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Side Bar: What is even going on?
Ok like how is it only barely March and we’ve experienced being on the brink of war and now a pandemic, like 2020 are you ok?! I mean it is my bday month, so I guess things have to start looking up, but the darkest timeline is going haywire. Anyway, I’m sure everyone is as confused/concerned about everything as I am. One of the silver linings is that I have gotten real serious about reducing waste. I’ve started experimenting with a lot of plant based recipes (though I don’t think I’ll ever get on soy/tofu train because the texture seems yuck to me), but that has been fun and while…
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American Like Me: A Book Review
On one of my first days of school in the U.S. a young boy approached me and asked: What color are you? I had never been asked this before and remember showing him my arm, confused that this poor boy didn’t know his colors and answered: I’m tan. Later when I told my mom what happened, she laughed and said if someone asks you that again just say you’re Mexican. Easy enough. However, as I grew up, I realized the complexities of race in the U.S. I grappled with my own cultural identity and picking the right “label.” It’s all so complicated and made more so by the fact that…
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Everyone Has Help: Why Kavanaugh’s Denials are a Detriment to our Profession
I got into Yale Law School. That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in college. You’ve probably heard that re-play of Kavanaugh’s hearing in his attempt to become a Justice. There are so many things that were a sloppy mess in this hearing, but for me, this was such an eye-opening statement. This is a man that comes from wealth, working and living with DC-elite, is a legacy student (aka White Affirmative Action) and yet he sat there and screeched he did this all on his own. He ignores every leg-up, privilege, assistance given to him…
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Your Goals Matter
First, sorry not sorry, but I can’t get off the Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter train–it was just such a good book! But it definitely has kept me thinking–in the novel, the imperfect daughter, Julia, struggles with meeting the standards her family sets and is more focused on creating a life for herself that’s different than what her small neighborhood has to offer–she wants to be a writer, go to college, see the world. Her parents don’t get why she can’t be happy to have a steady job and stay at home with her family. There were so many scenes where I was rooting for Julia and became just as…
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Know Your Worth: Combating the Wage Gap
This piece was originally run on ShopLatinx, but they’re currently under construction, so I thought I’d share it here to raise awareness for Equal Pay Day. ————————————————————————————————————————— 54 cents. That is how much Latinas earn to the White man’s dollar. Often it is recited that women earn 77 cents, but that is the figure attributed to white women. In reality, Latinas fare far worse when it comes to income disparity; in states like California and Texas, which compose of the largest amount of Latinas working full-time and year-round, they earn a dismal 43 cents to the dollar. The negative impact of wage disparity reaches beyond the individual worker and spans generations.…
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Black Lives Must Matter to Latinx Attorneys
It is so sad & frustrating that barely a month can go by without having to remark on some new violent tragedy. I was on vacation when I learned about Alton Sterling and then Philando Castile; being so far removed from what was happening gave me an outsider’s perspective. I could read things here and there, but really only had enough time online to gage the reactions of people I know. There have been many incidents like this, but for whatever reason, this seemed to tip the scale–people who normally never discussed race or police brutality came out in shock against what had happened. Gratefully, many people saw this crime…