Sister Trinitas Hernandez, 67, a sister with the Daughters of Charity for nearly 50 years and founder of the Rosalie Rendu Center in East Palo Alto, was honored on March 20 by the California State Assembly and Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, as the 21st Assembly District Woman of the Year.Sister Hernandez — or Sister T, as she is known — started the center at the Carriage Manor Apartments in 1998 to offer English classes to low-income immigrant families living in the complex. The center now serves 75 to 100 people a year, providing 40 units of affordable housing, adult English classes (she teaches three a day), a preschool playgroup and after-school programs.
In 2005, Sister Hernandez was a recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service, administered by the American Institute of Public Service.
Staff writer Rebekah Gordon recently sat down with her to talk about her latest award and her work at the center.
Q: Congratulations! What was it like to learn of your 21st Assembly District Woman of the Year honor?
A: First of all, I’m always surprised when people call me and tell me they have something, like even the Jefferson Award, or any of that business, because I would do any of this work by myself. I thought, ‘Oh, OK, this is very nice, thank you,’ and then she said that we’d go up to Sacramento on Monday the 20th. And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t have a substitute teacher.’ So I almost said I couldn’t go. And then she called somebody else and my friend called me and said, ‘You have to go!’ Oh, I realize it’s a privilege but it just was very difficult for me because I don’t have any substitute teachers. But anyway, of course I went and it was a wonderful ceremony and we had a wonderful day.
Q: And I understand that you were one of five women highlighted in (California) First Lady Maria Shriver’s address at the ceremonies?
A: Yes I was. That was a great shock. That was very nice.
Q: Why did you name the center after Rosalie Rendu?
A: Rosie Rendu was a sister in Paris who worked with the poor people and during the Revolution in France was a real advocate for the poor. She hid the poor. In fact, one time the police came to her and said, ‘Hey, we understand you’re hiding people.’ And she said, ‘Yes, sir, I am, and if you ever need a place to hide I’ll hide you too.’ So I liked that about her. I’ve always admired her. This was a woman who started out with very little and yet she built a school and she did all kinds of things in the Mouffetard district in France.
Q: What have you been most inspired by in your work at the center?
A: What’s been most uplifting for me is to see women who are coming here very shy. Especially we have young mothers, and the Latino men seem to be pretty machismo. But women who have decided that no, they need to learn English, and they really work hard at it. And then pretty soon they’ve gotten a little job, and then this year one of my students has started Caada College, and that just thrills me.
Q: Your work is almost entirely with immigrant families. How do you feel about the new immigration laws being debated in Congress now?
A: Of course they’re saying that it’s a felony now to work with the people, which means that I’m going to become a felon, or I am a felon now. I’m very pleased with the church’s stand on this. I don’t know if you know but the Catholic bishops in California have all said, ‘This is contrary to the Gospel message, so keep working with the people.’ Which is exactly what I’m going to do.
Q: Besides your classes and programs, has the center been of benefit in any ways you didn’t expect?
A: The majority of the students are women, and you can see little groups have formed. They start taking care of each other’s children, they’re phoning each other, they’re building a support group, which is what they lose when they come here. In Mexico, they live very close with mothers and aunts and sisters. The women become very isolated. So that’s been one of the side effects of this program that I really hadn’t seen when I started and it’s wonderful now.
Q: Anything new you’re plannin
g for the center moving forward?
A: A group of ‘good geeks’ — that’s what they call themselves — a man from Yahoo!, and some other people who work computers, they came in and made our complex wireless. They gave us five laptops. We have three computers already, and our next move will be to start a computer class for the women. For the children, too, but mostly for the women so that they can learn how to do resumes and begin to be comfortable with a computer. A lot of them have never worked with a computer.
Q: What has been the greatest challenge for you?
A: A great challenge for me is just really keeping the people motivated to continue to learn, because it’s very discouraging for them. It’s very difficult to learn English. It’s the speaking part of it. A lot of them can read and write it fairly well, but they just are mortified to speak it. They feel they can’t do it right.
Q: Does an award like this encourage you to keep moving forward?
A: It certainly does. It humbles me, because I do not do this work alone. There’s so many people that have helped in all this whole journey, I mean, I’ve not walked it alone. I always feel bad when I get an award, because it really isn’t me.
