“It was a really remarkable run and I got to meet and work with some outstanding people who are like family to me,” says Varghese. He had served in a variety of roles in the Obama administration for over six years, including as special assistant to the president for management and administration. Varghese, at 43, is part of the Washington power elite. He met his wife, Julie, while they both were working for Gore. He worked with the Al Gore presidential campaign and as a research associate with the Democratic National Committee. Varghese studied political science and economics at the University of Massachusetts, and took his law degree from Hofstra University in New York. It really shaped the way I was brought up.” We had the vibrant Indian community on weekends and then I had my American life on weekdays. “We grew up in a Christian household and our churches had many Kerala families,” says Varghese. Mathew and Saroja, too, had their share of struggle, but they found support from their relatives and the small Kerala community around them. Sometimes, they picked on her name and her clothes, and she came home crying.
THE STORY OF Maju Varghese, the chief operating officer of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, is a classic American tale of immigrants succeeding against the odds.