Esther Maria Claros Berlioz, Ph.D., is an integral part of the Latinx community in Cincinnati, welcoming and supporting the immigrant community – especially the children, who she lovingly dotes on. In her work with these children, art has become a communal language, with color and scenes representing unique journeys that are understood through shared humanity, history, and dreams.

Most people might call Esther an advocate or a scholar. But she’s far more. She’s family to everyone she meets. She is proudly, fearlessly, and compassionately the sum of all of the people with whom she has shared a table and a conversation. When we first sat down at the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (I.J.P.C.), she began, “Well, there’s no talking about me without talking about we.” And that’s exactly what we did.

So, this is Esther’s story, but it’s also the story of all of the magnificent and brave women, students, immigrants, teachers, friends, and colleagues Esther has embraced along her journey, and who have made our city a beautiful tapestry.

Interview by Hanna VanKuiken. Photography by Angie Lipscomb.

Can you tell me about your immigration to the U.S. and journey through higher ed?

I identify as Honduran, Central American, Latin American. I’ve been in the U.S. for 17 and a half years. I first lived in Pennsylvania, as part of a cohort at a small, beautiful liberal arts college called Mercyhurst University, founded by the Sisters of Mercy. They had a great initiative to bring in students from Latin America. We were one of the first cohorts of Central Americans in the school.

Being here as an international student, you’re going through the paces; you’re learning a new way of life, culture, and language. As much as you try to prepare yourself, everything is different. Nobody tells you that in order to survive, to learn this new language, and to be able to carry yourself – especially in school – you have to be able to articulate thoughts, thread and weave arguments, and make a cohesive story. And that’s not easy to do. It takes up parts of your brain and all of a sudden, that beautiful language that is your first language starts getting pushed toward the back.

All of the things I know about immigration, I know because I’ve lived through it.

I went on to work as the coordinator of academic records and graduation at Mercyhurst. So I was in charge of working day to day with students – adding and dropping classes, creating courses, supporting my beloved faculty and staff, and being able to provide student services and just getting to know the students and their stories. Long story short, I started teaching a course, teaching a very diverse group of scholars. I was teaching traditional and nontraditional students from all over the area and getting to a point where I was like, time to keep growing. And a Ph.D. had always been my dream. So I went and I applied to Miami University’s Educational Leadership, Culture, and Curriculum Ph.D. program.

And now you have recently earned your doctorate – congratulations! Tell me about your area of research.

At Miami University, I enrolled in my first course on policy. And I asked, “What if we looked at policy through the lens of someone who has been affected by their legal status as they pursue their education?” The intersection of immigration, schooling, and education: That’s my axis.

That’s when I started to look at my whole trajectory as an international student – as an international scholar, employee, practitioner, activist, advocate. It has all been impacted by schooling, but also the realm of education. All of the things I know about immigration, I know because I’ve lived through it. And I have a fierce sense of protection and passion toward advocating for those who find themselves in flux, by no fault of their own; it’s a difficult system to put into words. And so, I went from that policy class and transitioned into more and more of a specialty.

Why did you decide to incorporate art into your research in education and immigration?

Art has a way of speaking: not at you, but with you, so you can expand the conversation further and deeper than you can imagine. You can interpret it. You can reimagine it. You can situate it and create a context for a space, and a people, and a story.

What inspired you to use art as a tool and language?

Murals have a very fascinating history. There’s Mexican muralism and its subsequent inspiration. Murals were used as a means of communication within the community during the Chicano movement. There’s a brilliant, brilliant scholar, Judith Baca – I was so lucky to see her work. She was the architect and mastermind of this piece called The Great Wall of Los Angeles. It took an aqueduct and beautified this rather gray, inert space with color and story and everything, and it goes as far as the eye can see. And [it was created by] Professor Baca and other fellow mural mentors, but also youth artists – they were the life and the texture to everything.

So, I thought, what would it look like to do something like that? Lo and behold, Cincinnati has its own magnificent history with muralism.

Tell me about the work you did with the Latinx students at Dater High School in conjunction with your dissertation.

We started with basic things, like sharing memories using color. I gave each of the kids a box of crayons. We were just talking, and then they opened themselves up in a way that I’m just... I’m in awe. Because their wisdom, their generosity, their grace is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And they’re navigating this really fine line of yes, I’m only 17 years old or 18 years old, but I am responsible for so much.

My dissertation ended up following them; they would let little parts of their lives out. So, the dissertation is an homage to them: It’s a promise to keep doing whatever I can to support them because it’s what they need, not what I think they need.

It sounds like those students are really special to you.

My babies. They’re my everything. There’s a word – it’s a colloquial term, a Honduran term, but it’s also used in El Salvador and Nicaragua. It’s cipote. It comes from an Indigenous word; it’s like my kid – my young one, my child, my darling.

Tell me about one of the crayon exercises you did with your cipotes.

By choosing their colors, they were showing the palate that makes up their life. I would ask them to pick the colors and then to share a memory. One youth drew a picture of seeing his mom for the first time. He started his journey in the dead of winter and so the color he chose was gray – I think it’s called Timberwolf. But then I asked him, “If you could pick a color for Cincinnati, what would it be?” And it was this Granny Smith Apple bright green, because this was rebirth, opportunity, and springtime. So there’s a story; there’s such an intentional choice. And they were just being themselves. It took this universal artifact, a box of crayons, and reframed them.

What do the Latinx youth immigrants you work with bring to the Cincinnati community and their schools?

In my very humble opinion, they bring everything. And I wish that more people would listen to them.

So, let me build a scenario. Say a child comes in and is 15 years old, and the last grade level their family could afford to send them to was the 6th grade. And now they’re being placed in 9th grade. If that child is Indigenous Mayan, which is the case with many of our children, their first language isn’t even Spanish. And so, they’re being asked to learn a language, reconnect with family they haven’t seen in more than a decade, and reconnect or make a relationship with siblings who have a very different experience than they do. They’re trying to navigate what it means to be a child of a parent who loves you but because life happened, they weren’t able to raise you. You have to be a child who recognizes that you’re so happy to be here, while at the same time, you had to give up the life you knew, and in between that, you experience trauma. Trauma is a reality, and trauma comes in many different ways – sometimes it’s guilt, sometimes it’s pain, sometimes it’s loss… Sometimes, it’s a very hard life but there is beauty still, and you have to come to terms with it all. You’re existing in two worlds. But just because you’re not in that world [gestures at the former world, Central America] – that world doesn’t stop.

So much is given up having to relocate. So much sacrifice comes with having to say goodbye to the people and the places that you love – by force, by choice, by both.

So you’re learning the language and you’re navigating family dynamics. You are also beholden to a legal status you have no control over. If you relied on a guía [guide], that is a cost that oftentimes falls on the children and on the family. It’s a vast amount of money. The stress and the trauma just keeps building and building. And then you’re 16 or 17 and you see your peers who are domestic students, who had a different experience. They’re graduating and moving forward, and you have the same dreams, but you don’t feel like you’re learning the language fast enough. You don’t feel like you’re making these leaps and bounds you want to make. You just endured and survived experiences people can’t even imagine. But this one worksheet, you know, could be the thing that brings you to your knees that day.

It’s like you’re walking around with an open wound that doesn’t fully heal because there’s more added onto it. And even with all of that, these kids are the most resilient, brilliant, gracious, courageous individuals I have ever met in my life. And they do not get enough credit for everything they bring to the conversation. They have an understanding of how to make the most with very little.

Recently you have been an advocate working with a few Cincinnati organizations. Can you tell me about your work with Su Casa Hispanic Center?

One of the magical things about Su Casa is you walk into this… haven where somebody speaks your language and understands exactly the situation you’re in and the resources and some alternatives and different programs.

You walk into this haven and people know you. It’s like “Ah, véngase, I got you, véngase. ¿Qué necesita?” And they bring their babies. And you dote on their babies, and you sit with them, and you accompany them through some of the hardest things people can imagine. And we are made better by knowing them; we learn so much that we didn’t know. And so that’s where education comes in. My clients taught me so much about life, about faith, about grace. For everybody who walks through those doors, it’s not a job: It’s a calling; it’s a privilege.

And how have you been involved here, at the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (I.J.P.C.)?

I was honored to be on the board – and one of the reasons why I chose I.J.P.C. was because it is one of the most badass groups of women I have ever met in my life. At I.J.P.C., it’s about how you get the work done – and how they do it is through ties of familiarity, through ties of kinship. There are a lot of things that resonated with me and that’s why I’m so honored to serve on the board. We advocate against the death penalty, we advocate for justice in immigration reform, we advocate for love and justice – for all of these beautiful tenets that make up the I.J.P.C. We make sure to always have a pulse on the people actually going through it. It’s never imposing our thoughts and what we think needs to happen; it’s always saying we do this with you, alongside you because we grow stronger and better through that.

Cincinnati prides itself on being a sanctuary city. We have children and siblings in this community from every part of the world.

Cincinnati is one of the largest cities I’ve lived in, but people here know each other. There are intrinsic ties of kinship – we not only know each other, but we respect each other’s work, and we have a full commitment to seeing each other through everything. It’s important that we support each other and keep rising up together and leaving no one behind.

What is the opportunity for Cincinnati and the Latinx community here?

Cincinnati prides itself on being a sanctuary city. We have children and siblings in this community from every part of the world. And how lucky are we?

Cincinnati has the texture to become the most beautiful fabric that stands out – a tapestry of beauty. And I think we need to honor that and protect it. So much is given up having to relocate. So much sacrifice comes with having to say goodbye to the people and the places that you love – by force, by choice, by both. But that’s it: Once they choose to make their home here, you will find no other people more invested in making a go of it. So, what does it look like to bring them to the table and say, “How do you see or how do you imagine Cincinnati?” How do we grow to equitably include these beautiful walks of life from all over the world?

How can Cincinnatians support the Latinx community here?

Cincinnati is unspeakably beautiful because I’ve seen so much love. I am enveloped in love and I know that my cipotes are enveloped in love and we have to keep that going; it can’t end. There are so, so many organizations, like the I.J.P.C., Catholic Charities, Su Casa Hispanic Center, ELO Foundation, Casa de Paz, Y.W.C.A., Mujer Latina, ProKids, immigration lawyers, and more.

It all comes down to us, as a family, getting together and advocating for our youth. I came here at their age; I came here at 18. How can I forget that the only reason I’m in this body, currently in this state of mind, is because I had absolute strangers take me on as if I was their child, as if I was their little sister, and they protected me and nurtured me and cared for me without ever asking for anything other than my happiness?

What’s the best way to help the Latinx youth who have immigrated here?

By recognizing that there is a hierarchy of needs that has to be addressed first. The conversation is happening and there are spectacular colleagues doing it, but we need to widen the net of who is involved and always make sure the kids are at the head of the table. Because they’ll tell you they want to stand on their own two feet. They want to fight alongside you – not against you. They want to be a part of the struggle because they want to be able to pay it forward. They are everything.

Tell me about an influential woman in your life.

This is a tough question… Okay, you know the scene from the Avengers? The final scene, where all of the female Avengers come out!? I just saw all of their [the influential women in my life’s] faces! Like, they’re just one group of awesome; they’re magnificent. There are just too many beautiful people. They’re the stars that make up the constellations that guide my way. You always wonder if people truly understand how much of an impact they have on your life.

Any last thoughts?

Thank you for allowing me to write a love letter to Cincinnati, to my family here.

Shortly after this interview, Esther traveled back to Honduras. Will she return to Cincinnati? “It’s not up to me.” But one thing is for certain: Cincinnati is far better off with her in it. Dios la bendiga, Esther.

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Esther Maria Claros Berlioz, Ph.D., on the Ways Cincinnati's Immigrant Community Weaves a 'Tapestry of Beauty'