Maria Celeste Arrarás has established herself as one of the most visible and credible broadcast journalists in the Latino television market. Endowed with intelligence, journalistic integrity, relentless motivation, and great humanity, she has managed to gain the attention and trust of the millions of viewers who watch her Latino network news and who have consistently voted her one of the most admired personalities in broadcast journalism.
Background
Arrarás was bom on September 27,1961, in Mayagiiez, a college city on the west coast of Puerto Rico. Her father, José Enrique Arrarás, is a lawyer and was chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagiiez. For many years, he occupied a central role in Puerto Rican politics as a senator and as a prominent politician. Her mother is Astrid Mangual. Raised both in Mayagiiez and San Juan, Arrarás studied at parochial schools in these two cities and graduated from high school at the elite Colegio Puertorriqueño de Niñas in San Juan.
Education
Arrarás describes herself as an extroverted girl who always liked to say what she felt. As she grew up, she felt that she wanted to communicate not only through the spoken and written word but also through video. With this in mind, she pursued studies in communications at Loyola University in New Orleans, where she graduated with honors with a bachelor's degree in communications in 1982.
Career
She started her journalistic career in 1986 as a reporter with WSJN-TV, Channel 13, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. During her three years at this 24-hour news station, Arrarás quickly demonstrated her talents by focusing on special events and on international news not commonly covered by other mainstream Puerto Rican television stations. Although she quickly became the prime anchor at the station and gained prominence in the fertile Puerto Rican television market, her interests in the international news market led her to accept a position as an anchorwoman with Channel 41, the local affiliate of Univision, the Spanish television network in New York.
Shortly after arriving in New York, Arrarás was asked to become the Los Angeles bureau chief and weekend substitute anchor for Univision News Network, based in Los Angeles. Recognizing the value of being a reporter at the national network level, she quickly accepted and continued to impress her audiences with her quality work. She covered news of North America, the Caribbean, Asia, Eu-rope, and throughout the world. In 1991, she became the national weekend anchor for Univision Network News and a correspondent and substitute anchor for Portada, a newsmagazine with a format similar to 60 Minutes.
Of the work during this time she has said: "The public got to know me doing important work such as wars, and coup d'etats. I carry the news in my bloodstream. I had a rifle in my head during a coup d'etat in Haiti and was abducted by drug lords in Mexico. These are like the stars worn by a general. We are proud of them" (Arraras 2000). She has coordinated and hosted the first live satellite transmissions "spacebridge" between the former Soviet Union and the Caribbean, and has covered live national presidential conventions, the Olympics, and state elections in California, Florida, and New York. She has had one-on-one interviews with U.S. presidential candidates, Latin American presidents, and movie stars. She has been on special assignment to the former Soviet Union, Korea, Latin America, the Philippines, Europe, and Hawaii (Arraras 2000).
In 1993, Arraras became a national news anchor for Univision Network's Primer Impacto. This infotainment magazine is seen from coast to coast in the United States, in 15 Latin American countries, and in Europe. The program follows a soft/ hard news format, similar to that of American TV's Hard Copy, and focuses on absurd and sometimes the bizarre human stories. At the same time, she continues to be active within the news department and anchors the daytime newsbreaks for the network. Based at Univision's headquarters in Miami, Arraras has become very successful. A special edition of Primer Impacto hosted by Arraras gained a 30.6 national rating becoming the second-highest-rated show in the history of the Nielsen Hispanic Index.
The assassination of Tex-Mex singer Selena in March 1995 put Arraras in the forefront of Latino news. Assigned by Univision to cover the assassination, she flew to Texas and followed the case closely from the day of the killing to the eventual trial of Yolanda Saldivar, Selena's killer, to a groundbreaking posttrial interview with Saldivar. This interview became one of the highest-rated shows ever broadcast on Spanish television according to Nielsen. In 1997, Arraras published El Secreto de Selena (Selena's Secret), which became one of the year's bestsellers in Latino markets. The book, filled with respect and compassion for the dead singer, unraveled the turbulent last days of Selena's life.
Arrarás left Univisión in 2002 and joined the Telemundo Network, where she hosts Al Rojo Vivo, a newsmagazine focusing on controversial and entertainment stories.
Membership
She is very active in many charitable endeavors, including being the Latina spokesperson for the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), for environmental protection, and the rights of the elderly.
Personality
Arraras' career can be best summarized by her view of success. She says that success is determined by vision, luck, and motivation. It is also determined by the quality work that she has produced in less than two decades in Latino broadcasting, which is attested to by the many awards and recognitions she has received.