language and Culture Resource Center (LCRC), and he offered her a job with the LCRC, translating for patients in clinical settings, translating documents, assisting with health clinics, and more.

Both Avendaño-Rubi and Fiuza found their skills particularly needed when the region, along with the world, found itself in the midst of a pandemic.

“During 2020, when we first came into COVID pandemic mode, the interpreters were not allowed to go into the hospital, which was a problem, because a lot of people couldn’t communicate,” she said. “So, Dr. Fiuza and I took calls and interpreted remotely during the pandemic for ETSU physicians. It was beautiful to have that experience from Dr. Fiuza and that he was able to help me out with that. And I was also able to help so many people, even if I wasn’t there present.”

Avendaño-Rubi, who also speaks French and German, finds that her passion for language ties in with her love of culture.

“Meeting people from France and speaking to them in their own language kind of opens up a new door to connect with someone else,” she said. “Being able to express myself in English opens up the doors to the American culture, the British culture, and everyone else. And Spanish – it’s not just Mexico, but it’s the entire South American continent. The German culture is very different from the American culture, from the Spanish culture, from the French culture. Languages in general just tie everyone together, even if you don’t know them well. I know many people who don’t know English proficiently but are still willing to try. The willingness to be open to other cultures, I think, is the beauty of languages. Languages are the bridge in between everything, between people.”

Avendaño-Rubi is an Honors-in-Discipline biology major with a concentration in biochemistry and a minor in physics, and she holds a Diversity Scholarship through the ETSU Mary V. Jordan Multicultural Center. In addition, she is vice president of member development for Alpha Delta Pi Sorority.

After graduating in May 2022, Avendaño-Rubi plans to take a gap year to spend time with her family, as her father plans to retire in the next two years, and to explore all her options for medical school. She has also accepted a research opportunity in Germany.

“Wherever I choose to go, I don’t want to do just a medical degree – I want to do an M.D./Ph.D. So that’s double the time, it’s double the work, and it’s a lot to consider for a 21-year-old, figuring out a city where I’m going to go for the next seven years of my life when really, I don’t even know where I’m going to be next year. So, I think I just need a year to go back home to Mexico, see my family, kind of reconnect to my roots, and then be ready to start my life in the United States and settle down in the city I choose. It took a lot of contemplating and meditating to get to that decision, and I think that was probably the hardest decision to make in my college career, but it was necessary.”

In addition to going on walks and reading, Avendaño-Rubi most enjoys spending time with friends.

“It’s the little moments that kind of add up and make it memorable, like going to see the sunrise at Roan Mountain, and watching the sunset from Buffalo Mountain with a pizza from Cootie Brown’s. That is my ideal way of just unwinding in the afternoon.”

This press release was produced by East Tennessee State University. The views expressed are the author's own.