16-year-old Graciela Pérez stood frozen as 40 preschool-aged children ran around her screaming. 

Oh Lord, what am I going to do here?

Pérez’s Argentine parents worked for the Christian Military Alliance as church planters. Throughout her childhood, Pérez and her family lived in every country in South America and Latin America for a short time, except for Venezuela. 

But no matter what country they were in, Pérez’s parents always gave her odd jobs around the church. Tasks no one else wanted to do. 

That day, her job was teaching preschoolers Sunday school in Lima, Peru. 

Pérez looked at the kids surrounding her. What can I do? 

Many of the children didn’t have access to running water, and their hands were streaked with dirt. So Pérez did what she could. She sorted the preschoolers into lines for the bathroom, washed their faces and tucked in their shirts. There wasn’t much time left for a Bible lesson afterward, but she sent them all home with clean hands. 

“All I did was see them. I saw that they were dirty, and I could do something about it,” Pérez said. “That was how God called me, and now I always look at students, and I see them and I hear them.” 

Pérez has held positions at Biola University, Pepperdine University and Fresno Pacific University. After her finishing her assignment at Fresno Pacific University, Pérez started looking for a new position. Bethel University had a job opening. 

“I met Dr. [Barrett] Fisher, and we started talking about the desire of the university to create a multicultural center,” she said. “And I thought, oh, I love that. I love to see programs start and developed and get everybody involved.”

Now, Pérez is entering her seventh week of working at Bethel University as the Department of Languages and Cultures Chair. 

In 2022, Bethel terminated the positions of language professors Angela Carlson-Lombardi and Sarah Tahtinen-Pacheco as part of its latest round of budget cuts. The Department of Languages and Cultures was left with only one full-time professor. Three of the department’s majors were cut, along with one minor. 

“[The cuts] decimated our department,” adjunct Spanish professor Gina Maltese-Preciado said in an interview with a Bethel digital storytelling student in 2023. 

What can I do?

“There’s a lot of pain going in many different directions,” Pérez said. “Looking at what comes ahead, what can we do with what we have?”

She wants to see and hear the students and faculty in the languages and cultures department. 

Spanish major Maren Beaty said that in her senior seminar class, Pérez worked one-on-one with each student to make sure they were passionate about their thesis paper subject. 

“Dr. Pérez has a lot of thoughtful, new ideas that will be really beneficial for the department,” Beaty said. “She is a much-needed change.”

This year, Pérez said she is trying to make her faculty’s work easier, including ensuring they have working technology and classrooms. She’s also trying to infuse more cultural learning into her classrooms by sharing her own expertise. Pérez specializes in Spanish and Latin American cultures and literatures, along with cultural and literary dialogues. 

“I found that Bethel students really want to understand the different cultures and want to learn about them,” Pérez said. “I think the multiculturalism is already here, and we need to participate in order to make it the most profitable experience.”

Pérez also hopes to make long-term changes to the department, such as creating more study abroad programs and connections with other majors. She’s working with the study abroad office to bring new trip opportunities to the department. 

Pérez has an open-door office policy for students. She wants to dream with them about what department opportunities they could create together. 

A social work major came to see her last week and asked if there were any opportunities for a social work trip to Central America. Pérez said there wasn’t at the moment, but they could work together to make it happen.

“The healing process is to make it better, not because it’s a competition with the past, but to make it meaningful for now, for where we’re at,” Pérez said. 

She said there’s a saying in Spanish: la casa es chica pero el corazón es grande.

The house is small, but the heart is big.