Alumni share stories during Hispanic Heritage Month

By Sol Ayala

Online News Editor

This year, Trevecca hosted the third annual Latino Tennessee Voices Storytellers live event organized by The Tennessean to highlight the stories of Latinx voices in Tennessee. 

David Plazas, opinion and engagement director for USA Today Network and co-host of this year’s event, invited five Latinx storytellers to the stage. Jacob Aparicio, Tennessee Human Rights Commission communications director, Stephanie Amador, photojournalist at The Tennessean and Diego Eguiarte, CEO of Nuestro Financial shared their experiences. 
But two of the five speakers were familiar faces to this campus. Alumni Viridiana De León, entrepreneur and founder of Nash Latina Bosses, and Sandra Sepúlveda, district council member, shared about their roles as Latinas leaders, and recalled moments during their undergrad years at Trevecca.

Sepúlveda, class of 2015, the youngest and first Latina elected council member in Metro Nashville, calls herself a fighter. Since her childhood, she’s been breaking Latino gender norms.

“When it came time to make the tamales, they expected me, my sisters-in-law, to go and help, and I’d be like, ‘No, I’m okay, I’m gonna take a nap. I’ll be back when it’s done,’ because my brothers were never expected to make it,” said Sepúlveda in her speech.

She also recalls during her second semester in college, when she broke up with her then-boyfriend, they were walking by the tracks, and she told him she wanted to switch from psychology to history and political science.

“He started laughing, and he said, ‘You politics?’ And so I texted him the next day, and I broke up with him,” said Sepúlveda. “This is who I am as a person.”

Six years after college, as the operations director of the Tennessee Democratic Party, many kept asking her when she was going to run for office. She looked around her community and noticed that the part of the city she grew up in did not look like other parts of the city.

“I decided that if no one was going to step up, then I was going to step up,” said Sepúlveda. “I was 25-years-old when I decided to run. I was running against someone who was three times my age, who had held that seat in the 80s, who then went to the state legislature, and this was the retirement plan for them.”

During this time, Sepúlveda struggled with her identity. People didn’t think she wasn’t white enough.

Some didn’t think she was Mexican enough or too young for the job, and she’d have to dress up older than she was to fit in. 

“I was up against a big machine, and I knew I had to work twice as hard as anyone. I knew that people could outraise me, but they were never going to outwork me,” said Sepúlveda.

De León, class of 2020, shared with the audience her life journey that started in 1996 when she and her family immigrated from Tamaulipas, Mexico, to the U.S. 

During the day, her dad was a construction worker, and at night, he would go with her mom to clean office buildings, that’s how after years of renting they were able to buy a house and have a stable home.

“In 2007 my dad was diagnosed with kidney failure, and my life changed forever,” De León said. “My dad was undocumented, and that meant he did not have access to the care he needed.”

The lack of legal status for De León’s dad did not stop the need for medical care to keep increasing. He desperately needed a kidney transplant, it seemed as if there were no resources for him.

“My dad made a difficult decision to move back to Mexico and get on a transplant list,” said De León. “I had just turned 17 when my dad passed away in Mexico, and due to our family’s documentation status, we were not able to be with him during his final hours or attend his funeral.”

It was then when De león had to lean into her faith and keep moving forward. She graduated high school in 2012 and was not set to go to college due to her legal status. 

“I realized that I loved a country so much and it didn’t love me back. I felt like I didn’t belong. [I was] questioning my entire life’s existence,” said De León. “Why did my dad bring us here just to leave us? I desired to go to college so badly and that alone left me heartbroken for many years.”

At 23-years-old she graduated from Trevecca with a business degree and went on to start her own independent insurance business. It was then when she realized that there was a lack of representation in entrepreneurial spaces for Latina business owners. Latinas in the U.S. are the fastest-growing demographic of business owners, yet they still have limited access to capital, she said.

“I saw a real need for representation, support, and encouragement in our community. I wanted to help Latinas step into a potential and live and help build the life of their dream,” said De León. “This is how my dream for Nash Latina Bosses was born. We facilitate meaningful connections and networking opportunities that enable Latinas to expand their professional networks, exchange ideas and just support each other’s growth and success.”