VOICES Feature:

Candelaria Vargas

The Stockton Younger Women’s Task Force works to amplify and uplift the voices of women in Stockton. We share interviews with amazing women who are making a difference in our community on our website, social media, and in our email newsletters.

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Candelaria Vargas

SUSD Board Trustee, Campaign Director at Daily Kos

Interviewed April 4, 2021

What do you do? Tell us a little about yourself and your work.

I live in Stockton, California and have deep San Joaquin Valley roots. I currently work for the largest progressive nation-wide media outlet, Daily Kos. I also serve as board trustee for Stockton Unified School District, Area 7. My diverse background includes numerous political campaigns as well as nonprofit communications, fundraising, and community organizing. 

As a granddaughter of migrant farmworkers, a former foster child turned valedictorian, and a survivor of childhood trauma, I’m driven to leverage my education and work experience to empower families and help reconstruct systems that marginalize communities. 

I graduated from the University of the Pacific with my Bachelors (BA) in Spanish Literature and a double concentration in Pedagogy and a minor in International Relations. I earned my Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from CSU, Stanislaus. 

My work with Daily Kos consists of nation-wide coalition building and organizing on various progressive issues ranging comprehensive immigration reform, to Medicare for all. This work also consists of email list growth for our company which generates about 90% of our multimillion dollar budget. 

I’m also a mom of two tenacious and brilliant little brown girls ages 20 months and 4 years old. They are my whole world and motivations for my service as a school board member. 

I also serve on a number of boards, advisory committees, and mentorship programs serving youth in our community.

What inspired you to do the work that you do?

As a former foster kid, I’m driven to make our community better to serve our opportunity youth and families. I know our community can do so much as a whole to serve all families in all areas, it’s just a matter of will from our leaders, inclusion, and creativity. 

After graduating from my bachelors I thought I could best contribute to this endeavor by fundraising and communications in the nonprofit community, but I quickly learned how much our communities are impacted by elected officials and laws who don’t represent our community and hurt our neighbors and friends. In order to make things better I needed to be politically involved to help elect candidates and pass laws, measures, and propositions that not only correct the harm, but prevent harm to our communities and serve us ALL well. 

I volunteered so much after my nonprofit hours that eventually I started working for local, state, and congressional campaigns. I even had the pleasure of working as Deputy Communications Director for the California Democratic Party and now work for a progressive nation-wide organization. I was happy getting progressive Democrats elected and didn’t have any intentions on running until I learned how few women of color run for office and how even fewer are elected. 

I decided that I would have to be ready to run if my community called on me to serve and that happened in 2018. I ran my first campaign pregnant and with a 1.5 year-old. I was reluctant to do so because being a mom and working full time is a demanding feat all on its own but I thought about my kids, our community, my own experience with education saving my life, and how few (if at all) parents of young children serve on our school board. All of these reasons and the support of our community encouraged me to take the leap and run for office. I won! 

I fight for our students every day by focusing on student outcomes, needs, and achievement, trying to bring resources to our community, and working to bring transparency and accessibility of the school board to the community. It’s extremely challenging work with the current makeup of the board, but knowing that I’m serving our students makes it worth it.

What are some of the barriers, challenges, or issues that women in Stockton face that you want to highlight?

I’d like to highlight how women are paid less and face more workplace and community discrimination than men and more so for women of color. 

Accessible, affordable, and high quality childcare are extremely difficult to come by in our community. 

Affordable housing is another challenge that we face in the Stockton community and San Joaquin County as a whole.

We have a serious human trafficking problem in our region where girls, womxn, and LGBTQ people are targeted and abused. 

For those of us who are able to make it through to achieve a higher education, we’re overburdened with immense student loan debt.

What do you do to treat yourself? Any self-care recommendations to share with other women?

When I’m not working, or legislating in the boardroom, pre COVID you could find me backpacking across the globe with my daughters Athena and Artemis and husband Max or training for the next 10k. 

I enjoy facials and massages and trying new foods. I absolutely love wine tasting, brunch, breakfast in bed, and taking hot baths with fizzy-fragrant bath bombs, reading, naps, and small group gatherings with friends. My favorite treat has been sitting on a warm sandy beach in northern Perú building sand castles with my little ones. I can’t wait to go back! It’s very rare that I treat myself in any of these ways, even pre-pandemic. I’m trying to be better at taking care of myself. 

Recommendations: My favorite places to eat here locally are Taquería Carolina (Pershing & Pacific), Tokyo Ramen (Pershing & Robinhood), Casagrandes (Country club & I-5). I also enjoy Papa Urbs (Downtown Stockton), ThaiMeUp (Miracle Mile), La Palma, Mile Wine (also on the Miracle Mile), and various food trucks throughout the county. 

For facials, massages, and waxing I love Elevate Skin Spa in Lincoln Center. 

My favorite wineries are Ripken, Bokish, MichaelDavid, Luca, Spenker, and more! The Valentines Day Lodi Wine Tour is my favorite wine tasting event of the year!

What can people do to support and get involved in your work? 

Vote! Please, vote! Vote all the way down the ballot. Every single vote counts, especially in our local elections and our local elected officials have a huge impact on our quality of life. Run! Run for office! At the very least start applying to boards and commissions to prepare yourself and make your future candidacy more viable. Participate in local government and elections. Volunteer for a campaign. Let your elected leaders know that you are watching and set expectations for what your needs are for your community by submitting public comment! Look into trainings to prepare to run. Emerge CA is a great program that trains Democratic womxn to run for office.  

 

Connect with Candelaria:

 

Organizations to support and resources to check out:

Anything else you want to share with our newsletter list?

Be bold, be audacious, be confident that your efforts can and will make a positive impact in our community!

Thank you for everything you do for our community, Candelaria!

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