Our Delaware is a monthly series that explores the history of communities and the institutions that serve them. To suggest a potential topic, email Editor-In-Chief Jacob Owens.
Why Should Delaware Care?
La Esperanza has helped thousands of immigrants buy homes, receive health care and obtain U.S. citizenship in the First State. The center is continuing the legacy established by its founders and adapting to growing immigrant communities from Haiti and Central America.
In the early 1990s, Sussex County underwent a pivotal immigration boom of new arrivals from Guatemala and Mexico who filled poultry processing jobs in southern Delaware. Many Guatemalans had fled their country due to poverty and the ongoing civil war.
The Latino community in the mostly rural and white county was now growing exponentially, alongside its necessities.
Pregnant newcomers needed prenatal care, transportation and translation services. Others required guidance through the complicated U.S. immigration system while finding housing in their new home.
A need was born. A trio of nuns filled it.
Three Carmelite Sisters of Charity — Sister Rosa Álvarez, Sister Ascencion Banegas and Sister María Mairlot — stepped in and founded La Esperanza, alongside other community leaders, in Georgetown in 1996.
For nearly 30 years, La Esperanza has helped thousands of immigrants obtain citizenship, access health care and, ultimately, begin their lives in the First State. The center served as a refuge for victims of domestic violence and a vital resource for pregnant people in a new country.
Álvarez delivered hundreds of babies, with some mothers giving birth on her bathroom floor, and was regarded as “the grandmother” to many members of the community.
The sisters’ tireless work can be felt to this day. Once-delivered babies now have their own families to raise as others enjoy U.S. citizenship and homeownership in Sussex County.
“It’s amazing the impact that the sisters have had on all of these lives,” said Allison Burris Castellanos, a former La Esperanza board member.
La Esperanza, which translates to “The Hope,” hatched a handful of spin-off organizations that still help immigrants, Latinos and Sussex County residents to this day. The nuns’ work led to the creation of La Red Health Center, The Rosa Health Center and Primeros Pasos Early Learning Center.
The nuns have all passed away now. Sister María Mairlot, the only remaining founding nun of La Esperanza, died on Sept. 26 at the age of 91.
But La Esperanza continues.
The center is adapting its services to be more inclusive of Delaware’s Haitian population that has seen a significant uptick in recent years. Its offerings toward unaccompanied minors arriving in Sussex County has also ramped up recently, thanks to a new U.S. Department of Justice accreditation.
La esperanza nos da esperanza.
Karina Paredes
“La Esperanza gives us hope,” said Karina Paredes, a Long Neck resident who took a workshop at the center about supporting her high school-aged son at home.
A new hope
In 1994, Sister Rosa Álvarez and Sister Ascencion Banegas moved into a rented house in Georgetown. Banegas would provide immigration services, while Álvarez would help pregnant people of the burgeoning Guatemalan community.
Folks would show up to their house at all hours of the night. The nuns’ service knew no closing time.
“(The sisters) were here to help people in any way that they could, with anything that they could,” Burris Castellanos said.
Álvarez came to be known as the “Mother Teresa of Georgetown” as she worked tirelessly to help pregnant immigrants receive health care in Delaware, according to News Journal archives. From 1994 to 1999, Álvarez helped deliver about 425 babies, according to an estimate given in a 1999 News Journal article.
If a person needed to give birth in the middle of the night, Álvarez would swiftly jump in her van, drive them to the hospital and help them navigate the daunting process through translation and support.
“She was a force,” said Jennifer Fuqua, co-executive director of La Esperanza.
Similarly, Banegas helped hundreds of people each month with immigration procedures and was described as a “modern-day Joan of Arc” with a sword in one hand and the U.S. Constitution in the other in a tribute written following her death in 2019.
In 1995, Sister María Mairlot joined the nuns in Georgetown.
Mairlot helped many Latinos and immigrants buy their first home in Sussex County. There were few, if any, Sussex County bilingual realtors and bankers to help Spanish-speaking families in the ‘90s.
She took in furniture donations and would give away beds, tables and chairs to families in need. Mairlot often took new arrivals to their medical appointments and first helped identify the need for a bilingual health center — an idea that eventually became La Red.
“(Mairlot’s) gentleness was almost like a superpower,” said Ileana Smith, a La Esperanza board member.
“She brought joy, and she brought faith, and she brought a hope for the future.”
In 1995, the sisters formalized their efforts at the first community center for Latinos in Sussex County, La Casita de Georgetown. The sisters offered transportation, translation and immigration support in the 16-by-16-foot space before creating La Esperanza a year later.
‘Losing a champion‘
The trio of nuns retired from La Esperanza in 2017. The farewell of the founders represented a momentous shift in the history of the center, as the organization needed to continue and the surrounding community reeled from the departure.
The nuns’ retirement was like “losing a champion,” according to Bryant Garcia, co-executive director of La Esperanza. The community, which had come to trust the nuns over their two decades of unwavering service, now felt that the organization had changed without the founders.
“These pillars leaving La Esperanza was definitely hard because they brought so much goodwill, trust of the community [and] this high reputation,” Garcia said.
The center had to pick up where the nuns left off. The sisters dedicated their lives to this service, which meant making themselves available 24 hours a day.
The handoff to a more traditional nonprofit workforce model proved to be difficult. There were “moments of turmoil” as the nonprofit tried to remain sustainable during the transition, according to Garcia, who worked at the center at the time.
“We just can’t do everything that nuns are able to do,” Garcia said.
In 2019, Banegas and Álvarez passed away and Fuqua was named as executive director of the center.
Today, under the leadership of Fuqua and Garcia, La Esperanza is finally realizing long-awaited initiatives that have been in the making for years. The organization is in the best place it has been since Garcia and Fuqua have been a part of it, they said.
La Esperanza is now one of the few fully U.S. Department of Justice-accredited organizations in Delaware to be able to represent immigrants in federal immigration court. The program allows non-attorney representatives to represent newcomers in their immigration proceedings, including unaccompanied minors in Sussex County.
It also offers wraparound citizenship services, including help in filling out forms and taking people to their interviews. The center hosts a suite of classes, ranging from financial literacy and parenting to literacy courses.
In recent years, the center has partnered with the Haitian Coalition of Delaware on the Thriving Newcomers project, an effort to gather the most pressing issues affecting immigrants in Delaware. The organizations gathered feedback from over 400 people and subsequently led conversations about the concerns and data with community members.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware honored La Esperanza this month with the Kandler Award for the center’s work in serving Hispanic communities of Sussex County. The award is given to members of the community who exemplify a “tireless commitment to the defense” of all Delawareans’ civil liberties.
Call to Action
Attend La Esperanza’s Community Conversation event on addressing multilingual learner needs in Delaware schools on Thursday, Nov. 14. The event will take place on the second floor of the Georgetown Public Library from 5:30 to 8 p.m.