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Lawtina Book Club: Becoming x Michelle Obama
First, so excited for this first rendition of our book club! We’ll try different platforms as we go along, but I thought it made sense to make the first discussion here. And because everyone and their mother received Becoming for the holidays (or so it seemed) this seemed like the logical first choice. Overall, I loved it! She gave us such great snippets of her life from the beginning of a relationship with an up and coming politician to the tiring and the glamorous parts of being First Lady. But really what I took from their story is how difficult it is to be a political family, especially with young…
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Breaking Barriers: What’s Your Major?
I’ve received a few questions on what is the right program to major in while in undergrad if your ultimate goal is law school. The great thing about law school is that you can actually major in anything and still get in (assuming you meet all the other criteria, obvi). When I was in school we had a ton of different degrees in my class–from dance, to biology, to a former gynecologist. Of course, there were a ton of poli sci degrees and finance as well. I majored in sociology, but if were to do it again I think I’d consider maybe a double-major in journalism or some other degree that’s…
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Is There Anything I Can Do? On White Allies & Their Duty to Act
Because of this site, I keep updated on stats regarding Latinx lawyers and lawyers of color in general. We, Latina lawyers, keep staying at 1.3% of the profession–it’s a neat little trivia fact I like to pull out when I can. The other day I mentioned this to a White colleague who was shocked at the low rate of Latina lawyers. And then she genuinely asked what could she do to improve diversity in the legal field. I talk a lot (a lot) about what our community can do, about what we can do as individuals, not because I think the onus is on us, but because no one is…
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Latinas in Law School: What Made You So Lucky?
A few months ago I was at a forum where the moderator asked the panelist (all Latinos working in large firms/government) what made them so lucky in the face of dismal statistics that say Latinos can’t make it in law. It’s a difficult question and I think the instinctive reaction is to think of the hard things you did to make sense of how we overcame a system of oppression to join a privileged profession. Because if I think back on my journey to become an attorney, I can pick out countless of examples of difficult things I had to do to succeed—long nights; working multiple jobs; feeling lonely because…
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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…