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Summer Series: Taking Control of 1L Year
Our Summer Series is a wrap! We conclude with Domonique, an incoming 1L, who describes what she’s doing to take control of her law school experience before it even begins! Special thanks to all the contributors for this series! It was invigorating to read about all the different paths taken to become lawyers. Hola mujeres! My name is Domonique and I will be starting law school in exactly 3 weeks. I am a Chicana born and raised in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, CA. My family is originally from Michoacan, Mexico. For the past six years I have been away from home completing my undergrad in Oregon, giving a year of…
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Furthering Latino Education
The Pew Research Center released Five Facts about Latinos and Education this week. While very brief, it paints an informative picture of the status of Latinos and education. Essentially, Latinos are graduating high school at greater rates than before; enrolling in colleges at higher rates than other groups; and have less loan debt. Yet, Latinos are not earning those four-year degrees, and instead are enrolling at two-year Universities that do not seem to be pipelines to eventual bachelor degrees. Right now only 9% of Latinos between ages 25-29 hold a Bachelor’s. I’m not one to knock down good news with bad. It’s fantastic that we’re graduating high school and that…
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Addressing Sexual Assault within the Latino Community through a Legal Perspective
One of the things that’s so powerful about having a J.D. is that we can become true agents of change. Of course, any individual with the vision and drive can create change in their community, but as attorneys, we are given a little extra ammunition by way of our legal abilities. My hope is that we always remember this and try our best to continue to improve everyone’s standard of living. Because April is Sexual Awareness Month, I think it’s vital to talk about what we can do as attorneys to help fight this problem. In the article I wrote for Being Latino, I mention that one in six Latinas…
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Activism Anywhere.
I read an article on an amazing endeavor Latino students at a local university created to help undocumented students. The student group at Loyola University Chicago, through their student senate, passed an initiative where students pay $2.50 per semester that goes to help undocumented students pay for their tuition. Full disclosure–I attended LUC Law School, but not for undergrad. When I read how students, many who were not undocumented, did this for their fellow classmates (and for future students) it reminded me of how we can all make the effort to be activist in our own lives. I think as attorneys, once we start practicing, we often get so bogged down in the…