For Sister María de Jesús Herrera Cepeda, a Missionary Daughter of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, speaking about immigrants and migrants is also speaking about her own story. From an early age, she witnessed the experience of her migrant father, who traveled year after year from Mexico to California in search of better opportunities for his family. Among the experiences that have left the deepest impression was one accompanying a family to an immigration hearing in Newark to offer spiritual support. That experience also strengthened her desire to serve wherever the migrant community may be. Everyone, she says, “has the right to seek a better opportunity in life.”
When she first arrived in the United States she did not speak English, so she couldn’t communicate with those who did and one of her first experiences was working as a first-grade assistant at Saint Peter School in Merchantville. There, she discovered that children could be the best English teachers. “The first-graders helped me a lot,” she says with a smile. “They weren’t afraid to correct me. They taught me so naturally, and I learned from them.”
