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Ten Changes that Made Me Feel Less Guilty About How Bad We Treat Mother Earth
It’s earth day! Remember the fires earlier this year? They were intense and made really want to review my habits as a consumer and user of things that were better for the environment and the community that I’m in. I asked for advice and people came through with support (you always do!) to help me realign and think of ways to change my habits. So I’m sharing ten things I’ve done that have helped limit my waste and harm. Now before I get into it, I have to say that clean communities and the environment is an issue where we, Latinx, are often not at the table, but always on…
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Can I Even Do This? How To Determine If You Can be a Lawyer
Deciding to go to law school is difficult. There are so many factors everyone considers–is the cost worth it? will I be happy? should I move out of state or stay close to home? The overwhelming question many would-be applicants ask is “should I go to law school?” and more often than not, money is the factor. Can you manage the debt and will you earn a living that makes the debt worth it? But…for many of us, even before we get to “should I?” we experience a ton of self-doubt that asks not should you, but can you? Can you even go to law school and become an attorney?…
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The Danger in Being the First
Wow, so I didn’t think I would write anything substantial about the American Dirt publishing industry scandal but like always Latino USA came through and inspired me. To bring ppl up to speed, American Dirt was written by a White woman and given a seven figure (!) advance by a publishing industry that then turned around and spent even more money to promote it. They landed promos with Latina influencers, a spot on Oprah’s book club, and blurb by the Chicana literary icon, Sandra Cisneros. The book, while fiction, seemed to be steeped in stereotypes and an obvious lack of knowledge of what it means to be Mexican. When a…
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A (1/2) Decade of Latinas Uprising
It’s kind of exciting that we’re entering a new decade right? I think because I’m working on census 2020 stuff all the time at my new job that I’m very aware of this decennial time frame and how much changes in ten years. But this time around, I am a little more relaxed than times past where I had a set timeline of accomplishments and milestones I wanted to work towards. In 2010, my only goal was to graduate law school, pass the bar, and find a full time job as an attorney. I can say that decade really delivered. Not only did I become a lawyer, I laid a…
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Let Them Underestimate You: What Julian Castro Teaches Us About Expectations
First, this is not an endorsement, but we have to talk about Julian Castro. He killed it at the debate stage on Wednesday and was a surprising star of the night. It seemed obvious that his performance was a surprise to everyone but Julian Castro. I noticed how cool, calm, collected he was after he delivered it. He acted like he did exactly what he had planned to do, even acknowledging that “a lot of people were surprised” by his breakout performance. That’s when it clicked. Julian Castro, I’m sure, has a life experience of being a Brown attorney who is dismissed as someone who is incapable of delivering and…
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What Law School is Not
Recently someone interested in pursuing a more academic career asked me about the nature of law school and the ability to discuss ideas and social issues along with cases. It reminded me of my own experience when I first started law school and how incorrect I was when it came to the purpose and focus of law school. The summer before my 1L year I was really lucky to participate in a program for low income students to prep them for law school; like a mini-boot camp. I was stationed at Notre Dame and was bright eyed and ready to go on my first day. The program had three courses,…
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Am I Dumb? Combating the Microaggressions at Work that Question Your Intelligence
First, I’m so glad we have a space here to talk about this because I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. And, recently, when I read this article about how “well-meaning” liberals often dumb themselves down for our supposed benefit it all kind of clicked… Let me start at the beginning—tell me have you ever experienced any of the following: You’re really good at your job, but it seems almost impossible to be assigned complex cases, important clients, or other glamour work and you’re not sure why? You give guidance, advice, input on cases, but colleagues, even subordinates, question or push back on your correct analysis? Or You’re…
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Drawing the Line: Pushing Back Against Problematic Standards in the Law
Of the million and one things that were incredibly wrong with the Kavanaugh confirmations, one of the stories that jumped out at me was a story involving Amy Chua. Chua, of Tiger Mom fame, is a Yale Law School Professor and is um, well, somewhat problematic, to say the least. The story that made the rounds detailed how Chua allegedly instructed women law students on how to dress and style themselves to please Kavanaugh because he liked his clerks to look “a certain way.” She denies this, but many people have heard similar advice in their own school settings. And so this type of advice does happens to various extents–that…
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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…