Roberto Vargas (poet)

Vargas became involved with El Tecolote, a bilingual newspaper headquartered in San Francisco. And in 1975 wrote,

In 1974, Vargas cofounded the Gaceta Sandinista, a San Francisco Spanish-language newspaper dedicated to covering the struggle in Nicaragua. The creation of this newspaper helped further his wishes of bringing the revolution to both countries.

Roberto Vargas was among many Nicaraguans who mobilized in San Francisco to form the Comité Cívico Nicaraguense (Nicaraguan Civic Committee) following the 6.2 magnitude 1972 Nicaragua earthquake. The committee set up donation centers in the San Francisco Mission to benefit those affected in the earthquake, however the ruling Nicaraguan party headed by Anastasio Somoza Debayle was criticized for not distributing the aid received.

On his 70th birthday, a huge celebration for Roberto Vargas was perform in the street of the Mission. A poetry event in the Mission Cultural Center was held to honor him for his dedication movement in the 1970s. During this event, a special clip was shown of the Roberto taking over the Nicaraguan consulate in San Francisco. He had three children Roberto Ariel Vargas, Michelle Vargas and Rigoberto Enrique Vargas.

Vargas was an organizer at San Francisco State University during the widespread student strikes in 1968-1969. He was one of the community activists who organized alongside students to demand that the university establish an Ethnic Studies Department. He did this as part of larger efforts to make public institutions more accountable and accessible to San Francisco's communities of color and low-income people. This effort by a diverse coalition of students, activists and faculty resulted in the nation's first School of Ethnic Studies, at San Francisco State University. Having been an active organizer in the arts and poetry scene of San Francisco -- including making connections between the "Beat" poets of North Beach and the burgeoning Latin American arts scene in San Francisco's Mission District -- Vargas became a creative writing lecturer for the La Raza Studies program of the new Ethnic Studies Department.

He graduated from Mission High School in 1958. "I graduated from Mission High School in 1958 and used to hang out in North Beach, going around to see all the poets," he says. Vargas attempted to have a career in boxing, but that ended quickly because of a detached retina that helped him during the major drafts of young men to fight in Vietnam.

Roberto Vargas (born February 24, 1941) is a Nicaraguan poet and political activist. He was born in Managua, Nicaragua and raised in the Mission District, San Francisco, where he became a prominent political activist. From 1974 through 1979, he taught Creative Writing at San Francisco State University.