Marcela Rita Licea

Marcela Rita Licea passed away on September 2nd, 2026, surrounded by her family after a brave and dignified battle with stomach cancer. Born December 14th, 1958, in San Jose, California, Marcela was the oldest of four children, Laura, Gerry, and Rosa. She is survived by her three children, Sonia, Marcelo, and Christian, her grandchild, Aldo, as well as her mother, siblings, nieces and nephew. Her father, Filemon Licea, passed on just six weeks before her at age 95. Marcela was a person of great integrity, courage, and compassion. These qualities imbued all aspects of her life as a mother, daughter, sister, friend, and educator, and she made space in her life to care for others, particularly the vulnerable, her entire life.

A child of migrant parents from Mexico, she survived poverty during childhood and was the first in her generation to be raised in the English language–experiences that would shape her life and worldview going forward. Growing up in Chicago and Cicero, Illinois, Marcela was an avid learner and always loved school. About her three years at Saint Ann’s all-girls high school in the 1970s, she wrote fondly, “It was a wonderful school. I remember Mrs. Shoeffer who was kind and wonderful. I remember Maria Campuzano, my best friend.” These and other teachers would eventually inspire her to become an educator, dedicating 19 years to teaching special education in Chicago Public Schools, only retiring during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce risk of exposure to her family.

Throughout life, she used her education to advocate for social justice and equal access to resources for Black and Brown people in her communities. Marcela earned a BA in Political Science from the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus (UIC). There, Marcela became a supporter of the Chicano Student Movement and the United Farm Workers (UFW) grape strike as a member of the UFW Boycott Committee in Chicago. Her father had worked the fields in California in the late 1960’s and 70’s. Writing for a student newspaper, The Chicago Illini, she interviewed UFW strike leader, Cesar Chavez. For many years, she displayed a framed letter sent to her and signed by Chavez in which he thanked her for her advocacy and interview. When Dolores Huerta came forward in 2025 with a public letter exposing Chavez of gender and sex crimes, Marcela took down the letter to honor the experiences of the survivors. Always a woman of conviction, Marcela was a member of the UIC Women’s Teaching Collective with the National Women’s Studies Association, and was selected by a committee of administrators to be the Class of 1981 commencement speaker.

She worked for many years with the Illinois Department of Human Services’ public aid office helping people obtain food stamps and WIC benefits, and then went back to school to study Counseling Psychology at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, earning her Master’s degree and becoming a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. Though she loved her work as a therapist at “Youth In Crisis” in Berwyn, she found she could not sustain her children on her salary as a counselor. She went on to earn a second Master’s degree in Special Education at Dominican University.

Marcela began a fulfilling career as a board-certified special ed teacher, working the longest with Foreman High School students. She was an active member of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and organized several teacher strikes alongside her colleagues. Through her activism with CTU she showed, by example, the value of collectively standing up for your rights. Her energy was contagious, and her high schoolers typically regarded her as their most beloved teacher. She practiced a unique and impactful pedagogy with them, using her background in Counseling Psychology in her approach to running a special ed classroom. First and foremost, she respected the humanity of her students, honoring the richness and complexity of their lives, and not only their academic attainments. As with her own children, she recognized that traditional schooling is not compatible with all people’s skill sets. By meeting a student where they are, and valuing them, she centered their growth as people before their formally recognized outcomes. She taught her students and children to avoid the trappings of greed and vanity and instead modeled how to value a person’s human potential. This pedagogical approach was largely crafted from her knowledge of psychologist Carl Roger’s concept of unconditional positive regard, which she frequently referenced. With this approach she showed that in order to get through to people, we must first acknowledge and uplift their presence and value as living people. Ms. Licea, as she was known, attended commencement yearly because she always had a small but mighty cohort of special education students who may not have made it to graduation if not for her gentle guidance and unconditional positive regard. Her family hopes that this obituary will document the important legacy she left in her work as an educator, showing how education can be delivered most effectively when done with human compassion.

Marcela’s generosity was impactful at every stage of her life to the people around her. Her children, family, and friends feel the aching absence of her leadership in their lives. She was a lover of authentic human interactions, the beauty to be found in nature, and genealogical study of family trees. She is described by those who knew her as joyous, sweet, and as having left a wonderful and everlasting impression. Visitation will be held at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Stickney on September 13th from 4-8pm, and mass will be held at Our Lady, the Mystical Rose in Cicero on September 14th at 10am. Services will conclude with a burial at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Stickney.