Introduction
～７歳の時、ゲームボーイでポケモンに出会い、日本が大好きに～

　　Hello! My name is Nicole A. Saldaña. I am the new full time assistant language teacher from the JET program here at ! I am from Salinas California. I am Mexican American, as both of my parents are from Mexico. I come from a pretty big family, of two older brothers and older sister. I am able to speak three languages, English, Spanish, and Japanese. I am a recent graduate from California State University of Monterey Bay (CSUMB). I double majored in Business, concentrating on Management and International Business, and Japanese, concentrating on Language and Culture. I had the wonderful opportunity to study abroad in Japan for one year (2013-2014) and immerse myself with the language and culture.

　　A little background of myself. My interests in Japanese culture began when I was around 7 years old, when I was introduced to the Pokémon. It was released into the US in line with the Pokémon Yellow version for game boy advance. Since then, I found out that this animation and cartoon was from Japan. I enrolled myself in Japanese Language classes as early as middle school and have now studied Japanese Language and Culture since 2005.

　　I’ve always been fascinated with how businesses can connect with different parts of the world easily when they globalize their products and services. Again, Pokémon was a big inspiration of how I could play a game in America and a kid with a similar interest in Japan could also play it. I wanted to learn how to be part of that process of spreading the word out and connecting different parts of the world together with similar interests.

　　Because of that business interest, and also running a cupcake business with my sister on the side, I wanted that to be my primary major. However, I realized I wanted to keep studying the Japanese language as a major as I fell in love with the Japanese culture when I studied abroad. I originally just had minored in Japanese but changed it my second major to pursue my dream of working as an Entrepreneur. With Japanese and Business combined, I plan to use both of my major studies to get the job I want in International Business. I hope to one day work in a major company to either work for Japan or America and be an interpreter between the two countries.

Tweet