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S3E02: Human Rights in Latin America
28 Plays3 years ago
Rutgers Law School interim co-dean Rose Cuison-Villazor speaks with Priscila Abraham RLAW'20, Professor Jorge Contesse, and Professor Anibal Rosario-Lebron to share some thoughts on Hispanic Heritage Month, their various work in Latin American spaces, and what Latinx culture means to them.
The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally-known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Production Manager: Margaret McCarthy
Series Producer: Nate Nakao
Editor: Nate Nakao
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Transcript
Evolving from Racist Legacies
00:00:02
Speaker
you know, instead of continuing this racist legacy, you have to kind of be introspective and move it further along. So, you know, and evolve our thinking in a different direction.
Introduction of Key Speakers
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, my name is Rose Kuizon-Diazor. I am the interim co-dean of Rutgers Law School in Newark, and this is the power of attorney.
00:00:24
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This month, we are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, which begins on September 15th and ends on October 15th.
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage
00:00:32
Speaker
Today, I am pleased that I am joined by three Rutgers Law community members who are here to talk to us about some of the work and contributions that they've done at Rutgers Law School, as well as joining a conversation about how we can celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
Contributions of Rutgers Law Members
00:00:50
Speaker
First, we are joined by Priscilla Abraham, who is a 2020 Rutgers Law graduate, and she's currently a fellow with a detention project here at Rutgers Law School. Next, we have Professor Annibel Rosario-Lebron, and he teach his legal writing and skills. He actually just started here at Rutgers Law School a few weeks ago.
00:01:11
Speaker
Last but not least is Professor Jorge Contece. He is a legal scholar of international human rights law and heads up a center on transnational law. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Exploring Latino Heritage and Identities
00:01:24
Speaker
We'd like to start off these podcasts by asking our guests to tell us their life story. So why don't we start there? Priscilla, would you like to begin? So I come from Dominican and Cuban heritage and I chose to be an immigration lawyer
00:01:41
Speaker
specifically because my parents had a much easier time naturalizing in the US. The immigration story is very dissimilar to the immigration story of many of my clients that I've been helping from as an organized and undergraduate, as a policy person in DC after graduating college. And now as an immigration lawyer, my family's path is much more simple in their immigration story.
00:02:11
Speaker
than the people I'm helping currently. And I came to immigration law to use the privilege that I have gained to help other families be in the U.S., address the U.S., and really become members of society in a full way. Thank you. Annabelle? Thank you for inviting me.
00:02:32
Speaker
I'm Anibar Rosario-Lebaron. I come from Puerto Rico. I grew up in Puerto Rico, and I study actually biology first, and my interest growing into law. I also study law in Puerto Rico. I work at the Supreme Court. They work with communities, especially with students coming from public schools to gain access to the legal education. Then I came to the United States and did an LLM at NYU, which I started noticing
00:03:01
Speaker
the lack of access for Spanish-speaking clients in terms of having attorneys that do speak Spanish who can represent them. And I started teaching at Hofstra, actually with Roast there. And I started creating a course in Spanish for lawyers and doing other type of work with Blackfrid and access to other parts of our communities, like the queer and women in the Latino community. Jorge?
00:03:28
Speaker
Thank you for having us here today. I was born and raised in Chile in South America, which is where I first obtained my law degree. As you may know, in Latin America, as well as in Europe, you go straight from high school to law school, which is a five-year career. And it was just after that that I started working as a human rights lawyer.
00:03:50
Speaker
in Chile that I came to the United States to pursue my graduate studies. Back then, I actually met Rose at some black create conference back in the day. I was in the US for a while doing my post my LLM and then my JSD. I went back to Chile. I run the Human Rights Center at the Oportades University, which is where I studied and where I am currently a permanent visiting professor. And then I joined Rutgers eight years ago. And that's, that's my story. I've always been interested in issues of social justice and human rights.
00:04:20
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And of course, having a background coming from Latin America, it's just been natural for me to try to expand and pursue opportunities for both faculty and students in Latin America and working on Latin American patients. Thank you. So it's, it's interesting to me that the way that you've described all of you, you talked about Priscilla, you said Dominican and Cuban.
00:04:45
Speaker
and that your immigration story stems from your parents. They had an easier time coming to the United States, right, than others. And then we heard both Jorge and Annibale talk about where they grew up. And in Annibale's case, it's not an immigration story because Puerto Rico is part of the United States. And whereas with Jorge coming from Chile,
00:05:11
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and he grew up there and he came out here. So there's some movements, but it's not for Latinos, it's not always an immigration story. And that's what we hear a lot, right? Whenever I teach immigration laws, you know, and in immigration law, we talk about different ways that people were able to become members of the United States community. And one of the things that some, even my students would realize is that Puerto Rico is obviously not
00:05:39
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a place where people immigrate from. And sometimes in the news, we would hear that. I remember when Justice Toro Mayor was nominated and there were discussions about her as an immigrant when she's not. So although immigration is part of the Latino history, it's not always the case.
00:05:58
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And so I find that interesting. For me, I identify as Filipino and Pacific Islander because I grew up in the Pacific and I'm Filipino, but the Philippines was colonized by Spain for over 300 years. My grandmother is actually Spaniard, but I don't identify as Latina because I didn't grow up in that culture. So let's talk a little bit about culture.
Impact of Colonization and Cultural Perceptions
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To you, what does Latino culture mean?
00:06:27
Speaker
For me, Latino culture has to do with part of that history of colonization, right? That unites Latin American countries, but not only Latin American countries, as you were saying. The Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, and other countries that were colonized by Spain, and by other parts of Europe, like Brazil, right? That was colonized by Portugal. And there is a history that unites the countries in terms of their independence,
00:06:56
Speaker
They have common fronts in terms of independence and there were people coming together with ideas and trying to form alliances to take that empire. And after that, then we, because of that, we share a language and we share some traditions, but those come with very diverse histories because we have the
00:07:25
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African slavery that came to the Caribbean in more ways than in South America, right? Which the indigenous people were exploited by the Spaniards, right? So we have a different mix of cultures. And then we have even Chinese coming into some parts of South America and then Germans coming from the war. So it's a mix of very different cultures that have
00:07:55
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common history. And they have also very diverse languages and very diverse cultures and traditions, but they also unite in some ways by television. Like if we talk about a shower, the lotion, it's something that
00:08:10
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people across Latin America watch, right, and the La Novella. So there's a history. And then when we come to the United States to think about the Latino community, right, there's a shared story of immigration for most countries and even for Puerto Ricans that did not have to immigrate, right? They suffered the same type of discrimination that other communities were facing.
00:08:33
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plus the immigration issues that they were trying to fight against. So I think that's part of that idea, right? Of what Latino means for me. Thank you. Jorge, why don't you, let's hear from you next. It's very interesting. And I think Anil is quite right that this is a hard question. And I think it depends on where we are situated. It is one thing to answer this question if we are
00:09:02
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located, say, in Latin America, in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or South America. Which, by the way, we should talk about how different those two places are, right? Even though we are Latinos, yes, but as Anibar was saying, the traditions and the cultures and, you know, we love soccer and folks in the Caribbean don't really play soccer, right? We call it football. That's, I mean, I always tell my students,
00:09:30
Speaker
there's football and there's the thing that you guys call football, right? Everyone in the world calls football what we call soccer here. So what I'm saying is, and I would like to, I'd love to hear from, from, from an even a procedure that if we are situated say in Latin America and we think about these questions of identity and culture and what it means to be Latino, I think we may have different answers and insight
00:09:57
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compared to that question being posed in the context of a US conversation. So when we come to the United States, we are somehow put under the same umbrella. We are Latino, Latina, Latinx. And then that sort of brush, I think it sweeps a number of nuances that the Latino culture has and kind of gets
00:10:25
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gets shadowed by this one label that we're all using. So from the United States, it seems to me that the thinking about what it means to be Latino in the context of Hispanic Heritage Month can be quite different from how we would answer and we would address these questions.
00:10:42
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where we situated in Latin America. And if we talked about, say, from sports to literature, to cuisine, to a number of things that identify us as Latino, but also separates us as Latino still. That makes a lot of sense to me. And you're absolutely right. The way that one answers that question depends on geography, where one is situated. It also depends on time. The way that we would answer the question, what does Latino
00:11:11
Speaker
called Latina Latinx culture mean to you today, depends on where you are in your life. Even maybe 20 years ago, you would have a completely different response to that question. Priscilla, tell me from your perspective, what does it mean to be, or what is the term Latino culture mean to you? Yeah, so in hearing what we're hearing was saying,
00:11:37
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I've only ever lived in the U.S. I visited Cuba through Rutgers programming with Professor Alphont, and I have visited Dominican Republic, but always as an outsider coming in. Yes, I'm Dominican, yes, I'm Cuban, but that's not the
00:11:59
Speaker
the in country cultures is not my culture. I am very much American. So the only Latino culture I've experienced is the Americanized, you know, first generation immigrant culture here in the US. So I think that's why I think of Latino culture a little bit differently than let's say my parents did.
00:12:21
Speaker
because while they came here in their childhood, they were very much still in their Cuban or Dominican bubble and really only met because in New York City, Latino culture is all enmeshed, but it was a big deal. My parents, it was this Cuban guy and Dominican girl coming together and be like, oh, are the families gonna get along? The culture is so different versus in the US, like, oh, they're all Latino. Why would that be?
00:12:50
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an issue. And I think that's where I come from it as well. I really depend on the commonalities of Latin culture, of Latino culture, U.S. Latino culture, in order to connect with my clients that are from Central or South America, places I've never been before. I have acquaintances from across Latin America in my Latino community, but I depend on our common language. I depend on
00:13:17
Speaker
on our commonalities of being family-oriented, for example. When I'm trying to connect with clients who have very different life experiences than I do, but when I start speaking the Spanish language, they immediately feel more comfortable, they're able to connect with me better, and there is a sense of a commonality that they will trust me versus someone else because at least I'm in this weird American place, but at least there's this one person here who is able to speak a language that I understand.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I think, like, I think for me, like, while not all Latinos speak Spanish, those commonalities are what kind of maybe kind of reach out and make it a more Latino community, especially I grew up in the white suburbs. So I was very different. So it was me and two or three other Latinos in my growing up. And, you know, they are from Puerto Rico or from Central America. And I, you know, regardless of
00:14:16
Speaker
how we would be, you know, if we were all in our respective countries or countries of heritage or origin, here we were all kind of grouped together and I was very happy to have someone who had some of those commonalities with me as well. So I think, yes, I think my definition of Latino culture is a more Americanized version of Latino culture. And so I think what I heard from all three of you is that
00:14:41
Speaker
And we know this to be true, that the category Latino is far from being a monolith group. It's a category that has been created for many different reasons, political, culture, and social. When you analyze it more, then we can see, we can disaggregate who
00:15:04
Speaker
is part of this Latino population. And then commonalities, language, food, music, right? But even that, there's so many different types of music within the Latinx population. So just as many other groups that are superimposed by the census, we too see here some of the reasons why it's important in recognizing who is Hispanic for purposes under Hispanic Heritage Month. Part of what we need to understand is that
00:15:35
Speaker
It's a diverse group with different cultures and history and traditions. And I suppose that's why the month was recognized as a time to understand the contributions of different Latino, Latina, Latinx individuals. Have you all seen In the Heights? I'm just curious if you've seen the movie. You have?
00:16:00
Speaker
Jorge, you have not seen In the Heights. So In the Heights is Lin-Manuel Miranda's movie, and then there's also the Broadway musical. And what was like, I saw it and I enjoyed it, but reading about it from others who critiqued it because one of the criticisms is that is the marginalizing colorism.
00:16:21
Speaker
within the Latino population. So I won't give it away. I won't say too much for Hank, but I would suggest seeing it. One of the criticisms is that there's colorism within the Latino population that seems to have been elided by the music. Can you talk a little bit about that colorism? So I mean, we can examine racism, but in this context, why don't we talk about colorism?
00:16:51
Speaker
and as you understand it from your own experience or just in general about what you know about it. I will talk to the movie just quickly. So part of the critique that comes from the movie, if you have seen the musical, you see that in the musical there is a struggle that one of the main characters is in love with an African-American in the musical, right?
00:17:15
Speaker
And that black character, that story gets removed from the movie. And it's to downplay the stripes that are within the Latino community because we are not a monolithic group and there is racism because of the colorism. Another one is that if you go into the Heights, you see a community of Afro-Latinos.
00:17:38
Speaker
And the idea of Latinidad that has been created in the American narrative
00:17:46
Speaker
doesn't really include that group. It doesn't really talk about the Afro-Latinos, right? And that creates issues within the community because it doesn't address the issues of what do we do with the black part of our community, right? That history that is there because there was also slavery very different from the United States got abolished in most places earlier. We did not have
00:18:15
Speaker
the separate body quo, like instituted in the law or anti-miscegenation status. So that's a different history. But the colorism, right, the closer you are to the white community, the better you are off. Right. And the communities of color are poor communities in all of these countries. Right. And the same happens with the indigenous communities that are part of the Latino community that also get erased from the narrative of Latinidad. So colorism is alive.
00:18:42
Speaker
You can see it in most countries that have big concentrations of indigenous people or black people. There are countries that don't have those percentages in the same. Like if you go to Central America, the Caribbean, you see that more often than in other places. And you see it in the television, right? Who gets to be an Univision or Telemundo? What they look like? Are they representative of all the people in the Latino community?
00:19:18
Speaker
We were talking in the Haysabara Dominican community, and we hear salsa instead of pachata or merengue. And that for the Latino community is important, right? Because we see our differences. And when you meet someone from the Latino community, if I'm walking down the street or I'm taking the subway and someone comes with me, they will say, oh, you're Puerto Rican, right? They wouldn't say to me, you're Latino, if they are from the Latino community, right? So those differences,
00:19:37
Speaker
And the music also that you were saying, right? Are they the same?
00:19:46
Speaker
And the racism that we experience every day in terms of being black, right? The blacker you are, the less privileged you have within the community, right?
00:20:02
Speaker
That's something that is said in the Latino community, you need to better up a race by marrying to white. So that's part of the culture and it's still there. Yeah, actually I was going to introduce that same phrase. So my mom actually grew up in Washington Heights.
00:20:19
Speaker
She saw the musical as the movie and was like, what a romanticization of my childhood. She did not experience it as glamorous and musical as the movie makes it seem. My grandmother grew up afraid from colonization.
00:20:40
Speaker
and that proved to be a difficulty as we are, I am a white-passing Latina person. Both sides of my family are pretty white-passing, but as we became more enmeshed in American society, we started dating outside of Dominican or Cuban circles and started dating other races, other people. And that became a very vivid conversation within my family and something that I think
00:21:08
Speaker
I had to educate my grandmother on, my grandfather on. This idea that white is better is inherently incorrect and the same, not the same racism, but the way that you feel discriminated against in the United States, black Americans and Afro-Latinos,
00:21:27
Speaker
have been feeling this for first century. So instead of continuing this racist legacy, you have to kind of be introspective and move it further along and evolve.
00:21:41
Speaker
at least the society and our thinking in a different direction. But yeah, but colorism is definitely still alive. And even my family members who would consider themselves Afro-Latino, it's very difficult for them to say, I'm black, and they don't take up that racial identity. And in questioning my more Americanized family,
00:22:06
Speaker
who are black do take that out. But I think it's like an introspection that they have done and an evolution that they have done versus like, you know, my accountants who are straight from Dominican Republic who come here and was like, oh, I'm not black, I'm Dominican. That's my ethnic and racial identity. And I think it just comes from how vivid colorism
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, that is still a big part of Latino culture and of Caribbean culture that has more for Latinos. There's so much here that I wish we could unpack. Racism, colorism, discrimination. Thank you for sharing all those thoughts. I'd like to now talk about some of the work that you do and give you a chance to share with us some of the work that your research and your writing and particular earlier you were talking about the clients that you represent.
Connecting Students with International Law
00:23:03
Speaker
So let's start off with Jorge. Jorge, you direct the Center on Transnational Law. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure. So the Center for Transnational Law, the way it's conceived of is as a platform for both faculty and students who share an interest in international comparative and transnational law in very broad terms. So it started as an initiative on the existing Center on Gender and Sexuality Law and Policy, and then it became a full scale
00:23:32
Speaker
center. And basically what we do in terms of, again, the work that is somehow related to Latin America, I would say, is to connect, again, faculty and students with projects, with ideas, with folks who are in Latin America. So, for example, we have summer internships for students who spend part of their summer either in Colombia or in Chile working on
00:24:00
Speaker
human rights issues with local NGOs. And the idea there is that for a place like Rutgers, which has such a strong component of diverse students and Latino students, there's just a natural connection that I saw when I joined the law school.
00:24:20
Speaker
and just started talking to students. And many of those students actually speak Spanish very fluently. And so I realized here's something that we should do and pursue. My goal is that these can expand to other places, of course, of the world. But we have started with these specific internships where students can go and spend part of the summer before the pandemic, of course, working on LGBT issues in both Czech Columbia.
00:24:46
Speaker
More recently, we have established a partnership with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is a human rights body that sits in Washington, D.C., but it's part of the Organization of American States. So basically, it oversees human rights across the Americas, including the United States. And that initiative that is housed now with the Human Rights Clinic that Professor Penny Manetti runs,
00:25:12
Speaker
basically supporting part of the work of the Commission. They have so much work and they don't have enough staff. And so the clinic is not just has at least one pending petition, but here they are actively supporting the processing of many of these petitions in conjunction with staff attorneys from the Commission. So all of this is basically thought as providing students an opportunity to explore
00:25:35
Speaker
not just international law and human rights law, but also how the law can be understood and practiced in other legal cultures, in other countries. It is my view that to become a lawyer
00:25:49
Speaker
you should be exposed to how people in other places think about the law. That makes you a better lawyer, even if you're not going to devote your career to international law. And so far, the experience has been very positive, students going there and writing up their reports and sharing some of their experiences. And as I said, my hope is that the center expand and offer more opportunities to students, not just in the context of Latin American work, but also elsewhere.
00:26:17
Speaker
I mean, I think it's a fabulous center. It certainly does. It furthers the work that we do as an anchor institution here at Rutgers Law School in Newark. And it gives our students an opportunity to bring back what they've learned from those other countries, which in my mind helps to further interest of Latinos in the United States. There's a connection here from, as the three of you said, between
00:26:45
Speaker
what it means to be an American today with Latino heritage and current issues happening in other countries, Central and South American, we would be wrong to ignore what's happening there and that we would be wrong in my mind to say that the history there does not impact us at all today. And so I think your center helps to provide that bridge that we need in both in learning the law, but also understanding how we practice law.
00:27:15
Speaker
You mentioned LGBTQ issues in particular, and I know Annibale's work has focused in part in
Legal Work on LGBTQ+ Rights in Latin America
00:27:21
Speaker
that. So Annibale, do you want to tell us a little bit about your work in that space? Yeah. So part of the work that I do with my scholarship focuses on LGBTQ plus issues.
00:27:35
Speaker
And looking at not only from the United States perspective, as Jorge was saying, these issues impact the community all across the Americas, right? From North America, Central America, and South America. And they intersect not only in terms of the immigrant experience, in terms of people coming here looking for asylum because of issues that have to be with LGBTQ issues,
00:28:02
Speaker
but also in terms of race and how we look at those issues in particular in the United States and Latin America. So part of the work that I do is first, like in my Spanish for lawyers class, is to think about these issues in the broad sense, right? And try to bring down some of the stereotypes. So some of the countries in Latin America are
00:28:27
Speaker
ahead of in some LGBTQ issues, like if you think of Colombia and trans identity, they might be ahead then in the United States in recognizing that, right? Even if socially the climate will be very similar. And other countries are not, right? The Caribbean countries, Chile is now also evolving in other aspects. So,
00:28:53
Speaker
Breaking that experience for the students to think about that and how those discourses come to be, especially part of the litigation strategies that have been used in some of the Latin American countries are copied from the American experience, but might not fit the Latin American context, right? So thinking about how we can change those strategies to actually fit into the history and the legal systems.
00:29:22
Speaker
You also, part of something that I also talk about to my students when they are thinking about talking to Spanish speaking clients is that you need to understand a different legal system. As Jorge was saying, Latin American countries confront a civil law tradition. So the way that the system is structured is different. And even though that has been changing in terms of, especially in
00:29:48
Speaker
public law, like constitutional issues, there's still a difference in how you conceptualize the claims, right? And thinking about those claims and thinking how you can embody them in ways that fit the narrative of the system, that don't necessarily come into the United States. And the other thing is, as Jorge was saying, there's more of a human rights framework in Latin America than in the United States.
00:30:17
Speaker
So also understanding that. So part of my work addresses on that in comparison of the LGBTQ plus issues in the United States and Latin America, how those things are affected and intersect with race and cultural identities and how we can work on making sure not only in the United States that we go into more an egalitarian society, but also
00:30:44
Speaker
that the whole continent moves into that direction. I'm just so happy that you've joined Rutgers Law School, Annabelle, because the work that you do and the way that it connects with Jorge's work is powerful. It'll help us to continue
00:30:59
Speaker
exploring these various issues that our students and other legal scholars would be interested in. Priscilla, while you were in law school active with the Immigrant Rights Collective, you were a big supporter of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy. You were also in the Immigrant Rights Clinic. And so immigration law has been an area that you were passionate about in law school, and you're doing that still. This is your second year of
Detention Fellow Initiative and Social Justice
00:31:27
Speaker
your fellowship. Tell us more about your work.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So as part of the detention and deportation defense initiative, DDDI, I am a detention fellow that
00:31:41
Speaker
had previously focused specifically on detained immigrants in New Jersey. And detained work and immigration is a very specific kind of work because you have less access to clients, clients have less access to you, especially during the pandemic. All of our communication with clients primarily switched over to phone communication.
00:32:01
Speaker
So being able to represent folks that you can only speak to sparingly in likely monitored settings has been difficult. But through the pandemic as well, we've been able to get a lot of our clients released and because of that,
00:32:19
Speaker
Now we operate on, yes, I have to tame clients as well as clients who have been released and clients who have been transferred across the US. So I think I'm still very passionate about immigration work. I'm very happy to be working with the tamed folks and to be working in a very evolving field of immigration law. And the tradition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration has been really interesting.
00:32:46
Speaker
to see how that work. How my, you know, the daily tasks of an immigration lawyer has evolved and changed and how we can use these new policies to benefit our clients. Thank you. I mean, I'm so happy that you're still with us, that I'm able to still connect with you in different ways. So we're nearing the end of our show and I'd like to end by asking you about why Rutgers Law School? What makes Rutgers Law School special to you?
00:33:15
Speaker
So Rutgers Law School is really special to me because I feel like after going to NYU for undergraduate, DC right after graduating, and I came back home to New Jersey, but it's the public interest that I really love about Rutgers. I had a passion for immigration when I first came in.
00:33:39
Speaker
And I was able to tap into so many different mentors and resources like you, Dean, as well as now Vice Dean, Andrew Gupta mentors in immigration law and pushing the rights of my now clients forward.
00:33:56
Speaker
And I was so happy to be able to connect with so many people who were passionate about similar things that I was passionate about. But just the public interest, the public interest focus of so many students makes this place really special. The focus on social justice and not just how to be a lawyer focused on social justice, but also how to change policies that are harming our clients.
00:34:21
Speaker
and how to think of a different world and how to effectuate it with her law degrees. And that's why I really was so happy to join Rutgers as a detention fellow after graduating, because I have exactly the kind of job that I wanted afterwards. I get to work with clients every day and make an individualized difference, and I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. Jorge.
Rutgers' Dedication to Diversity and Social Justice
00:34:43
Speaker
I think there are a number of things.
00:34:46
Speaker
But if I should just point to a few of them, but very prominent, what Priscilla was just saying, I remember when I interviewed and I had a conversation with students. And that was one of the interviews, that was one of the conversations that really stood out for me. The kind of the passion and the commitment and the drive that I felt from the institution in general, and I'm sure you know these roles, as someone who has come
00:35:15
Speaker
who came after I joined the law school. But that sort of passion and commitment and really that determination that I felt in students who were also expressing interest in social justice, of course, but also international law. And so to me, seeing that there was this thirst, this hunger to have more international law programs, initiatives, was really something that
00:35:44
Speaker
drove my interest to join the law school, just made sense that this was the right place for me. Being able to teach and educate people who you know that they will serve back to their communities, who are first generation lawyers, it's just a very precious opportunity. That's one of the reasons why, for example, I enjoy so much teaching in the evening.
00:36:07
Speaker
And so all of these different things that make Rutgers such a vibrant place. So the curiosity that people share to me that makes that makes this place a very special one. Anibell, you just joined us. Why? Yeah, so I mean, as you know, I've been going around in different places. And I think I wanted to come to Rutgers in part for what preceding hardware saying
00:36:34
Speaker
But mostly for their commitment to diversity, right? And the commitment to diversify the legal community to make sure that we have attorneys that can represent not only one sector of the population, but all sectors of our country and our population. So that was number one. And the second is the commitment to social justice, right? My work is embedded with that.
00:37:04
Speaker
being in a place that furthers that and not only looks within, but looks outwards and looks to the community and reach out to the community is a place that I want it to be in. Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts about Hispanic Heritage Month. I especially thank you for the work that you do. You all make Rutgers Law School proud. You make me proud. And so thank you for spending time with me today. Thank you, Rose.
00:37:34
Speaker
The power of attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers a prestige and reputation of a large nationally known university with a personal small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rukers.edu.