1st and 2nd Generation Americans Bring International Flavor to Mopdog

mirtha sa tripWhen Mirtha Vaca-Wilkens, Mopdog’s newest account manager, was born in Long Island to two immigrants from Ecuador, her lifetime of ethnic influences had only just begun. “I was already growing up in a culture that was different than America,” Mirtha says about the customs celebrated and the food eaten in her childhood home, where only Spanish was spoken.

When Mirtha was five years old, her father joined the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army. As an Army brat, she moved with her family to North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma. Then, at around 13 years old, Mirtha moved to Krickenbach, Germany, a traditional, “idealic” village on the side of a mountain. Mirtha said the transition to Europe was any easy one. “My family unit was still the culture I was most a part of,” she says. “At the core I am a Latina.” (Although these days, Mirtha is a mother of three who is also known to cook a bratwurst dinner for her family.)

Another major life transition happened when Mirtha and her family moved back stateside to Fort Campbell in Clarksville, Tennessee. At this time, Mirtha worked for a CNN affiliate in Kentucky, writing, producing, shooting and editing pieces—eventually moving up the ranks to morning news anchor. At the time, Mirtha says she was easily spotted as a “foreigner,” with questions like, “Darling, what are you?”

Then in the early 1990s, while attending graduate school at Iowa State, Mirtha spent weeks over a two-year period traveling to South America to complete an extraordinary educational project, using the latest technology to create an interactive learning tool. The team traversed 400 miles of the Amazon, specifically the “dark waters” of the Rio Negro, to chronicle the life of the indigenous people living in villages along the river. “It seems like a whole other lifetime,” Mirtha says about camping above the forest floor in a hammock and moving down the river in a small steamboat.

Two Cultures, One Experience
Tonni cousinsTonni Islam, Mopdog’s youngest graphic designer, was born in Dhaka, the centralized capital of Bangladesh, in 1989. Tonni lived in Bangladesh as a young child, until her family moved to New York for a few years, before venturing to the southeast. The Islam family traveled back and forth to Bangladesh several times, with the longest stay an 11-month period during Tonni’s fifth-grade year in school.

Tonni, describes herself as neither Bangladeshi nor American. Still, she is heavily influenced by Bangladesh traditions, including an emphasized, “sharper line” for respecting elders. Tonni says she feels odd calling her bosses at Mopdog by their first names.

She also finds it easier to understand the dynamics within immigrant families, especially of Chinese or Japanese heritage. Yet, Tonni is less comfortable with the language in Bangladesh and feels more independent in the United States. Tonni will be spending a month this summer in Bangladesh.

A Global Standard: Know Your Audience
As a young professional who uses images, graphics and design structure to relay messages to a range of clients, Tonni says being conscientious of other cultures “only requires a level of talking with respect, no matter the audience…I don’t think you need to be apprehensive.”

Mirtha has perfected how to optimize a message and reach customers in a new way. “There are universal truths,” Mirtha says. “Love looks the same; hate looks the same.” One obvious benefit Mirtha brings to client relations and content management is speaking five different languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French.

Mirtha uses these skills at Mopdog to manage a large international client, which has production facilities, research offices and business customers spread across the globe. Crafting a simple, safe campaign that tries to encompass all cultures isn’t always the best approach. Truly understanding what makes a group unique is how a business can make a lasting connection with a smart, engaging, direct message.

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