WILMINGTON — Elizabeth Salinas Newby was born in Texas and reared in Kansas by a family of migrant farm workers. She knows the struggle of being a child laborer and the challenges of the often-nomadic life inherent in following the harvest seasons of various crops.

Against the odds, she became one of the first migrants in Kansas to graduate from high school and pursue higher education. The author of the book, “A Migrant with Hope”, Newby will speak at Wilmington College at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15 on “My Restless Spiritual Journey: from Catholic to Baptist to Quakerism.”

Her presentation, which coincides with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, will be the first program in the fall semester’s Office of Campus Ministry Quaker Lecture Series. The program will be featured on Wilmington College’s main Facebook page.

It was during her college career at Wichita State University when she met Jim Newby, whom she married in 1969. She completed her bachelor’s degree in communications, public relations and counseling psychology at Earlham College and did her graduate work at Ball State University.

Newby has worked in the areas of mental health, education, social work and counseling in clinics, hospitals, public schools and in the Department of Social Services as a child abuse investigator dealing with trauma and sexual abuse cases of children and the elderly.

Newby was appointed executive director for Latino affairs for the State of Iowa and later worked in the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration doing case management and counseling with immigrants.

She came to Cincinnati in 2016 when her husband became the minister at Cincinnati Friends Meeting. Currently she is a parent educator and counselor primarily for Hispanic families.

She says, “My life goal is to live a meaningful and purposeful life serving those who are living on the fringes of society, the persons that our society has labeled as ‘expendable’ or ‘untouchable.’”

In addition to being an author, Newby is editor of two other books, “A Philosopher’s Way” and “Between Peril and Promise.”

She is featured in two book anthologies, “Immigrant Women, American Culture: An Anthology of Civilization Texts”, and “A Certain Kind of Perfection: An Anthology of Quaker Writers.”

In 2002, she was awarded the Passport to Prosperity Award from the Iowa Council for International Understanding.