It is 12 O’Clock in the afternoon. Eight year-old Graciela Vargas is leaving school and going to work in her parents’ business selling food exported from Brazil. Years later, as the days come closer to Señora Vargas’ eighteenth birthday, the thought of going to the United States was on her mind daily. It was her dream.
Growing up in Paraguay, Vargas went to school from 8:00-12:00 in the morning. Then she spent most of her day helping her parents run their business. The business consisted of importing food from Brazil and reselling it in Paraguay. Vargas said, “I started working in the business from eight years-old to the time I left Paraguay.” Vargas loved working so much that she started her own business when she was only fifteen. While her family imported food from Brazil, Vargas imported the latest Brazilian women’s clothing. She added, “By the time I was 17, I had already opened my second store there. Then by eighteen, I had come to America.”
At eighteen Vargas decided it was time to leave Paraguay and go to the United States. Her aunt was already in the United States, so she adopted Vargas, making it a much smoother transition to living here.
Upon moving to the United States, Vargas wanted to continue her career in business. “I love business, I made my major management,” she said. While completing her final semester in college she met a friend who was a Spanish teacher. One day, Vargas’s friend asked if she could teach a class for her. “At the time I didn’t know anything about teaching but my friend told me that I had enough educational credentials to become an educator,” said Vargas.
Even though this was not the path Vargas planned to take, she agreed to teach one class ten hours a week. She was encouraged to continue. “I even got moved up to teach the AP classes and I loved it.”
Eventually, Vargas had to close this door because she wanted to put her business degree to use after graduating. “I started working as a manager of a Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy … and I hated it.” She wanted to leave her job in retail and her friend told her, “Go back, go back and get your masters degree to teach, you were so happy.” Vargas decided to do that very thing. She returned to college, obtained her masters degree, and has been teaching ever since. She explained, “I don’t think I could go back into corporate business; however, I will create my own small business.”
Vargas wanted to give back to her community so she started an online clothing business, where profits went towards helping women in Paraguay. She stated, “I would go back to Paraguay each summer and help design clothes for the women and sell them.” Vargas wanted to contribute to the women of her home country due to the inequality she saw growing up there. Now, raising her daughter here in the United States she wanted to give her daughter the best education she could. Vargas said, “I am very proud to be teaching in a school like this, and to have my daughter attending SCH … I am determined to give her the best life she could possibly live.”
Though her daughter isn’t growing up in the same country as she did, Vargas said, “It’s extremely important to me that my daughter is connected to my heritage and culture along with her father’s American traditions.” She made clear she wants her daughter to grow up Latina and also stated, “I am teaching her Spanish.”