Please give a brief background on yourself and your career.
I am a mother, lawyer, and community volunteer. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and came to the mainland United States to go to Wellesley!
I work as a legal services attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), the statewide nonprofit poverty law and policy center. In my current job I advocate for the language access rights of limited English proficient individuals through legal action, coalition building, and policy advocacy. My goal is that limited English speakers have the same access to education, housing, health, benefits, and to justice as those who were born speaking English as a first language.
Prior to joining MLRI, I worked for several years as a disability rights and special education advocate and lawyer, focusing on underserved groups with limited English proficiency, especially those in low-income communities.
Before my kids were born I lived around the world for over 10 years working in international government-business relations. I have two girls who are now 13 and 14. When my older child was 3 she was diagnosed with autism and we had to leave our assignment in China and return to the US. I started learning about special education laws, and realizing that the process is super complicated, I wondered how some parents could even begin to understand it. I became involved in helping other parents navigate the process, and later started advocating on behalf of Hispanic families in underperforming school districts.
After a few years I realized that this is what I was meant to do. I had left my dream international job already, so I just refocused my energy to get into law school and find a path forward. I graduated from BC Law School and began working as a special education attorney at the Disability Law Center. While I’ve now expanded my knowledge of the law to help limited English communities in other areas, my heart is always in advocating for children with disabilities.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley? What other careers did you consider as a student?
If you had told me in 1993 that I was going to become an education and civil rights lawyer, you could have knocked me over with a feather!
While I come from a family of lawyers (my parents, 2 siblings, and the in-laws are lawyers), I always resisted the idea, because I never found a “purpose” to their lawyering. I went to Wellesley with the very clear idea that I wanted to be a diplomat or perhaps an international print journalist. I focused on learning about the world, current affairs, and languages. I knew that I wanted to do a Masters in Foreign Service after Wellesley and perhaps join the foreign service (I graduated from Georgetown with a Masters in Foreign Service after Wellesley). I also worked at newspapers two out of my three summers while at Wellesley.
“Life is what happens when you are making other plans,” so now I realize that my passion for social justice and my love for foreign policy are not mutually exclusive, and that there is plenty to do right here in my backyard.
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
Along with my family, Wellesley helped make me who I am today. Puerto Rico is a tiny island that’s 110 miles by 40 miles. I had never been exposed to as many cultures or experiences as I was at Wellesley. It opened my eyes to what an amazing world was out there to explore, and gave me the tools to explore it. It made me a more well-rounded person and a better thinker.
Wellesley has continued to nurture me in different ways over the course of the last 25 years. As a student, you get an amazing education, academic mentorship and a great peer group. The faculty advocates for you by writing letters, making calls, and making sure employers and graduate programs know what I have to offer. As an alumna, you will never find a more supportive group of peers. Alumnae have always responded to my calls for career mentorship. Even as a human being, that connection is there: when I stopped working to take care of my daughter, I received support from other Wellesley alumnae who are also parents of children with autism. In short, Wellesley has always pulled through for me.
What is a typical work day or work week like for you?
I don’t really have a “typical” work day. When you are in legal services, you are the lawyer, the legal researcher, and the admin assistant all in one! I spend a lot of time researching and writing, and meeting other lawyers about their cases. My position is unique in Massachusetts. I am the only attorney in the state whose task is to primarily handle language access issues, and I support lawyers throughout the state who work in other substantive areas of the law who encounter language access problems as part of their work. For example, someone might be denied public housing because they were not provided forms in their native language, and thus did not fill them out correctly. The housing lawyer would call me, and we would co-counsel a complaint or find many other clients in a similar position and file a larger lawsuit. This means that I have to build coalitions with other legal organizations that trust we are going to put together a strong legal case.
In my prior job I did what is called “community lawyering.” I went out to communities like Lawrence, MA, which is primarily Hispanic, and connected individuals needing my services. I represented many families and helped their children get an education. I also gave many “know your rights” trainings to parents.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
Find what drives you and what you’re passionate about. There is nothing worse than doing a job that you hate just to earn money. Don’t just go to law school thinking you’re going to “find your niche” there. You will waste three years and lots of money, and will end up doing many legal jobs until you find something you like or leave the law altogether.
If you can afford it, do an internship, because that can be an interesting way to learn about a potential job. Be smart about the internship though—be flexible and do as many jobs there as you can. Don’t think filing, or calling clients is below you. We all file; it’s part of managing an office!
Also, learn to write well while you are at Wellesley. The truth is that the best writers make the best lawyers. Even if you want to become a litigator, there are briefs to file prior to trial and the strongest briefs make the strongest cases.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to network. I had no idea how to do it when I was at Wellesley; I felt I was being fake by calling someone up and wanting to talk to them. Don’t just call them on the phone and make it a dry conversation—make a friend instead. Ask the person out for coffee and pay for it, if you can afford it. Keep it brief but make an attempt to get to know the person, instead of asking questions off a script. I have made some great friends that way, and 10-15 years down the line, they are the ones who have called me about job opportunities. A stranger is not going to refer you to a job, but someone who knows you well, will.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
Life is not fair. The best person doesn’t always get the job or the accolade, because politics are a huge part of life, period. People born with a silver spoon do have a head start in life, and life doesn’t always happen the way we plan it. There’s a reason they call work “work,” otherwise it would be called “fun.” I could go on. I wish I had realized at Wellesley how lucky I was to be coddled and sheltered and not have to think about how hard life can be until I left.
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
I would love to come back to Wellesley and be a permanent “student in residence”, and take all the classes in the catalog. But if I had to pick one, it would be the class with Professor Marion Just that I dropped my very first day at Wellesley. I fell asleep waiting for her class to start and showed up 10 minutes late, for my very first college class! I was so embarrassed and thinking she would never forget, I dropped the class in shame. I still regret it.