Margo Chaly is the first Latina to serve as New Jersey’s secretary of higher education. It’s a job, she joked to the crowd at the Latina Civic Foundation’s inaugural Latina Excellence Breakfast, that she was more or less raised for from birth.
“I stand here today as the first Latina Secretary of Higher Education for the state of New Jersey because of the relentless pursuit of education demanded of me by my parents,” she said.
That upbringing also gave her a sense that she owed something back to her community.
“As a woman, a Latina, an immigrant kid, I am keenly aware of what it means for families navigating situations to have, or probably more importantly, lack access to legal resources, translators, and other support,” she said. “So it was within this context that I committed to pursuing a career of advocacy.”
***
Chaly is a first-generation Guatemalan American and a lifelong New Jersey resident. Before Gov. Mikie Sherrill named her to the cabinet, she ran the state Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, known as HESAA. As executive director, she led an agency that awarded nearly $1.4 billion in grants and scholarships to students, according to her introduction at the event.
Maria Del Cid-Kosso, president of the Latina Civic Foundation, introduced Chaly with a personal note at the Oct. 9 breakfast at The Rutgers Club in Piscataway. Del Cid-Kosso noted they share Guatemalan roots.
“It is always special to see one of our own making a difference and serving our community at the highest level of state government,” she said.
Today, Chaly’s advocacy is aimed at college students. More and more, she said, they don’t fit the old picture: adults returning to finish a degree, parents raising kids or caring for their own parents while they study, students working full time. Then there are the students who wanted to go farther from home, but whose mami and papi wanted them close.
“I take this role as a responsibility,” she said. “Extremely seriously.”
***
Chaly didn’t waste time getting to the point.
“Representation matters. Hard stop,” she said.
She paused, then added, “Of course, I’ll continue.”
Latino culture is woven into the fabric of New Jersey, she said, and she ran through the list: business owners, teachers and professors, nurses and surgeons, bus drivers, engineers, lawyers, elected officials from school boards to Congress and students.
The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever
Chaly also got one of the morning’s biggest laughs, at the expense of anyone who fretted about a Spanish-language halftime show.
“It turns out the world did, in fact, not stop spinning when Benito Martinez Ocasio performed at the Super Bowl,” she said.
That’s Bad Bunny, for those keeping score at home.
***
Chaly’s most pointed message was for the Latinas in the room who still wonder whether they belong there.
“We will be questioned, or worse, question ourselves as to whether or not we belong in these rooms,” she said. “Plenty of other people will tell you no. Ladies, do not let yourself be one of them.”
Chaly said she knows the doubt is real: the fatigue, the struggles, the imposter syndrome. That’s why community matters, she said, and why groups like Latina Civic do.
“That is why it is absolutely important to form a community, una familia, that will build you up, support you, and remind you that you belong here,” she said.
***
She closed with the words of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.”
Chaly said she saw plenty of embers in the room.
Many of their parents and grandparents never got the chance to finish high school, let alone college, Chaly said. They came to this country so their children could.
Their children are now running agencies, winning elections and filling rooms like this one.
“We belong here,” Chaly said. “No doubting, no gatekeeping.”
For information about Latina Civic Foundation, go to latinacivicfoundation.org.
