San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
‘We have to keep trying’ to help refugees
Center leader reflects on services that help thousands of migrants adjust to their new country
On Nov. 21, 1963, Margaret Costantino stood among thousands lining Broadway Street to see a motorcade that carried her hero — President John F. Kennedy.
The 15-year-old and her classmates cheered as the president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s procession of motorcycle escorts, buses and cars rolled by.
Sunlight beamed upon the Incarnate Word High School students and San Antonians of all ages out for Kennedy’s first stop of a two-day tour through Texas. The 26-mile tour took place after the president’s speech about exploring space, the new frontier, at the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Center at Brooks AFB.
Hope endeared her to Kennedy’s vision of a brighter future for an America in upheaval over war, poverty and equal rights for all citizens.
The next day, her dream was crushed — an assassin’s bullet felled the president in downtown Dallas as his opencar motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza.
“It was like my whole world crumbled,” Costantino, 75, said. “It still breaks my heart.”
Though devastated by the tragedy, Kennedy’s call for equality and human rights took root in the teen. Costantino keeps those ideals alive as executive director of the Center for Refugee Services. The nonprofit offers services that help thousands of refugees adjust to their new country.
A retiree, Costantino volunteers to lead a staff of five paid workers and 15 volunteers in helping the refugees, many fleeing war, famine and religious persecution. Small grants and private donations fund resources the center provides to refugees who legally settle here.
The center is a hub at the heart of the Northwest Side refugee community where the families live.
Staff members and volunteers have supported people from 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, Nepal and Somalia. Many groups arrived through the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program, Catholic Charities, RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) and Refugee Services of Texas.
“My optimism is ingrained,” Costantino said. “It’s like the grain in a piece of wood. I don’t have it in me to be pessimistic.”
Each weekday morning, clients line up before the center opens. Most hold letters and notices written in English and foreign to most recipients.
Costantino welcomes clients in the lobby. Her days are filled with reviewing cases and putting clients’ minds at ease. She works with interpreters to explain how to pay bills, apply for benefits and prevent evictions.
Clients learn new laws near framed crayon sketches from youngsters that dot the walls. They sign paperwork amid red, white and blue displays of
Old Glory and small American flags. Posters written in Arabic, French and English remind them they are among neighbors, no matter their home of origin.
In August 2021, the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in a huge number of new refugees relying on the center. Military transports arrived in the United States with thousands of Afghans who escaped the takeover by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group.
The center has helped 4,000 Afghan refugees in the past two years, seeing more than two new families a week.
Afghan volunteers call Costantino “the mother of Afghan people.”
But Costantino is concerned about the Afghans’ rights as their legal status and work authorizations are due to lapse in the fall. She hopes Congress will pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would offer access to permanent residency and expand eligibility for special immigrant visas to people who served with the Afghan military.
Those seeking help have careers that include computer scientists, surgeons, multilingual interpreters, cooks and security guards. Case manager Naqibullah Ehsas, 35, offers skills he once used as an Afghan diplomat.
“I’m really proud to work with Margaret,” he said. “I appreciate her help with Afghan people.”
On Wednesday evenings, community health worker Chinar Sedeqi, 41, works with Costantino at a free clinic for refugees in the resettlement community. The director said Sedeqi has a great understanding of his neighbors’ health needs — in Afghanistan, he was a surgeon.
“We have a lot of positive change,” Sedeqi said of the center’s services.
Nevin Abouasar, who moved to San Antonio from
New York, has volunteered as an Arabic interpreter at the center since January. The volunteer knew she’d found kindred spirits when she saw Costantino hug first-time clients.
“I recognized there aren’t any people like this,” said Abouasar, 42. “When you have this feeling inside and you try to transfer it to people in front of you to give warmth, it’s something big. It can make any problem softer and small.”
Costantino moves through the one-story building, helping solve problems of overflowing clientele. She considers each family that becomes self-sufficient a benefit for the city.
She uses years of experience as a licensed professional counselor to help clients grapple with myriad emotions, such as anxiety, anger, depression and stress. Listening and patience are her watchwords.
Costantino’s road to the center began as a youngster as she always was curious about different ways of life.
She was born at an Army post in Marburg, Germany, where her father was stationed after World War II. In the late 1950s, he was assigned to an outpost in Big Delta, Alaska (now Fort Greely), where the family lived in barracks surrounded by bison and bears.
Her family settled in San Antonio at the tail end of segregation in the city. She was 5.
During a visit to the Majestic Theatre, the child and her mother were puzzled when they saw “white only” and “colored only” signs at sidewalk water fountains. She couldn’t understand why African American patrons had to sit in the balcony and not on the first floor with white audiences.
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” her mother said.
Costantino also wondered why she didn’t know any
Black people or children of other races and ethnicities. At St. Gregory’s Catholic School,
she was fascinated by Hispanic children who spoke Spanish. It was a time when her classmates were discouraged from speaking their native language.
Outside of class, eighthgrade girls taught Costantino phrases that fueled her desire to learn other languages. She took French in high school and college. She wrote to a Vietnamese pen pal and made friends with teens from Japan and Puerto Rico as a member of Up with People, a youth group that performed wholesome songs across the country.
Through the years, her husband, Joe, and family have supported Costantino as she’s helped thousands of refugees. A close friend introduced her to the man she’s been wed to for 53 years.
Six years into the marriage, Costantino and her husband learned they couldn’t have children. So they adopted three children, newborn babies with special needs.
“We had a good life, why not share it?’ Costantino said.
The couple has 10 grandchildren, who they enjoy watching grow and spending time with.
In 2006, she retired from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Doctoral work in counselor education and supervision led to working with refugees. Community in Schools caseworkers brought opportunities to help refugee parents.
In 2008, her friend Ria Baker recruited Costantino and three friends to help create the center that’s become a magnet for refugees.
Costantino said 1,600 refugees from Syria, Sudan, Eritrea and the Congo are projected to arrive in San Antonio next year. She knows refugees may have cultural differences, but there’s one constant — all struggle with the same problems.
New mothers need natal care and supplies from their
maternity supply room. Men and women need help applying for jobs, their first step to self-sufficiency. And children, who speak a few words of English, grow to master the language, many excelling at schools and universities.
Seeing youngsters they’ve taught join the nation’s workforce and become U.S. citizens are proud moments for Costantino.
The center’s senior program manager, Jill Rips, has worked with Costantino since 2017. After retiring, she volunteered to teach English as a second language classes. These days she writes grants and manages the maternity supply room, where 500 diapers are distributed monthly. In addition, more than 325 families receive items that include baby beds, sleepers, toys and clothing.
“Margaret is a giant heart,” Rips, 70, said. “She’s our director here, but her real forte is dealing with clients and clients’ needs.”
Costantino carries the determination of her heroes, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai and Desmond Tutu.
And not a day goes by when she doesn’t think of Kennedy and his ideals. Costantino even planned to join the Peace Corps, inspired by his inauguration speech when he said, “‘Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.’”
That message is at the heart of her work. It fuels her commitment to the diverse people who cross the center’s threshold every day. The words ripple from the early 1960s, encouraging her to keep building bridges between cultures during today’s tumultuous times.
“We all are in a historic moment,” Costantino said. “If we don’t tell these stories, then our young people won’t learn. We have to keep trying to keep people from sliding to dark places.”