Golden Opportunity: Meet Bilingual Communications Specialist Catalina Irigoyen
Catalina Irigoyen could hardly believe her eyes. After her “long and strenuous” job search, there it was on LinkedIn: Empire State University’s call for a bilingual communications specialist. A first for the institution, the newly created position would require dreaming up and translating content in both English and Spanish for the launch of SUNY Empire’s Spanish BBA program. To Irigoyen, a bilingual writer who spent years living and studying in Spanish-speaking countries, the job almost seemed too good to be true.
“In my job search, I had not seen anything like it—anything that felt like me,” says Irigoyen, who was born in Argentina. “When I stumbled across the listing, I was reading through it and thought, wait a second; this is like my whole life in a job description. I’ve always had to live my life in two languages, no matter where I’ve been.”
And she’s been many places. By her 13th birthday, Irigoyen had lived in six countries: Argentina, Uruguay, the U.S., Ecuador, Spain, and Mexico. Her father’s high-level management job caused her family to relocate frequently, exposing the now Miami-based writer to a variety of international schools, cultures, and dialects along the way.
“Languages and translation have been such a big part of my life,” Irigoyen says, adding that she learned to speak English around age four. “I’ve had to translate myself in different contexts and go back and forth between two languages so much that it’s become secondary in my brain.”
“Spanish speakers are so diverse…and I’ve experienced a lot of different dialects, a lot of different histories and traditions and sociocultural phenomena. So I feel like I can connect with more than just what comes from my country of origin,” she continues. “I think that’s valuable because we’re not talking about appealing to just one kind of Spanish speaker with the BBA program—we’re talking about everyone who falls under that umbrella in the state of New York and beyond.”
Recognizing that her experience could be an asset to Empire State University, Irigoyen enthusiastically applied for the job. She landed the position and officially joined SUNY Empire’s communications and Spanish BBA teams in October 2024.
For Irigoyen, who holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, the job is a welcome opportunity to combine her unique background with her lifelong passion for writing. Over the last year, the wordsmith has produced stories about all aspects of the Spanish BBA program, thoughtfully bringing her multicultural perspective to each news article and profile she writes.
“It lets me do what I love in a way that’s so connected to my life experience,” says Irigoyen, who also pens press releases and social media posts for SUNY Empire. “Getting to write about things and people that I care about has been very, very gratifying.”
Also rewarding? Working with her Spanish BBA colleagues. She says their dedication to the recently launched program, which welcomed its first cohort of students this fall, inspires her every day.
“It’s so motivating to be around people who care about something as much as I do and who also see how deserving the people we’re trying to help are,” Irigoyen says. “It’s such an important project, and it’s going to be the thing that makes a difference to so many people.”