Family

 

Soledad, her daughters and twin sons

Soledad and Her Daughters

 

Soledad & Cece

Sofia & Soledad

InstaSoledad

Soledad O'Brien on Instagram
with her daughter Cecilia in 2024

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A post shared by Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien)

Soledad and Sofia

 

Soledad and daughter Sofia (23) September 2023

Finding Your Roots: Soledad O'Brien

Now in its seventh season, renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has helped to expand America’s sense of itself and stimulated conversation about identity with humor, wisdom, and compassion on the PBS program Finding Your Roots. He has explored the ancestry of dozens of influential people from diverse backgrounds, taking millions of viewers deep into the past to reveal the connections that bind us all.

Soledad O'Brien was featured in two episodes.

Watch a clip from Soledad's appearance in "The Irish Factor" episode of Finding Your Roots from season 3.

Housing Discrimination

An advertisement that Soledad O'Brien's mother ran in their hometown newspaper in Smithtown, Long Island, NY when Soledad was very young. She wanted to make people aware of the racial discrimination that was present in housing and real estate in the area.

Estela O'Brien

Soledad O'Brien Mourns the Loss of Her Mother,

Soledad O'Brien announced the death of her mother, Estela, on Twitter this past week. Her father, Edward had died only 40 days earlier at age 85.

Estela, Cuba, 1940s

An immigrant from Cuba, she lived with the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore during college.

Estela (on left) in Cuba in the 1930s

As an immigrant to America, she learned two more languages fluently — English and French - and went on to Johns Hopkins University and became a teacher.

"My dad is Irish-Australian, my mom Afro-Cuban, and they got married in 1958. There was lots of overt hostility, to the point where they couldn't get served in restaurants together. People were intentional about keeping interracial couples apart. 

My older sisters were born in Maryland, which, like Virginia, was under an anti-miscegenation law, and my mom told me people would spit on them as they walked down the street. Even when my family moved to New York, where I was born, it was hard to get housing. But my parents never talked about that while we grew up. They didn't want that to frame how we thought about our community. They were quiet activists but felt they were on the right side of history."

Estela & Edward

Sadly, as Soledad conveyed in an interview, Edward died on February 6. and O’Brien’s mom Esetla, who had dementia, barely remembered.

“She would call me sometimes and say, ‘Did you hear the news about your dad? He passed away,’” O’Brien says. “She never really recovered.”
Estela had lost her ability to walk after falling in the bathroom about 10 years ago. “After being in bed for five days, she was transitioned to a wheelchair and then never walked again,” O’Brien says. “From there she got dementia and it got worse every year.”

Her parents lived together at an assisted living home in New York City and were close through their final days. When her father died, Soledad and her siblings "... knew it was going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for my mom to survive. When my dad died, I think my mom decided when she was done, she was done. She’d go join my dad, and that was that.”

Soledad O'Brien's Father Dies at 85

Via social media, the public got to know a bit more about Soledad's father, Edward O'Brien.

Soledad was born and raised in St. James, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. her father, Edward Ephrem O'Brien was a mechanical engineering professor at Stony Brook University, Her mother Estela (née Marquetti y Mendieta) was a French and English teacher at Smithtown High School West.

Her parents were both immigrants and met while they were students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father is from Toowoomba, Queensland in Australia and is of three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Scottish descent. Her mother is from Havana, Cuba, and is of Afro-Cuban descent.

Interracial marriage was illegal in Maryland before 1967, so in 1958 O'Brien's parents married in Washington, D.C., where marriage laws were less restrictive

"He was brilliant—a star rugby player in his youth (in Australia),
he came to the US on a Fullbright and ended up focusing on fluid dynamics and fractals.

Her father walking Soledad down the aisle in 1995.

Her parents, 1995

Her father visits her in the studio at NBC

With her mom and dad

Out to lunch with her father a few months ago

Your Mom’s Food with Soledad O’Brien

Baby Soledad with her Mom

On The Sporkful podcast mini-series "Your Mom’s Food" the third installment featured Soledad O’Brien (listen to "Soledad O'Brien Cooks Rice, Not Beans").

Soledad's Afro-Cuban mom and Irish-Australian dad got married when interracial marriage was still illegal in parts of the US. Their different cultures didn't really come together at the dinner table.

Her mom offered them her Cuban food heritage, but other than an occasional potato for her father there was nothing from the Irish-Australian. That's not surprising when mom rules the kitchen.

Like many kids, Soledad grew up thinking everyone always had rice and beans at meals. Bringing churros to school on special occasions didn't seem all that unusual.

"I don't think when I was growing up that I really understood how cut off my mom was," Soledad says. Her mother, Estela Lucrecia Marquetti y Mendieta, left Havana in 1947. Her father, Edward Ephram O’Brien, was raised in Toowoomba, Australia.

A young Soledad

Soledad was born in 1966 and there was no chance that her family could go visit relatives in Cuba due to travel bans.

"We were a black/Latino family in a 99 percent white community. There was no Cuban cuisine. All you have left of your childhood is a handful of recipes."

Soledad's mom made Cuban food a big part of their childhood on Long Island, NY as a way to stay connected to Cuba.

Soledad was not much interested in cooking as a kid and still finds little time or interest  in it today, but she regrets that she never learned to cook her mom's black beans. Today her mom has dementia. "My mom made it so well for so long," Soledad says, "It just never occurred to me that there'd be a day that she wasn't going to make them."

In the podcast, Soledad talks about how she keeps her own children in touch with her mom's Cuban culture, despite never learning to cook her mom's cuisine.

Remembering Loved Ones Who Have Passed

Allison Gilbert is the author of several books, including Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive and she spoke with Soledad O'Brien for the Huffington Post about why remembering loved ones is so important.

Soledad told about one memento that reminds her of her Cuban grandparents:

I have this great photo of my grandparents in the 1940’s at a famous hotel in Cuba called La Floridita. My grandfather used to tell people that he helped create La Floridita. It has always been one of my favorite pictures. I keep it in a small album in my room.

My life’s work has been to share real stories with real people. Naturally when it comes to loved ones I have lost, my favorite way to remember them is to share stories about them. 

Everyone deals with loss differently, but it is a part of life. It’s something we all have to deal with at some point or another. I have not let loss derail my positive energy, but rather, I try to keep my chin up and think of all of the wonderful memories we shared. The lessons I learned from them, and what that person brought into my life, are all far more valuable to me than the sadness I feel because they’re gone.

Soledad's mother and grandmother in Cuba, 1944

Soledad O'Brien, Working Mom

Soledad with her husband, Brad Raymond, and Sofia Elizabeth (2000), Cecilia (2002);
Twins, Charlie, and Jackson (2004)

Soledad O’Brien told Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. that growing up in Smithtown, a predominantly white town on Long Island, NY, her mixed race heritage – her mother’s Afro-Cuban roots and her father’s Irish Australian roots – made it difficult to fit in. Soledad credits her parents with giving her the strength to overcome discrimination.

Soledad O'Brien is herself in an interracial marriage and the mother of four children.

In an interview, she was asked about learning sign language after she found out one of her twins, Jackson, had a hearing problem.

No. It’s so hard. I’m terrible at sign language. It turns out Jackson is a very good lip reader and so it [diminished the need] to learn sign language. He’s great at sign language but he doesn’t use it a lot. He has a lot of language because he lost his hearing late in life — he was 7. We try to get him to read lips more because there aren’t that many people who know sign language. I’m just so slow. [Then she demonstrated.] Sloooow, and I’ve never ­gotten faster.

Does Soledad think any of her children may want to follow her into working in television?

I don’t think a single one. The better question is how many of my nieces and nephews. They don’t really live it. It’s Aww, auntie has a cool job. My children have zero interest. Now they’re young, so I don’t know that they have interest in careers, unless going to the mall is a career. I think my nieces who are now in their early 20s have really started reaching out; two of them work in journalism. My kids are just too little. [The eldest just turned 16] and her conversation is all around, Can I drive? Can I drive your car? How late can I drive? Can I have some money so I can go do something when I drive?

Two Tales of Interracial Couples in the 1950s

Loving is a film about the outlawed marriage between a black woman and a white man in 1958 Virginia. It will open on November 4, but that story is one that journalist Soledad O'Brien has known since childhood. She knows the story because her Afro-Cuban mother and Irish-Australian father endured much of the same hostility.

Soledad's parents, both immigrants, met at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland in 1958 and married in 1959. Interracial marriage was illegal in Maryland then, so the couple was married in Washington, D.C. As in the film, it was a time when an interracial couple couldn't get served in restaurants together and people were very intentionally trying to keep interracial couples apart.

In a story from The Hollywood Reporter, Soledad tells about her parents story.

"My older sisters were born in Maryland, which, like Virginia, was under an anti-miscegenation law, and my mom told me people would spit on them as they walked down the street. Even when my family moved to New York, where I was born, it was hard to get housing. But my parents never talked about that while we grew up. They didn't want that to frame how we thought about our community. They were quiet activists but felt they were on the right side of history."

Soledad says that she is hoping to watch Loving with her dad but that her parents (who will celebrate their 58th wedding anniversary in December) live more in today than in the past.

Finding Your Roots: Soledad O'Brien

Soledad O’Brien is featured in Season 3, Episode 2: The Irish Factor of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. It will air Tuesday, January 12 at 8PM EST (check local listings)

The series is an excellent one for educators to use in the classroom - check out the resources at  pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/for-educators/

View series promo at pbs.org

Soledad O'Brien: What dare I think about Cuba?

Soledad's mother and grandmother in Cuba, 1944

Soledad O'Brien wrote an opinion piece on the CNN site about her Cuban mother and her relationship to the country she left in light of the recent change in the United States own relationship to Cuba.

My mom left the island to escape the poverty, the racism and the sweltering heat. She left before Fidel Castro's ascent and U.S. politics had hijacked foreign policy. She left before both governments stranded thousands of people on a communist island suffering a punishing boycott.

Her departure was not about politics. She was black and poor and looking for an opportunity to study. She was just 14 when she left her family to live with the Oblate sisters, an order of black nuns in Maryland. She never looked back -- because she just couldn't. That's when my family's disconnect from Cuba began.

My mom almost never ever spoke about Cuba, not about her culture or her distant family, not about the life before she met my dad, another immigrant, and they had the six of us. For me, and the thousands of people like me who lost touch with Cuba, this is what Thursday's news is about. A president born 10 months before the boycott -- the 10th president during Castro's rule -- has finally given us a chance to see for ourselves what our parents left behind.

President Obama is banking on younger Cuban Americans like me to be more open to change than the angry exiles from the first wave of immigration. He also relies on statistics showing six in 10 Americans want the United States to have ties to Cuba. The Cold War has passed, and to some younger people from all walks of life, the issue of Cuba is old news. The anger toward Cuba no longer makes sense. He is letting us get a real look at where Cuba stands today, hoping the anger toward that nation will subside, even as some Republicans hope it will not.

What does this change mean to her?

I can visit my family, do some reporting and writing, visit a church or take a class. I can go to a concert and share a drink. I can even take home some rum. I know the politics are complicated. I haven't forgotten about Castro and the many people I've met here and there who can never forget the past, or the excesses of the present. But the question hovering above all this is not just whether reconnecting our two countries was the right thing to do, it was whether it will expand the cultural, political and personal view that the two have of each other. I think so -- it has for me.

read  "What my mother left behind" by Soledad O'Brien on www.cnn.com

Family Values

Baby Soledad with her mom and dad

Soledad with her husband and children

(l-r) Cecilia, (2002), Sofia Elizabeth (2000), the twins, Charlie and Jackson, (2004)

,

The O'Brien clan, 1967, Soledad being held by her mom

Soledad's mother and grandmother in Cuba, 1944

Soledad and Her Children

 

Soledad with her children

(l-r)Cecilia, March 20, 2002;  Sofia Elizabeth, October 23, 2000; 

Twins, Charlie and Jackson, August 30, 2004. 

Soledad 2004

Soledad, 2010

From  a September 2004 interview for CNN , Soledad talks about the birth of her twins. 


"I feel great, so much better than I did [after I gave birth to] the two girls. This time it's much easier, my nursing is going much better. My recovery has been great. Sofia was an especially tough recovery. I am sleeping well. I guess I would say that, by three weeks, everything starts coming together.

Some of the logistics are tricky; you just really need another set of hands. It's physically gone well, and that is a basis for everything going well. If Mommy is feeling well, that makes everything better. I have been very lucky, no postpartum depression.

You end up being a hostile person if you don't take time for yourself. Balance comes at the expense of sleep. The more kids I have, the more calm I become. I just get more and more relaxed. You realize you can't control it -- you can't make a newborn stop crying.

You get very Zen. Twins are logistically trickier, and I am glad they weren't my first and second children. Having a baby nurse, or your mom, or your friend come over really helps.

...I do I miss work. I couldn't stay home all the time. It's hard to be a working mom, but it's also hard to be a stay-at-home mom. I like when you work, you also get time for yourself, which is great.
In another couple months the girls will have their play dates, and everyone gets back on their schedule including me. But it's been very nice to be home.

I also have a nice schedule [because] I will be home by noon during the week. I will still pick up the girls from school, then try to get to the gym and then be home with the boys. I try to be home with everyone in the afternoon. I haven't quite worked it all out yet. With Sofia I didn't really go to the gym, [but] with more kids I want to take time out, and try to figure out where do you squeeze in going. The more kids you have, [the more] you realize they'll be fine if you go to the gym for an hour."


Soledad returned to CNN on October 18, 2004

Birthday Wishes

Soledad and daughter Sofia

Happy Birthday to Sofia Elizabeth, daughter of Soledad O'Brien and her husband Brad Raymond. Sofia was born October 23, 2000.

Soledad O'Brien - Growing Up on Long Island

Long Island Pulse Magazine did a cover story recently on Soledad O'Brien who grew up on the island in St. James and attended Smithtown High School.

Though she now splits her time between a Chelsea apartment and a country house in Putnam County, she also spends an incredible amount of time on the road.

She talked about growing up in St. James, at a time when being biracial was certainly less accepted. She wrote about that time in her recent book The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities.

A younger Soledad

She graduated Smithtown High School East in 1984 and describes the feeling of being of mixed-race heritage like being in “perpetual motion,” as in a dodgeball game. "When you move, you can’t get hit, ” she wrote.

Still, Maria de la Soledad O’Brien, the next to youngest of six children, followed in the footsteps of all her siblings and attended Harvard.

Her family was well associated with education. Her mother, black and Cuban, taught Spanish and French in the Smithtown high schools. Her father, Australian of Irish and Scottish descent, was a professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University.

One of her early passions was horseback riding (She mucked stalls to pay for riding lessons.), a passion that she still pursues.

It may be hard to believe with her current fame and popularity, but she never dated in high school because she was considered “different.”

The Pulse article covers growing up on Long Island, balancing career and parenting, returning to college as an adult, experiencing changes in journalism and finding ways to help students.

"My parents were really good at making us very aware of who we were, where we came from, what we had to be proud of, and not to worry so much about fitting in and blending in. That was not really the goal. There are lots of good things to get out of growing up on Long Island, and that’s what we were there for."

Soledad O'Brien Out With Her Kids

The kids on vacation in Barcelona - December 2010

With Cecilia & Sofia (rt) at the Charity Water Event - 2010