Maria Luisa Gaston Bids Farewell 

Maria Luisa Gaston fled Cuba when she was 15 when the Castro regime nationalized her family’s sugar mill. Knowing this fact alone makes you want to know more about her. But wait, there’s more. Much, much more.

We all know Maria Luisa from her years serving our Latina students, helping recruit, retain and fully support these young women on our campus who lovingly refer to her as a “grandma everybody loves.”

What we may not know is that she spent 15 years as a self-described “rebellious nun,” that she was executive director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, and that she was the director of Omaha’s Latina Resource Center.

She is revered in the community and on our campus. That’s what makes it bittersweet for us to bid farewell to Maria Luisa, who announced her retirement and move from Omaha so that she may care for her 91-year old mother in Florida.

Maria Luisa has touched many lives in our wider community — so many that she has been on a “Farewell Tour” of sorts, with an event at College of Saint Mary and another at El Museo Latino. Omaha World-Herald columnist Mike Kelly lauded Maria Luisa in a wonderful article where he quoted Lourdes Secola, a local dentist as saying, “She has contributed immensely to the community in many capacities of leadership. Maria Luisa is a very genine person, very warm. And she wears many hats.”

We are very grateful that one of those hats was advocate for the Latina students of College of Saint Mary. We are also grateful for the richness she brought into our lives. We wish her well on her next life’s journey.