Latinx Leaders: Julie Chavez Rodriguez

We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to chat with Julie Chavez Rodriguez (Cesar Chavez’s granddaughter) over coffee and holiday cookies. She shared her story of growing up in an activist family and attending protests as a young girl and how those experiences shaped her career and life trajectory. Ms. Rodriguez never lost her connection with her home state and now serves as Sen. Kamala Harris’ California State Director. As the state director, Ms. Rodriguez advocates for the rights of immigrants and workers in her home community. Our faculty advisor even brought her son, who shared with Ms. Rodriguez his school “hero project” that featured her grandfather. This conversation was a much-needed break from finals studying to help remind us why we are working hard to get our J.D.s!

Latinx Leaders: Cecilia Muñoz

As part of the Latinx Leaders Series, Cecilia Muñoz joined us in the afternoon to share her narrative about her journey to the White House, as the Director of Domestic Policy Council. Her story of struggle and triumph instilled a sense of inspiration and motivation to continue to do work with and for the community. With the continue need for an immigration reform, Ms. Muñoz provided valuable insights on immigration policy. Particularly, we learned first-hand about the rationales behind the immigration policies of the Obama Administration. Her deep connection to immigration sparked a vibrant conversation among our Latinx community. It was a lovely afternoon filled with anecdotes and self-reflection.  

Dia de los Muertos

Day of the Dead originated several thousand years ago with the Aztec, Toltec, and other Nahua people, celebrate the life of and respectfully mourn the dead. For our culture, death is a natural phase in life’s long continuum. The dead are still members of the community, kept alive in memory and spirit—and during Día de los Muertos, they temporarily returned to Earth. 

The centerpiece of the celebration is an altar, or ofrenda. These altars are meant to welcome spirits back to the realm of the living. Raza took on the task of creating an apagar to be it up on the centennial lobby of the law school to celebrate Dia de Los muertos October 31st - November 2nd. 

Third General Meeting

At our third general meeting we reviewed upcoming events and made a very big announcement. This year the co-chairs and treasurer worked really hard to raise enough funds to take the whole organization on a retreat! We are planning to go some time in February and can’t wait to start planning. We also celebrated our November and December babies and we spent the rest of time playing fishbowl!

Perkins Coie Networking Etiquette Workshop

Thank you so much to Paul Navarro and Aaron Ver from Perkins Coie who came to campus last week and gave our 1Ls some essential tips on networking as students of color! Paul and Aaron gave us candid advice and perspectives on what students of color need to do differently in order to succeed in a realm that is brand new for most of us. We had a great time eating pupusas and asking questions about how to increasing our connections with firm folks at upcoming networking events!

Anti-Bar Review Bowling Outing

To get away from the weekly bar review outing, we were happy to invite our members to a fun night of bowling at Plank in Oakland. We shared food and competed against each other in true law student fashion to see who could get the most strikes. We ended the night at the arcade playing video games with each other and sharing some much needed quality time before finals season.

Big Law Unveiled Panel

Together with the Law Students of African Descent (LSAD), we hosted SIX Big Law attorneys of color from all different law firms in an intimate panel for our members. This event allowed us to ask the real questions about what it means to be a person of color in the predominantly White Big Law space. After all our questions were answered, we went over to FreeHouse and enjoyed some appetizers and drinks while having casual conversations with our amazing panelists. Thank you to the sponsors of this amazing event!

Diversity in Big Law Panel with Sidley

We were very fortunate to host a panel geared towards the 1L students who are interested in Big Law jobs. For those who may not know, Big Law refers to the top large law firms that provide legal counsel to some of the largest companies in the world. Shout out to the Latinx and Black attorneys who came to campus and gave the 1L's an invaluable insider view. Stay tuned- we have more exciting programming coming your way.

Cross-Affinity Mixer

In La Raza we pride ourselves on fostering the Latinx community on campus, but we are also all about strengthening our relationships with our other POC peers. This weekend La Raza hosted a cross-affinity mixer along with the Law Students of African Descent, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, and Native American Law Students Associations at Berkeley Law! One of our lovely 1Ls hosted us in his home for a mixer before we all headed out to a club in Oakland. It was a great night of dancing, fun, and meeting friends in other groups.

Know Your Rights Screening

On Tuesday evening of October 16, Kiki Tapiero from Berkeley Immigration Group and La Raza, and Sam Hamilton, from Berkeley Law's chapter of National Lawyers' Guild, facilitated a know your rights workshop at the multicultural community center. The first half of the presentation consisted of watching videos created by the NLG and discussing it, and the second half of the presentation was moderated by Hamid Yazdah Panah and Ana Rodriguez. They helped answer questions and present about the importance of rapid response. One of the most important take-aways from the presentation was to call the hotline before sharing anything about ICE raids on social media, so that you don't create false panics in the community. 

Renato Puga Memorial Scholarship Ceremony

On Monday night, we celebrated the first two recipients of the The Renato Puga Garcia Memorial Scholarship, Elizabeth Lee and Maribel Garcia Ochoa, and remembered our dear friend and colleague Renato. We ate delicious enchiladas and heard from Professor Hurley, Professor Haney Lopez, and an alumni who knew Renato, Pedro Viramontes. We laughed and cried over our memories of our dear friend, but we also celebrated the accomplishments of the two recipients and their past, present, and future contributions to the Latinx communities. 

The scholarship was started in late 2017 by La Raza Law Students Association and La Raza Law Journal at Berkeley Law in honor of our friend Renato, who was an active member of both organizations. Renato was born In Morelia, Mexico and received his Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Butler University. During law school, he was also captain of the Boalt Hall Soccer Club and a summer associate for Cooley, LLP in San Diego. Renato was an exceptional student but most importantly he was deeply committed to the Latinx community. Through this scholarship, we hope to continue Renato’s legacy and commitment to the Latinx community, but we also aim to provide support to Latinx students and ensure their success in law school. 

If you would like to help contribute to the scholarship, you can venom donations @RenatoPG_Scholarship

Any contributions will be greatly appreciated. 

Alumni Weekend Breakfast

We hosted an open house of our La Raza Association Officer with a light breakfast for our alumni to be able to visit and reminisce about the space that they helped us secure. Breakfast ranged from bagels to pan dulce and orange juice to coffee. Our Association Office is a sacred space for many of us and we recognize that we would not have this space if it had not been for those who came before us, our La Raza alumni. We had a great time chatting with alumni Cecilia Rendon and Marisa Arrona, both Class of 2003. They were able to take pictures and teach us a bit about our La Raza history.

Alumni Weekend Mixer

Alumni Weekend was a great time for both alumni and current students. Alumni got to reminisce about their time in law school, while students were able to absorb some of the wisdom of those who had been in their footsteps before. The school hosted an Alumni of Color Cocktail Hour before Friday's bbq, but La Raza and LSAD kept the celebration going by hosting an Alumni Mixer after the bbq. It was amazing to talk to Raza alumni and hear what the school was like at a time when there was much more hostility towards students of color. Some alumna talked about how much they appreciated their 1L Property professor who dared to talk about critical race in the classroom. (Sound familiar? They were talking about our very own Ian Haney López!) We appreciated their stories and perspectives and hope they'll come back again soon! 

Second General Meeting

Last week we hosted our second general meeting. Are one of our faculty advisers, Professor Haney Lopez, stopped by to introduce himself to our new 1Ls and give them a little bit of law school and life advice. We had a great time eating Panda Express and getting to meet new Raza folks. At the end of our meeting we made sure to take a group photo in our brand new t-shirts!

Dodgers v. Giants Game

Everyone knows baseball is America's favorite pastime, so it's no wonder that one of La Raza's fall traditions is a trip to the ballpark. Given the makeup of the group, there's only one matchup we want to see: Dodgers v. Giants. While there are a few fiercely loyal Giants fans (myself included... we live in the Bay Area, people!), it's undeniable that the majority of Raza baseball fans love the Dodgers. This semester's trip to the beautiful AT&T Park included lots of bonding, lots of garlic fries, and lots of trash talk. Ultimately, the Dodgers prevailed with a score of 10 to 6. And while some hearts were broken, everyone had a great time. See you on the field for the next one! 

La Raza Board Dinner with Faculty Advisors

The Raza board went to dinner at Professor Altholz's home in San Francisco on 9/28 with her partner Hector, Professor Haney-Lopez, Professor Robinson. Professor Altholz's son, Cassius made a menu of drink and food options. We sipped on the signature drink of the night, palomas, while catching up with each other and the professors. For dinner, Anya led us in a Shabbat prayer and we had homemade tacos de carne and de rajas, cornbread souffle, salad (made by Professor Haney-Lopez), and ice cream sandwiches for dessert! We talked about upcoming events and ways to increase student and faculty diversity.

Self Care & Community Tips with Fernando Flores

Fernando Flores spoke at a lunch talk event at Berkeley Law on 9/25 to give us some insight on how to live a healthy life in law school and as a lawyer. He shared with us his background, and how after practicing law for over 10 years, he founded iMATER NOW to support attorneys in nurturing their 6 spheres of well-being: emotional, physical, occupational, spiritual, intellectual, and social. We must tend to these every day, just like we groom ourselves every morning. We did an activity where we shared our morning routines, and he said we should add a one minute activity to our routine every day where we say three things that we are grateful for. He told us that his secret power for well-being is GPA: Grit, Positivity, and Appreciation. Finally, Fernando said that the most important thing is to have faith in yourself.

Fridays @ OMCA

Law school is not just about reading cases or understanding the black letter law. There's also time for fun and study breaks! This past weekend La Raza Law Students Association hosted a group outing at the Oakland Museum of California. Aside from learning about the history of California, we also enjoyed the food truck scene as well as grooving to live music. Stay tuned for our next outing. 

MALDEF Voting Rights Event

The current administration shows us how important it is for Latinx to show up and vote for leaders that will represent and fight for the Latinx community.  The 2020 Census has a citizenship question which will negatively impact Latinx participation. Latinx communities will fear answering the census will lead to deportation and will skip the census altogether. Census data direclty affects the number of representatives a state has, this census will disempower Latinx voters. The La Raza Law Students Association co-sponsored a talk with Tanya Pellegrini about Latinx voting right and the work that MALDEF does to protect them- in particular, suing the current administration about the citizenship question. This talk helped empower students and become aware of the role of lawyers in protecting Latinx voting rights. 

Hispanic Heritage Month Fundraiser: Part I

Hispanic Heritage Month is meant to pay tribute to the generations of Hispanic and Latinx who paved the way for future generations and their contributions to society. In line with empowering Hispanic and Latinx communities, La Raza Law Students Association chose to hold a bake sale to raise funds to continue to help Latinx law students get the resources they need to be successful in Law School. Latinx lawyers make up only 4% of the lawyers in the U.S., La Raza Law Students Association strives to make sure Latinx are better represented in the legal field. We had a successful bake sale and want to thank everyone for your contributions.