Mavra was born in Brooklyn, NY, the daughter of Regina Vogel and Harry Steinberg.  Because her parents divorced, her childhood was spent between Brooklyn and Miami Beach, Florida.  Her father, a business owner,  and her mother, who held a variety of jobs, were both immigrants to the United States in their teens.  Mavra's family was Orthodox Jewish.

After high school she first enrolled in Brooklyn College; then attended NYU for one term.  She earned her batchelors degree from Hunter in 1966; majoring in speech and theater and minoring in education. Mavra began work on her Masters in theater at Brooklyn College and  took all her courses but left before  writing her thesis because her thesis advisor was making advances. 

Mavra was a lifelong advocate for women's rights and civil rights. She worked to create opportunities and support systems for women and families. In Brooklyn, she started a free daycare center that she successfully persuaded the City of New York to fund.

She served as President of the Morris County chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), where she worked to advance gender equality and support women's rights at the local level. Mavra also created and produced a local television show in New Jersey called New Directions for Women, which focused on issues affecting women and gave voice to topics often overlooked in mainstream media.

Mavra was married to Robert DeRise for 32 years; and together they raised two daughters,

Victoria Maria DeFrancesco Soto was born in 1978  to Victoria and Joseph DeFrancesco in Southern Arizona on the U.S.- Mexico border and that is where she grew up.  She is of Italian, Jewish and Mexican descent.

She describes herself as a student council nerd beginning in middle school who, by the time she reached college, realized how much she enjoyed political science and that she could, in fact, do this as a profession.

DeFrancesco Soto earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona's W.A. Franke Honors College.  Then she applied to and was accepted by Duke University as a graduate student.  She graduated in 2007 with a Ph.D. in political science under the mentorship of Dr. John Aldrich and Dr. Paula McClain. 

While completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers University and an assistant professorship at Northwestern University, she discovered a passion for applied careers in political science. In particular, Victoria became deeply interested and involved in civic engagement and bridging the community and university realms.  She was appointed assistant dean at the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, while serving as a contributor at NBC News and Telemundo. Following her time at the LBJ School of Public Service, she became dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.  Victoria is the first Latina dean at a presidential institution and is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administrators.

An award-winning professor, Victoria is deeply passionate about the intersection of curricular and community-based learning and cultivating dynamic classroom environments that are responsive to our real-world context. As the dean of the Clinton School, Victoria grounds her passion to support the next generation of public service leaders in the expansion of diversity, equity and inclusion inside and outside the classroom.

Victoria has served on the board of Mi Familia en Acción and Forward Arkansas, and she has been active in the Volcker Alliance Dean’s Summit. She was recognized as one the 100 Women of Impact by the Arkansas Women’s Foundation and received the Las Primeras Award by MANA.

She enjoys sharing her experiences in careers in political science and mentoring the next generation of scholars.

 

For 2025, the National Women’s History Alliance (NWHA) proudly presents the theme “Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations.”

This theme celebrates the collective strength and influence of women who have dedicated their lives to education, mentorship, and leadership. Through their efforts, they have served as an inspiration for all generations — both past and present.

In the past year, the values of equity, diversity and inclusion have  been increasingly challenged. Misinformation and disinformation make it more critical than ever to include all generations in the effort to promote these principles. Advocating for equity and inclusion requires courage, especially when faced with those who seek to misinterpret, exploit, or discredit these values.

In 2025, the theme "Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations" celebrates the collective strength, equality, and influence of women who have dedicated their lives to education, mentorship, and leadership, shaping the minds and futures of all generations. Importance and Relevance Education has always been a powerful catalyst for change, and women have been at the forefront, driving this transformation. From classrooms to boardrooms, and from grassroots movements to global initiatives, women educators and leaders have played a pivotal role in nurturing minds and inspiring action. This theme underscores the importance of acknowledging and celebrating these contributions, especially at a time when inclusive and equitable education is more critical than ever.

Goals and Objectives Honor: Recognize the achievements and contributions of women educators, mentors, and leaders.

Inspire: Motivate all generations to pursue education and leadership roles, and to work for equality and diversity.

Educate: Raise awareness about the importance of women's roles in influence and leadership.

Unite: Bring together communities to celebrate and support women's history and achievements, building awareness of the common issues and strengths that all women share.

Promote: Enhance the visibility of diverse women, their contributions, and their achievements.

Key Messages: Women have been instrumental in shaping societies, breaking barriers, and building bridges. Education and mentorship by women have a lasting impact, fostering leaders and change-makers.

Celebrating women is essential for promoting gender equality and inspiring future generations.

For more stories of remarkable women, see HERSTORY on womensvoicesmedia.org

Helen Appo Cook    (1837-1913) 

Helen A. Cook was a leader for African American women's clubs and an advocate for universal suffrage and education.  Cook attended the first convention for universal suffrage in Washington, DC, but was a critic of Susan B. Anthony's lack of support for Black men's suffrage. 

She was president of the Colored Women's League and a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896.  

Georgia Douglas Johnson      (1877-1966)   

Johnson was a poet, playwright, muscian, teacher, and part of the Harlem Renaissance.  She protested racial inequities and lynching through her poetry and plays. 

Her S Street home in Washington, DC, was a gathering place for African American writers and intellectuals for more than forty years.  

Johnson's work, published in "The Crisis" was said to have influenced Maya Angelou.

Patricia Harris      (1924-1985)   

Harris, a lawyer, educator, and public servant, broke many barriers for African American women.

She was the first to be a U.S. Ambassador; first to be a member of the President's Cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Developement; and the first member of the board of a Fortune 500 company - IBM.

Learn more about these these three and many more remarkable women at https://womensvoicesmedia.org/index.php?blog=8   You will enjoy the reading and it will make you proud.

Deftly negotiating between Hispano, Anglo, and American Indian worlds throughout her life, Adelina Isabel Emilia Luna Otero was born on October 23, 1881 on her family’s hacienda near Los Lunas, New Mexico.

The Otero family were wealthy and politically powerful in the Rio Abajo (Lower River) region of what is now New Mexico. The family of her mother, Eloisa Luna Otero, were descended from some of the earliest colonists in New Mexico; the family of her father, Manuel B. Otero, traced his lineage to the Spanish occupation of the area in the 1700s. As a child, she was known as Adelina Otero; as an adult, friends and family called her Nina.

Once railroads arrived in the region in 1881, white immigrants (known as Anglos) began traveling west in large numbers, actively displacing the Native American, Spanish, and Mexican populations who were already there (though the Spanish had already displaced many of the Indigenous people of the area). When Nina was not quite two years old, her father was shot and killed by an Anglo squatter who had moved on to the family’s land. A few years later, in 1886, her mother remarried. Alfred Maurice Bergere, who had family roots in Italy, was an Englishman who immigrated to the United States when he was sixteen years old. An Anglo, he was among those who moved west, arriving in New Mexico in 1880. Nina grew up in a household of twelve children, including her two younger brothers and her nine half siblings.

All of the Bergere children were educated. Nina attended St. Vincent’s Academy in Albuquerque until she was eleven years old, when she went to St. Louis Missouri to attend Maryville College of the Sacred Heart (now Maryville University) for two more years. She returned home to her family’s hacienda when she was 13. She helped educate her siblings and contributed to the work on the family ranch -- experiences she recorded in her book, Old Spain in Our Southwest.

The family moved to Santa Fe in the New Mexico Territory when Nina was sixteen, after Alfred Bergere was hired as a judicial clerk.[1] Nina became a regular fixture in the social life of the Santa Fe elite, described as “a graceful, intelligent young woman with an indomitable disposition,” and “high spirited and independent.” She met her husband, Rawson D. Warren, in 1907. Thirty five years old, he was the commanding officer of the Fifth US Cavalry stationed at Fort Wingate, near Gallup, New Mexico.[2] Nina, who was 26 at the time, married Warren on June 25, 1908 becoming Nina Otero-Warren.  After their Santa Fe wedding, Nina and Rawson moved back to Fort Wingate. Unhappy in her marriage, Nina divorced her husband after only two years, and returned to Santa Fe.

Since divorce was strongly frowned upon in both Anglo and Hispano cultures, Nina described herself as a widow, and kept Otero-Warren as her last name. She became active in New Mexico politics, and worked towards women’s suffrage. In 1912 she moved to New York City to keep house for her younger half-brother, Luna Bergere, who was studying at Columbia University. While in New York City, Nina volunteered at a settlement house in the city.[3] When Nina’s mother died in 1914, she -- the eldest daughter -- moved back to Santa Fe, and as was expected of her, took over the household duties, which she took up as well as her activist work. Her suffrage work caught the attention of Alice Paul, who tapped Nina in 1917 to head the New Mexico chapter of the Congressional Union (precursor to the National Woman’s Party). Paul and other suffragists had realized that the support of Hispano’s in New Mexico was crucial to winning suffrage; Nina was an ideal choice. She insisted that suffrage literature be published in both English and Spanish, in order to reach the widest audience.

Nina certainly had enough family money that she did not have to work. And yet, in 1918, while still working for suffrage and taking care of her family, Otero-Warren took the job as Superintendent of Public Schools in Santa Fe County -- a job she held until 1929, working to improve the conditions in rural Hispano and Native American communities. During this time, the federal government was pressuring for assimilation of non-whites, including Native American and Hispano people, into white America. This assimilation meant loss of traditional language, customs, and often family ties. As Superintendent of Public Schools, Nina worked to balance the demands of the federal government and her pride in her Spanish cultural heritage. For example, she argued that both Spanish and English be allowed in schools, despite the federal mandate of English-only. For a few years beginning in 1923, she was also appointed Santa Fe County’s Inspector of Indian Schools. She was angered by what she observed in the schools, and criticized the federal government’s Indian school system for the terrible conditions she observed.
 
In 1921, Otero-Warren ran for federal office, campaigning to be the Republican Party nominee for New Mexico to the US House of Representatives. She won the nomination, but lost the election by less than nine percent. She remained politically and socially active, and served as the Chairman of New Mexico’s Board of Health; an executive board member of the American Red Cross; and director of an adult literacy program in New Mexico for the Works Projects Administration.

Throughout her life, Nina was known both for her proper, mannered expectations of others and her unconventional personal life. Nina never remarried or had children of her own, but served as “La Nina” or godmother to her siblings, nieces and nephews, and arguably to her community. In the early 1930s, she and her partner Mamie Meadors  -- whom she had met in the 1920s -- homesteaded, establishing a ranch called “Las Dos” (The Two Women) twelve miles outside of Santa Fe. They paid $67.40 for two homestead applications, and agreed to spend an average of five months a year living on their homestead, and to improve the land by building two houses, fencing the property (1,257 acres), cultivating the land, and maintaining the road for five years. Meeting these homesteading requirements, spelled out in the Homesteading Act of 1862, meant that they received title to the land. In 1947, Nina and Mamie established a real estate and insurance company, also called “Las Dos” in Santa Fe. When Mamie died in 1951, Nina continued running the business until her death. Whether their relationship was intimate is unknown, but they lived and worked together for over twenty years. Later in life, Nina was as a “regular annual apparition” at Santa Fe’s Hysterical/Historical parade with openly-gay poet, Witter Bynner.
 
It was in the 1930s that Nina took to writing. In May 1931, she wrote “My People” for an issue of Survey Graphic with the theme of “Mexicans in Our Midst: Newest and Oldest Settlers of the Southwest.” Other contributors to this issue included D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Diego Rivera, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Her book, Old Spain in Our Southwest was published in 1936.

Nina died on January 3, 1965 in the Santa Fe home she grew up in. She had been administering the property after the death of her brother two years’ prior.

The National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/
Notes:
[1] New Mexico did not become a state until 1910. The Alfred M. Bergere House, 135 Grant Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 1, 1975.

[2] Fort Wingate Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 1978.

[3] Settlement houses were established by middle-class women in low-income urban areas. Settlement workers would live in the houses, with the goal of sharing knowledge and culture with their working class and poor neighbors. Settlement houses provided services like education, daycare, and health care for the communities in which they were located. One of the best known settlement houses in America was Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago.

Sources:
Historic Santa Fe Foundation. “A.M. Bergere House,” Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

Las Dos, New Mexico. “The Homestead Legacy: Luna Bergere Otero Family.”

Las Dos, New Mexico. “Las Dos: Two Women Homesteaders.”

Massmann, Ann M. “Adelina ‘Nina’ Otero-Warren: A Spanish-American Cultural Broker.” Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 42, no. 4 (2000): 877-896.

Morningstar, Amadea. “Nina Otero-Warren: A Graceful Non-Conformist.” The Santa Fe New Mexican, August 20, 1995.

New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative. “Nina Otero-Warren.”

Ybarra, Priscilla Solis. “Nina Otero,” New Mexico History.