Angelina Vunge: the extraordinary story of Uruguay’s first African member of parliament
Angelina Vunge landed in Uruguay 20 years ago as an undocumented war-fleeing immigrant who did not speak the language. Last month, she became the first African legislator in Uruguay.
“Believe me, it is very important for me to be here. It is a special day for me” were her first words after the president of the Chamber of Representatives gave her the floor. The day was also special for Uruguay who saw an African representative take office for the first time in the country’s history.
The least one could say is that the odds were not in Vunge’s favor when she was born 42 years ago in civil war-torn Angola. A violent father who would not think twice before tormenting his wife and children, a daily 10-kilometer barefoot walk to go to school, child labor, civil war, sexual abuse that started when she was four years old… It is baffling to think that just one lifetime can contain all these hardships and tragedies.
Staying alive in the face of this amount of adversity is already an astounding achievement, let alone making a name for yourself in a country 8000 kilometers away from yours.
The kindness of strangers
At 18 years of age, Vunge started working as a waitress in a United Nations restaurant. The year is 1996 and that is where she met Cristina Benítez, a Uruguayan military officer serving as a UN peacekeeper.
They spoke Portuguese with each other, got along well, and when the young Angolan shared her intention to emigrate to Portugal or Brazil, Benítez invited her to live with her and her three daughters in Montevideo, Uruguay.
As Angelina recalled in an interview with BBC Mundo, the first thing she asked was if there was war in Uruguay too. Benítez reassured her that the cold weather would be the main inconvenience living there. Vunge was convinced.
Fast forward five years, Vunge has adapted to a new life in a new country and a new continent. Her Spanish has gotten better. She had been doing odd jobs, house cleaning, waitering, elderly care… And in this last job, she met another person who would change her life’s direction: lawyer and politician Alem García. He encouraged her to write her autobiography and to get into politics.
She published her book “Angelina, The Footprints Left By Angola” in 2013 and just a year later, took part in her first election with the center-right party El Partido Nacional. Her ascension continued and she made history five weeks ago, becoming the first African at the General Assembly of Uruguay.
A self-fulfilling prophecy for the woman who once told her sons while walking by the Legislative Palace (meeting place of the General Assembly): “one day I will be working in that building, it doesn’t matter if it’s as a janitor or as a cleaner, but I will work there.”
By Jasmin Nyqvist
