Valeria Bonomie Piñerua (C’25) is hilarious. That was a given—she is chair of Bloomers Comedy—but during our conversation in Kelly Writers House, Vale’s colorful recollections of her experiences at Penn brightened my day. I laughed just remembering the interview while writing up this transcript, and seriously, I wish everyone could hear the audio. But Vale’s not just notable for her incredible sense of humor. Throughout her time at Penn, she has found a passion for the humanistic side of public health, aspiring to become an epidemiologist. She says she’s been described as “very HSOC,” a trait she wears proudly.
Vale deeply values her identity as a Venezuelan–American, with her big family that’s split between Mexico City, California, and Venezuela serving as her crucial support system. As a leader on campus, her goal is to make Bloomers Comedy a welcoming space for those traditionally left out of comedy spaces, also known as ABCDs (Anyone But Cis Dudes). After our interview, I knew I had to make an appearance at the next Bloomers show to see how Vale’s passion project all comes together.
Name: Valeria Bonomie Piñerua
Hometown: San Diego
Major: Health and societies
Activities: Chair of Bloomers Comedy, Kinoki Honors Society, research assistant for the School of Nursing
Where do you call home?
I feel very grateful that I have a lot of places that I can call home. I grew up in San Diego, and then when I graduated high school, my parents moved to Mexico City. But I was born in Caracas, Venezuela.
When my parents moved to Mexico City, I was scared to have a home in a place that I had never even visited before. But it's great, and I think it's a good reminder that home is about the people that you're with, and something that you can carry with you. That also made it a lot easier to move to Philly from San Diego, because it's not like I had one hometown that I had never left before. I was kind of used to moving around.
So, you were born in Caracas, Venezuela. What does your Venezuelan heritage mean to you?
I love being from Venezuela. It's awesome. We're very fun people. A lot of my family on my dad's side is still there, while my mom's closest family are all in San Diego or Los Angeles. So I was really lucky to still be able to grow up with a big Venezuelan family on my mom's side. I speak fluent Spanish, which is another blessing because a lot of immigrants and even first generation Americans can't say the same, you know, because they had to assimilate. So, yeah, it's great. I love it. I would love to be able to move back one day but the political situation right now is super difficult, and it's been that way for as long as I can remember. I really, really hope, and my family hopes, that things kind of turn around, so that maybe one day we can go back, or at least visit more because I haven't been there since 2015.
When you first came to Penn what did your academic goals look like, and how do you feel like they've changed the last four years?
I came to Penn a health and societies major, and I was pre–med and I want to go to med school. I want to be a doctor. And I'll admit, it's because I really love Grey's Anatomy. And once you start taking the classes you realize that that's not why you should be wanting to go to medical school. So, it was partially that, and partially just because I really fell in love with the health and societies major itself. The professors and my peers in it are so cool. I've always been very politically and sociologically inclined, as well as interested in health. Public health is such a good mix, where I can deal with larger social systems and larger scale health issues. I want to do epidemiology—the study of epidemics. You know, during COVID, when you would see the statistics saying, in six months, we can expect this many people to be infected? That sort of mathematical modeling is all epidemiology. There's been a rise in recent years of more humanistic epidemiology, and you can track different social determinants of health, instead of strictly biomedical disease. You can look at things like poverty and wealth disparity and nutrition, which is what I would be a little bit more interested than just the mathematic modeling.
Let’s talk about Bloomers! What made you want to join as a first year?
My sister is four years older than me and I’ve looked up to her my entire life. She went to Emerson and was in comedy troupe there, and I visited her every single year of college. I thought that her friends were the funniest and coolest people I've ever met. So I was like, I need to make friends that are also funny and cool. So when I got to Penn, I joined Bloomers as a writer. I had never really written anything before. I was a lot more STEM and pre–med at that time, but I guess I thought I may be funny enough, so I tried out and I got in that year.
It's actually funny, because I graduated high school in 2020 and then I auditioned for Bloomers when I started school in fall 2020 during COVID, and then I ended up taking a leave of absence for the whole year, and I stayed in Bloomers. So this is my fifth year in Bloomers. I've been doing Bloomers longer than Penn, which says a lot about my priorities.
How did you get into the groove of writing comedy? It’s so different than being funny in conversation—it seems so much harder to consistently write things that are funny.
I was super weird and scared, because it was on Zoom. I didn't know any of these people. They were all upperclassmen that were hilarious, and they all already knew each other. For the first semester—or maybe even the first year—I had my camera off, like, no audio, every single writing meeting. When they would write a joke the only thing I would contribute is checking their grammar. You know, I was just too embarrassed, like saying things, but I remember slowly contributing more and more. Pitching and saying your ideas is a very vulnerable thing, especially because we need the show to be funny. So if your idea is not funny, you're gonna find out.
I owe a lot to the upperclassmen then who were so unbelievably kind and welcoming. I remember my first in–person writing meeting. I wrote a bit about a board game called Scroogle that is still put on in the free show sometimes. That was my first bit I ever wrote in person with Bloomers, so I was kind of forced to speak because I can't turn off my camera and audio in real life. And that changed everything for me. After that, I felt a lot more comfortable pitching, and again, because of the upperclassmen, because of how nice and encouraging they were. They would laugh at what I would say and make me feel like one of them.
What’s been your favorite moment during your time at Bloomers?
My favorite moment was my first in–person show. So that would be fall of 2021, the theme was called “Bloomers Off the Rails.” Being in the audience and hearing people laugh at things that me and my friends wrote, specifically, things that I wrote, felt really good. I couldn’t believe that I’m lucky enough to be a part of this. After that first show, there were four more. It was just five shows of people laughing at and enjoying something that you've worked so hard on. It's a crazy feeling. I'm still not used to it.
Outside of your involvement with Bloomers, what’s something at Penn you’ve really enjoyed?
I would have to say my major. I ride for HSOC. I'm writing my honors thesis right now, and I have a couple friends that are writing it also. It's just really cool to have people that I've been studying with this long and being able to take on this big project together, you know. I'm so excited to read what they end up writing. And I just love my classes. The professors are so incredible, but also I learned so much from the other students in class. I think that it's a major that changes how I live my day–to–day, too. It seeps into how I see the world and everything I do.
What’s your thesis on?
Kind of a little backstory to that. I was abroad last fall, and I did a traveling program. It was called health and community, and I went to Vietnam, South Africa, and Argentina.
When I was in Argentina, there was a homestay portion where we lived in a rural area for a week. My rural stay was in this tiny little town where they have this community health program that basically door–to–door surveys people, so the researchers can create an epidemiological map. They’ll survey your house and say, for example, someone with hypertension that lives here, a pregnant woman that lives here. The researchers come to people’s houses, make a doctor's appointment for them, or come to vaccinate your baby or whatever, all in their houses. It’s very much a grassroots sort of health programming. Community health worker programs are pretty popular, but this one's very comprehensive.
So I learned about that last fall, and then I went back this summer for five weeks, and I was in that rural town studying it. So that's what my thesis is about.
Wait, how has your study abroad experience not come up? What made you choose this particular experience?
I was pretty torn between a more traditional study abroad and doing this. You're staying with families, it's homestays in every country, and you know, it's not like you're going to party. I was also in a moment where I was really struggling between whether I wanted to pursue public health or entertainment. So I thought, "I'm gonna do this program, and it'll help me decide."
As part of the program, half of the day is class, and then the second half of the day is field work. So you go to a hospital, a clinic, but you'll also talk to local, indigenous healers, to get an idea of the health landscape in that place.
I was so scared leading up to studying abroad because the first country was Vietnam, and I've never been so far away from home for so long. And I'm going with 25 strangers that I've never met before, from different schools and different majors. There were two Penn people, and I’ve never met either of them.
It was also upsetting because we got our dates for our flights, and we left D.C. for Vietnam on Sept. 5, and we landed because of the time change on Sept. 7. And my birthday is Sept. 6, so my birthday, like, got deleted. Basically, it never happened because of the time difference. That was a rough start, for sure. My mom is so sweet—she wrapped presents for me to open on the plane. In the end, it was a really great program. I'm really glad I did it. It was very intense, obviously. But I’d recommend it to anyone, especially because Vietnam, South Africa, and Argentina are definitely not your typical study abroad destinations. I made so many connections, in all these places, and I would go back to any of them, any day. It was really incredible.
So you talked about wanting to choose between public health and entertainment. Have you made that decision?
I think I'm definitely gonna stick with public health. I love comedy and I love writing. I'm really interested in film and television, but I know it's something that I can always do in my free time. It's hard to be an epidemiologist as a hobby, but I can be a writer as a hobby, you know? So because of that, I really want to try to give public health a go, and it’s also just so fulfilling to me. Comedy is too, but the type of work that I would be able to do as someone in public health is just very cool and exciting.
Is there anything else about yourself you want to highlight, or any advice you’d like to give?
I just want to encourage people to go and audition for something in the arts, even if they're not super sure they want to do that. I'm now surrounded by theater kids. I was never a theater kid. I never thought I would be in that space, but they're pretty cool. It’s also just so fulfilling, especially for Bloomers, which is ABCD—Anyone But Cis Dudes. There's a notion that if you're not a guy, you're not funny. I've been told so many times, “You're the funniest girl I know.” And it's like, okay, why can’t I just be the funniest person you know? At least for me, coming to a space that was for people with underrepresented gender identities and they were all so funny and so talented, it made me feel so comfortable seeing that in myself as well.
Lightning Round:
Favorite comedy movie: Dazed and Confused
Funniest person in America: RFK Jr.—he’s a gem to the news cycle.
Podcast you’re currently listening to: Exploration: LIVE! (a comedy podcast), Who? Weekly (about niche, D–list celebrities), and If Books Could Kill (two guys who dunk on bad books).
Which celebrity do you stan the most: Andrew Scott, Daniel Kaluuya, Julia Louis–Dreyfus, and Issa Rae— those are my big 4.
No skip song: "H.O.O.D" by Kneecap.
Favorite way to procrastinate: Daydreaming, I love to stare out a window.
There are two types of people at Penn… people who go past 42nd and people who don’t.
And you are? Someone who goes past 42nd!
Do you know that one senior who brings a smile to everyone’s face or always has the craaaaziest stories? It’s time to give them the recognition they deserve. Ego of the Week seeks to showcase seniors, not for their grades or other fake academic construct, but for who they are as a person and the joy they bring to the people around them! Nominate your favorite Penn Seniors for Ego of the Week!
