Maria Fernanda “Mafer” Benavides sees the faces of the migrant children she met at a San Antonio bus station every time she flips through her self-published book, “A Summer with the Butterflies.”

Her teachers at Saint Mary’s Hall see an already accomplished and compassionate 18-year-old high school senior who became a volunteer and advocate in the national immigration crisis well before hearing back from all the colleges she applied to.

Spurred by the U.S. immigration policy to separate families at the border in 2018, Benavides obtained training from the nonprofit RAICES to provide legal aid in her native Spanish language.

“I’ve always felt sort of a sense of duty to advocate for those who are from my community and other communities as well,” Benavides said.

Through that work, Benavides met kids at bus stations, waiting with their families heading north to stay with relatives and await their court dates, and looked for ways to brighten their grueling journey.

She brought them books and art supplies so the children could read and draw.

Books and art had been sources of pleasure and comfort when she moved to the United States from Monterrey, Mexico, as a child and faced a degree of culture shock in school. She missed her family, especially her grandmother, who still is in Mexico.

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At the bus station, Benavides was part of a migrant assistance infrastructure staffed by volunteers trying to help families anxious about their futures. Children as young as 5 or 6 shared in the uncertainty, which was reflected in their drawings of broken hearts and writings about missing the families they left behind.

Those are heavy emotions for young children and can be a burden for a teenager sharing in them. Benavides turned to writing to find an outlet for them and keep some balance in her life.

A teacher in her creative writing class encouraged her, and she felt safe sharing her writing with classmates at Saint Mary’s Hall, a private school on the Northeast Side.

“There’s so much light that can come out of all that hardship and darkness if I have the courage to want to express that,” she said.

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Benavides was recognized this month by the New York Times, becoming one of eight winners of an essay contest that drew more than 8,000 entries from around the globe. Her entry was a personal narrative describing a speech tournament where she spoke of her own experience as an immigrant.

She wrote about overhearing a conversation between two Anglo girls who discredited her oratory as a “pity narrative” about being a Mexican immigrant, and about not feeling a sense of belonging in either the U.S. or Mexico.

It’s a feeling she identified in the children at the bus station.

Over time, as Benavides read to them, the kids saw themselves as the protagonists in the books, she said. They dreamed aloud about going to school, growing up to become ballerinas or doctors or athletes, and being able to provide for their parents who brought them to the United States.

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“What impacted me the most was to see, despite all the hardship they’d been through, their hopeful hearts still remain intact,” Benavides said.

Many of the children gave her their drawings, and in November she compiled them in a book. Benavides plans to send copies of it to U.S. senators, to encourage them to reform immigration law and asylum policy.

Her creative writing teacher, Amy Williams-Eddy, said Benavides’ confidence took off when she confronted personal topics. In the class, students share their work and offer feedback. As Benavides communicated more openly and honestly, her voice became increasingly authentic, Williams-Eddy said.

“Her Mexican heritage is a huge part of her identity, and allowing her to write poetry in Spanish and to write about topics like the racism she experienced and the immigrants that she works with allowed her to move beyond the academic topics in the typical English classroom to something deeper,” her teacher said.

Benavides likely never will know if the children in her book achieve their aspirations. She doesn’t know where they went, if their families successfully made a home in the United States or were sent back to nations they had fled.

And Benavides hasn’t decided what she wants to be, though she plans to study international relations and comparative literature, continue her advocacy work and possibly pursue a law career.

One thing seems certain: she’ll keep writing.

“To be able to advocate through my love for writing has been a transformative experience,” Benavides said.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva