Milagros Otero

Affiliation

Richard Edwards Elementary School

Track

Biography

Milagros Otero was born on November 23, 1967, in Cumaná, Venezuela. She is the fourth of five siblings who became her best friends. Due to her father's work, Milagros lived in various parts of her native Venezuela, which led her to attend numerous schools in different states throughout her childhood and youth. Milagros started her career as an educator by studying at the University of Carabobo in Valencia. After a few months of teaching in a school for adults at the secondary level, she got married in 1990 and settled in the city of Chicago. There, she continued her university studies and completed three postgraduate degrees in the field of education. Over the course of three decades, her accumulated experience has allowed her to work in various fields of education, and she currently serves as a Bilingual Special Education teacher in a dual-language school. Parallel to her teaching career, in 2021, Milagros ventured into writing. Using her married name, Milagros Wallace, she is the author of the bilingual series Gregorina, with two published volumes: El cabello de Gregorina, “Gregorina’s Hair,” and Gregorina en Chicago, as well as the book Chuchito. Three of her works have received five stars in reviews from Readers' Favorite, and the other was awarded the Silver Medal for Spanish Book of the Year in 2022 by the Moonbeam Children's Book Awards. Milagros Otero apart from her family dedication, is passionate about her work and enjoys a wide range of interests and responsibilities.