Wake Up

In Puerto Rico, the fear of the unemployment rate and the absence of work opportunities are a reality that we are mostly forced to adapt to once you’re a young adult. This reality is especially problematic for those who have recently received their bachelor’s degree during the occurrence of both natural and economic disasters that have hindered the progress of many young graduates. I’ve witnessed how this affects some of my colleagues and my family members once they reach their achievement after four to five years of rigorous hard work and later on feel disillusioned from the scarceness of jobs on the island. As a result, many resort to the more accessible positions that don’t have anything to do with what they originally studied, while others leave to different countries where they have to learn to adapt quickly to better search for opportunities and survive. The initial idea for Wake Up came from a colleague that curiously enough documented everything that she experienced while working in a call center, like keeping a virtual diary of her first time on the job. From there, the ideas of interpreting a young adult, Sara Lange, experiencing her first rite of passage by starting a career path in that same environment came to a result with the intent of making a connection between Sara and other young adults like myself that long for being self-sufficient and independent.