Maria Quiñones Sánchez fought hard for Philly’s Latino communities. Now, leaders are pondering her legacy — and what comes next.

Much of Philadelphia knows Maria Quiñones Sánchez as a fighter — someone who can go toe-to-toe with Mayor Jim Kenney and the building trades unions — but for North Philly’s Latino communities, the former mayoral candidate is just “Maria from the Barrio”: a decades-long neighbor who shows up on her stoop, at events, and in City Hall.

As the longtime public servant and District 7 Councilmember enters her first full year out of office since 2008, community leaders in Fairhill, Hunting Park, and Kensington are reflecting on what Quiñones Sánchez, who dropped out of the Philly mayor’s race earlier this month, meant for the majority Latino and resource-stripped neighborhoods.

“She was a voice we never had as the Latino community,” said Pastor Adan Mairena, of West Kensington Ministry. “She involved us in city politics.”

Quiñones Sánchez, now 54, migrated from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia when she was 6 months old, eventually landing in Hunting Park with her mother, a factory worker. Her bent for activism started in middle school when Quiñones Sánchez successfully lobbied to rename the former Pennsylvania Advancement Middle School in Feltonville after Puerto Rican baseball star Roberto Clemente.

In adulthood, Quiñones Sánchez oscillated between work in city government and the nonprofit sector, before eventually winning — and holding — her Council seat from the clutches of North Philly’s Democratic machine. She got her start in Philly politics under former District 9 Councilmember Marian Tasco before leading the Hunting Park education nonprofit ASPIRA, where she created the state’s first bilingual charter school.

Quiñones Sánchez said her journey took perseverance, something she regularly sees in the friends, classmates, and colleagues who eventually became her constituents.

District 7 has long held the largest proportion of Philadelphia’s Latino population — which has grown by more than 20% since 2010 — and retains the highest poverty rate of any Council district, often having to provide for community members with few city resources.

» READ MORE: Philly has never elected a Latina citywide lawmaker. Could this year bring change?

When Quiñones Sánchez took office in 2008, the entirety of her district had less than 50 public trash cans. When she resigned to run for mayor in 2022, that number had blossomed to 400.

“We always have to be better. We always have to be more prepared,” she said. “But I am not special. There are so many people like me in the community.”

Quiñones Sánchez has already begun to think about what it would mean to separate Maria the Councilember from Maria the Neighbor — but for her former constituents, the personas are one and the same.

“I was these people’s daughter, their niece. That relationship is so special to me,” Quiñones Sánchez mused from her Norris Square rowhouse. “But because I elevated how each person in my community feels about themselves, I know I can never be that ‘normal’ person again.”

She remembers a weekend just after she won her first City Council election when some tías from the block chastised her for wearing sweatpants to go grocery shopping.

“They were like, ‘What are you wearing? You represent us. You have to look your best,’” Quiñones Sánchez said. “Later on, if I was on TV and didn’t have my hair done, they’d call my staff.”

According to Mairena, the politician’s desire to just exist in the community is what made her stand out.

When Mairena hosted a screening of the locally produced documentary “Change: Expanding the Concept of Justice in America” alongside a question-and-answer session with District Attorney Larry Krasner at the community ministry in April 2022, Quiñones Sánchez was in the audience.

“She just sat in the crowd. She didn’t ask to be on stage,” Mairena remembered. “That stood out to me.”

Quiñones Sánchez’s community listening led to some wins for Kensington: a nearly $2 million renovation of Norris Square Park that community newspaper Kensington Voice gave an A-plus rating, plus the creation of the Land Bank, which helped residents cheaply purchase city-owned land for use as gardens.

“I don’t see us taking a step back, but I see Kensington not advancing as quickly as we would if she was there,” said Will Gonzalez, executive director of economic development nonprofit Ceiba.

» READ MORE: Maria Quiñones Sánchez won’t be Philadelphia’s first Latina mayor, but she can still propel Latinos forward

Another side of Quiñones Sánchez the public didn’t see: her ability to compromise.

“I learned flexibility in her office. People don’t know that part of Maria,” said Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, the District 7 representative who got her start in politics as an office director for Quiñones Sánchez.

When Lozada heard whispers of her childhood community pool — Schmidt Pool in Fairhill — being shut down, she brought the issue to her boss.

“‘I said, ‘You cannot let this happen,’ and the councilwoman said it was impossible [to save], so I told Maria that I was going to protest her,” Lozada recounted. Quiñones Sánchez “ended up figuring things out, finding money for beautification projects.”

Sometimes, though, it’s Quiñones Sánchez’s stubbornness that District 7 leaders will miss most.

When the Kenney administration refused to use federal aid earmarked for natural disaster victims to help Hurricane Maria evacuees who had settled in Philadelphia secure housing, Gonzalez said, Quiñones Sánchez helped strong-arm the managing director’s office into assisting five families.

“The loss of that political power is going to be tough,” Gonzalez said.

Quiñones Sánchez was the first Latina to serve on Philadelphia City Council, ushering in a new era of Latinx politicians at the local and state level: State Rep. Danilo Burgos (D., Phila.) was Quiñones Sánchez’s former director of zoning and business development, and Lozada took over District 7 in a special election held last year.

Now, two more Latinas are running for at-large seats on Council — immigrant activist Erika Almirón and Luz Colón, a former Gov. Tom Wolf employee — giving the community the potential to see the most representation it’s ever had in city government, should both women win their seats and Lozada retain hers.

“She was a voice we never had as the Latino community.”

That glimpse of newfound community power means a lot for Quiñones Sánchez, who exited the mayoral race with a platform focused on Latino issues for the next mayor to take up, though she worries what acceptance by a system that has deprived Latino neighborhoods in the past means in the long run.

“It’s easy to get co-opted into this world,” Quiñones Sánchez said. “I worry about the next generation becoming a part of systems that won’t give them independence.”