My path to law. A Natural Migration

• Author: Mónica Ramírez
• Pages: 14-15

PHOTO COURTESY OF MÓNICA RAMÍREZ

Opening Statements

MY PATH TO LAW

A Natural Migration

By Mónica Ramírez

#MyPathToLaw is a gues t column

that celebrates th e diversity of the

legal profession thro ugh attorneys’

fi rst-person storie s detailing their

unique and inspir ing trajectories.

Read more #mypathtolaw s tories on

Twi tt er .

My path to the law starte d on dirt

roads and in far m fi elds—those that

I traversed and those that my fam-

ily members traveled years before

me. Several generations before I

was born, my materna l and pater-

nal family members mig rated to the

United States from Mexico. L ike

many migrant fami lies, they came in

search of opportunit y and with hopes

of realizing the dre am that so many

hold tight when they courageously

leave their homes, families, com mu-

nity and country b ehind to make a

life in the U.S.

Today, many migrant men, women

and children are al so fl eeing their

homelands to seek safety f rom

violence.

My great-grandparents, grand-

parents, parents and other relat ives

sacrifi ced and contribute d to this

country by toiling in t he agricultural

fi elds, harvesting fruit s and vegeta-

bles, picking cotton and deta sseling

corn, among other jobs. They settled

out of the migrant stream in r ural

Ohio, where I was born, grew up and

live today.

As a child, my parents of ten talked

about how di cult things were for

farmworkers. My parents’ teach ings

about justice and engaging in public

service, a s well as the plight of farm-

workers, led me to want to learn more

about the larger farmworker move-

ment in the United States. When

I was a teenager, I star ted writ-

ing about farmworkers around the

area where I grew up and quick ly

learned that the conditions my pa r-

ents had taught me about had not

changed. These lessons gu ided me to

become a summer outreach worker

for a local legal serv ices organiza-

tion and eventually to my ca reer as

a public interest attorney comm it-

ted to fi ghting to address t hese ter-

rible conditions. Along the way, I also

learned about the importa nce of col-

lective power and that ever yday peo-

ple could e ect great change.

My career has not been a tra di-

tional legal care er by most people’s

standards. Some might say t hat it is

a prototype of what it mea ns to be a

“people’s lawyer.” To me, my career

is refl ective of someone who fi ercely

believes in justice and th at we all are

entitled to live in a just societ y, no

matter where we are from, where we

work or how much we earn. My work

has been focused on ma king this a

reality, especial ly for low-paid work-

ers, women of color, immigrants and

children—those who are among the

most vulnerable and suscept ible to

rights violations.

In 2003, I created the fi rst

legal project in the U.S. focused

on addressing and ending sex ual

harassment and other forms of gen-

der discriminat ion against farm-

worker women as a fellow at Florida

Legal Serv ices. In 2006, I returned

to my family’s southern roots: th is

time as a lawyer in Montgomery,

Alabama, i nstead of a cotton picker

in Mississippi, as my father had be en

as a child. There, I tur ned my state-

based initiative into a n ational ini-

tiative on behalf of far mworker and

other low-paid immigrant women

workers at the Southern Poverty

Law Center. Later, in 2014, I fur-

ther expanded my work and created

a new, national organization—Justice

for Migrant Women.

Over the years, I have met brave

survivors of huma n tra cki ng who

escaped captiv ity. I have served cou-

rageous women who were victims of

sexual violence by their bo sses and

supervisors. I have helped educat e

thousands of workers about their

rights and our legal sy stem. I am so

fortunate to have had t he opportu-

nity to choose and pursue my profes-

sion, to learn from incred ible human

beings and to work alongside fi erce

advocates.

And as I was build ing my legal

projects and pursuing justic e through

the law, I was also organizi ng with

incredible women leaders, many who

had previously worked in agr icul-

ture and some of whom continued to

work in the fi elds even then. Together,

we founded and launched Alian za

Nacional de Campesina s [National

Farmworkers Women’s All iance], the

fi rst national farmworker women’s

coalition in the countr y . In addition,

most recently, I have been advocating

alongside domestic workers through

the National Domestic Workers

Alliance a nd trying to build a cross-

sector initiative t o secure gender

equity for all workers.

In 2017, I wrote the “Dear Sisters”

letter on behalf of 700,000 far m-

worker women, whose interests

Alianza repre sents, to individuals

in the entertain ment industry who

had disclosed sexu al violence against

them by powerful men, including

Harvey Weinstein. Their disclosur es

helped create the #MeToo break-

through, which was or iginally created

by Tarana Burke’s visionary work and

Alyssa Milano’s public call to a ction.

My letter was published in Time mag-

azine and went vira l.

This letter has be en credited with

helping to spark the Time’s Up move-

ment, which was founded by women

in the entertain ment industry. None

of us will ever know why th at letter

caught fi re, but I imagine it’s because

it was a powerful demonst ration of

solidarity and empathy among the

least likely of par tners.

Our profession is one of the most

interesting, complex and chal lenging

14 || ABA JOURNAL JULY-AUGUST 2019

MY PATH TO LAW

Mónica Ramírez