Luz Angélica Acosta
I am proud to say I am a Mexican inmigrant, came to the US for college with a student visa. I fell in love with this wonderful country and decided to make it my home. I got my U.S. citizenchip in 2015, one of the proudest days of my life. I am a 45 year old professional, mom and wife. I have been happily married for almost 12 years to my wonderful husband Ralph, Army retired veteran, and have my three loves Christoff and Eileen, my children, 16 and 12 respectively and our crazy 7 year old furry baby Bonnie. I've own business for more than 16 years now. I work from home and have organized my schedule to fit work and family life perfectly, including hobbies like traveling and visiting haunted places, or just spending a quiet afternoon with my family at home and cooking something delicious for everybody. I love my country, I've participated in mexican folklorico dancing groups since I was 12, and still do it whenever I get the chance, and love cooking mexican food. But the United States is my home, and I have a deep love and respect for the people, the different cultures, the rich history, and everything this country stands for. God Bless America!
• Certified Translation Professional (CTP)
• English Certificate from High School
• Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere
• Global Translation Institute
• The University of Texas at El Paso
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to perseverance and keeping my values set. What's really important to me is delivering the highest quality of my product, regardless of the size of the project. I've had projects that are tiny, just one page, and I've had projects that are a whole website or a whole course - I worked with Great Courses recently, and we were translating complete college level courses. No matter the size of your project, the quality and the respect that you give it always has to be the same. There is no project bigger than another. All of them are important, and I treat them all with the same level of care and commitment.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Never give up. There is no dream too big, there is no goal too high for you to reach. You can always do it, you just have to set your mind, and you'll get there. This advice has stayed with me throughout my career and has helped me persevere through challenges and continue growing in my industry for almost 20 years now.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
In my industry, I honestly haven't found any discrimination against women. In fact, I've found that many people prefer female translators. I would like to think it's because we are more caring and more careful in what we do. When we set our minds to do something, we are committed and we make it happen. So my advice would be the same thing - just don't give up. You got it. You got this. You're a woman, you have everything you need to be successful in whatever you set your mind to do. We have the commitment and the drive to make things happen.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The opportunities in my field are really opening up. When I started on Upwork, it was pretty limited and there were no other platforms that would offer what Upwork does. Now I can say that there are several others competing with it. There's also places like LinkedIn that opened this whole new world of access to companies where you can apply to their opportunities directly and talk to them directly. Most of the clients I have right now have contacted me through LinkedIn, so we skip the whole applying for the job and the interview process. That's making it a lot easier for us translators to get more and better opportunities. As for challenges, when they started with AI and automatic translators, I think we got a little worried. But at this point, I can tell you that it's an amazing tool. It makes our jobs so much easier, faster, optimized in every sense. Artificial intelligence could have been a challenge for us at some point, but I think we are turning it around to make it work for us. It is awesome and I am loving that too.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I would say honesty and integrity, definitely, in every sense of my life. It's important and it's the basis of everything. I'm a perfectionist, and there are things that have no place in my life. When you're not being honest, there's space for complications, but honesty just makes your life easier. Honesty and integrity are the foundations that allow me to maintain my standards and deliver quality work, while keeping my personal and professional life aligned with my values.