Nydia Rodriguez Terracina

Nydia Rodriguez Terracina, an active SAG-AFTRA member since 1974, was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico to Ramon Aurelio Cruz and Margarita R. M. Her father, Ramon, was the long-standing bodyguard of the late Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Munoz Marin. At the age of three, her parents separated. Nydia moved to Chicago with her mother and older sister. During her younger years Nydia remembers moving back and forth from Chicago to Puerto Rico and, as a consequence, was lucky to study in Humacao, and Caguas, Puerto Rico. As a young woman she graduated from Patricia Stevens School of Modeling in Illinois while living in Chicago in the popular Humboldt Park neighborhood. At 18 years of age Nydia sang regularly in one of Chicago's first Hispanic religious programs for shut-ins on Channel 26 called Hoy Domingo. She was then invited to sing on WGN-TV on a special Christmas religious program sponsored by the Catholic Cardinal's Committee. Little did she know at the time, that much later at the age o