“THE” Gina Roman

“THE” Gina Roman
By: Gina Yoryet Roman
April 2nd, 2012


The combination of my jobs (Teaching/Translating/Interpreting and Health & Fitness) is very thrilling because it always challenges me to increase my knowledge in many areas forcing me to be updated and it’s interesting to meet people from all over the world. Plus, I am not nailed down to my chair the whole day!

One good example was last week when I worked at the “Primer Foro de Agave” held at UDG Juan José Arreola public library.
I was originally there to do some interviews for “The Road to Tequila,” a documentary we’ve been working on for almost two years about the legend behind “Tequila” the town and “Tequila” the drink. Our main focus is to educate the Anglos and help them look at the whole picture involved in those seven words.

So one of the coordinators of this event emailed me on Saturday asking if I could interpret for the speakers since there were people from the U. S., Australia, England, Canada, and some Mexicans who didn’t speak English so to make the story short, I interpreted from Spanish to English and from English to Spanish. It was very intense because everyone spoke way too fast and I couldn’t catch many things but the most difficult thing I encountered was the terminology. We as Interpreters have to request the material from our client at least five working days in advance in order to study it.

This time not only was I notified late but the terminology was very particular, most of the speakers blurted out very technical terms at 200 miles per hour and I worked the entire day which was very exhausting. On top of that I was placed right next to the speakers in front of “una mesita redonda,” – a small round table, as I was told. LOL! It was more like a huge room full of people. There I was without a cabin to avoid distractions DREADING standing in front of an audience. Believe it or not, I managed to do surprisingly well despite all of that!

In cases like that, it is always recommended to have two interpreters so we can take a break because it is very mentally draining although some may think our job is a piece of cake because we are sitting there just “talking.”

In between breaks the producer of “The Road to Tequila and I managed to interview a few people and got different perspectives, just what we were looking for!

One of the most important individuals to interview was a professor from UDG who I’d been playing phone tags with for the last 8-12 weeks or so.

The first thing he said to me when I approached him was, “So, you are Gina Roman, huh? I pictured a blonde woman like the one on your website or like “La Rubia Superior.” I replied nonchalantly, “Sorry to disappoint you but I don’t even come close to being blonde.”
And he replied, “I am not disappointed in the least, I am very lucky to have met you…”

That led to a chat about THE real Gina Roman, Georgina García Tamargo born on February 15, 1938 in The Havana Cuba. She was a professional dancer in her country of origin and then immigrated to Mexico in the early 1950’s to become a celebrity leaving a record of about 78 films.

But what made her standout the most was the advertisements she did for Cerveza Superior in the 1980’s.

Those commercials were a hit, all the men slobbered the minute that voluptuous blonde beauty popped up on the screen. She used to come out with a very tight and sexy cheerleading outfit flaunting all her attributes, leaving too little to the imagination. Cerveza Superior hit right on the spot with that marketing plan leaving its competitors behind in sales by far at that time.

I have known about “La Rubia Superior” since I was a little girl but I never knew her name until I became Gina Roman, not because I wanted to imitate her but because of the spelling of my original name, “Yoryet Roman (Pronounced Georgette, Georgette = Georgina, Georgina = Gina). One day I googled the name “Gina Roman,” just to see what came up after many of my students and clients told me that I had a celebrity name so that is how I got to the bottom of that.

That is the legend behind my name so I’ve officially named myself “Gina Yoryet” without even knowing that beautiful woman is THE Gina Roman.