Estela O’Brien (2019), Soledad O’Brien’s mother

Estela O’Brien was the mother of television journalist Soledad O’Brien. She passed away just 40 days after Soledad’s father. Soledad shared details of her mother’s life in a touching Instagram post. Estela was an immigrant from a poor Cuban family who left Fidel Castro’s regime to come to America for an education. She attended college and married O’Brien’s father, an interracial marriage at a time when it was still illegal. She became a teacher who taught at the high school that Soledad attended. Estela and her husband put all six of their children through college. Soledad called her mom “a pretty remarkable lady.”