March 10, 2000
Basking Ridge, NJ — Arturo
Vargas was only 10 years old when he joined his parents in a picket
line to protest overcrowding and the lack of a cafeteria and sufficient
playground space at his elementary school in the Pico Union area
of Los Angeles.
"I was so proud of my parents for taking a risk and speaking
out," he recalls. "That day was a defining moment for
me because I knew I wanted to work toward social change and justice."
His boyhood dream became a reality. Today, Vargas, 36, is the executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a national membership organization, and also directs the organization's Educational Fund, which is dedicated to empowering Latinos to participate fully in the American political process, from citizenship to public office.
His activism extends beyond leading his own organization. In January 1999, Vargas was elected to a second term as chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, an umbrella coalition of the leading national Latino organizations. After many years of behind-the-scenes work, Vargas is finally receiving well-deserved recognition. He received Hispanic Magazine's 1995 Hispanic Achievement Award for Community Service, the National Federation of Hispanic-Owned Newspapers' 1998 Leadership Award, the National Association for Bilingual Education's 1999 President's Award and was included in Hispanic Business Magazine's List of 100 Hispanic Influentials in 1996 and 1998.
He attributed much of his success to hard work and a series of mentors who have provided a support system throughout his life. The first were his parents, Jose and Antonieta, who made education a top priority for Vargas, his sister and three brothers. At Belmont High School, where Vargas was student body president and earned top grades, he was encouraged by his history and government teacher to apply to Stanford University.
Despite outstanding credentials that enabled him to attend Stanford on an academic scholarship, Vargas' first year proved frustrating, as he struggled to master the curriculum. For the first time in his life, Vargas received C grades and became thoroughly convinced that he wasn't cut out for Stanford.
Luckily for Vargas, some of his dormitory roommates helped him realize that the problem wasn't that he was not smart enough; he just needed to learn how to study and develop analytical skills.
"By the time I was a senior, I was getting A's," he recalls with a smile. "And when I was a graduate student, I had a 4.0 average."
Shortly after graduating with a master's degree in education and a bachelor's degree in history and Spanish, Vargas accepted a position in Washington, DC, as an education policy fellow at the National Council of La Raza, an organization established to reduce poverty and discrimination and improve opportunities for Hispanics. He focused on language issues, including bilingual education, the English-Only movement and literacy in the Latino community.
The 23-year-old Vargas found that working at NCLR could at times be a heady experience, especially on the occasions when he was called to testify before Congress on education issues. It was while working at NCLR, Vargas recalls, that he learned how to write well, thanks to an NCLR vice president who routinely returned his work so full of red ink that it "looked like it was bleeding."
After three years at NCLR, Vargas returned to Los Angeles to work for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a national litigation and advocacy organization. Vargas directed MALDEF's National 1990 Census Program, an award-winning national outreach and public policy effort to promote a full count of the Latino population. The program was recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau as the most effective outreach effort during the 1990 census.
His responsibilities also included coordination of MALDEF's 1991 redistricting efforts, which led to an historic increase in the number of Latinos serving in the California legislature. Vargas then went on to become MALDEF's first vice president for community education and public policy.
Arturo Vargas is brilliant, dedicated and creative," says his former boss, Antonia Hernandez, MALDEF president and general counsel. "He's an example of the next generation of leadership that is coming up in our community."
For the past five years, Vargas has devoted most of his professional energies to ensuring the success of NALEO. And he has no doubt that the organization is having a major impact on the Latino community.
"The greatest joy that I derive from my job is helping people to become citizens so that they can vote and have a voice. As voters, they become the support network Latino policymakers need in order to push through policies that will benefit our community."
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