Pageant News Bureau - Jennifer Rodriguez

A lot of women would love to trade jobs with Jennifer Rodriguez. Come to think of it, so would a lot of men. She's an events planner for the National Football League, and that's pretty exciting.

During the week before the Super Bowl in January 2003, her job took her to San Diego, the site of the game. It's the biggest single sports event in America.

A Super Bowl city during Super Bowl Week is a cross between Hollywood at Oscar time and London during a royal wedding. Everybody in the media seems to show up, and if you're in the right place, you have to wade through a crowd of celebrities just to find an ordinary person.

Ms. Rodriguez's job involves dealing with these beautiful people, and one of the hardest things she has to do is not outshine them. (No, she didn't say that, but we swear it's true.) She looks like a star, and we think of her as a star in waiting.

Her title in the pageant world is Miss New York Latin Image, and she will compete for the national crown in March 2003 in Houston. Holding a Latin beauty title is a hot ticket in the United States these days. While Ms. Rodriguez was in San Diego, the U.S. government announced that people of Latin origin had become the largest minority in the country. (But as the name "San Diego" suggests, they've been around for a long time.)

Ms. Rodriguez has seen the pageant business from both sides. She has competed at Miss New York USA and co-hosted the Miss Indiana USA and Miss Pennsylvania USA competitions. She's also a dancer who trained with Alvin Ailey and has been captain of the dance team at Hofstra University.

In her biggest acting job to date, she has the principal role in the stage production of "Yo Soy Latina." That means, "I am a Latin woman," and so she is, with roots in the Dominican Republic. In the melting pot of America, she's 100 percent a New Yorker. And we love New York.

Her next exciting job could be star.

Pageant photo courtesy of Jennifer Rodriguez,
others by Robert Calderon

A super Latina