Clarice Deal

Clarice Deal was born in São Paulo, the only daughter among four brothers of an immigrant couple from the harsh lands of Piauí in northern Brazil, known for droughts, rugged landscape and parched vegetation (caatinga). From childhood, she always understood that her destiny was to teach. At age 15, Deal enrolled in a Normal School, obtaining a teaching certificate upon graduation and then working with disadvantaged and special needs children in an impoverished area near the capital, commuting 15 kilometers daily each way by bus. In 1970, she met her future husband, a native of Arizona. After marriage in 1973, Deal continued to teach in the mornings while going to school at night to get an undergraduate degree in education. In 1979, due to the arrival of three lively children and a move from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, Deal put her teaching vocation on hold to care for her young family. In 1989, she and her husband decided it was time to start life over, so the family moved to Arizona with the three children and 10 suitcases. That was the year it reached 119 degrees in Phoenix; she thought she had gone and come to hell. It was also the year that she happened to meet an ASU language professor who first invited her to his classes and then requested that she help as a substitute teacher. By the end of the year she was offered a teaching contract, and has been working at Arizona State University ever since. Deal has taught at ASU for more than 27 years, having given hundreds of Portuguese-language classes to thousands of students. She considers it an honor to teach the language and culture of her native country to students in the United States.