The world is supposed to be for all of us
The world is supposed to be for all of us
Immigrant rights are human rights. Labor rights are human rights. Civil rights are human rights. No human being is illegal.
The sun was shining in our nation’s capitol today and across your land and mine. We gathered in different places, with one goal. To speak for and about the desperate need for comprehensive immigration reform that can reunite families, send lovers and children and grandmothers back to their beloveds, to their mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. We were not asking for much, just the promise of these United States to be extended to all.
Some were proudly waving United States flags, the red, the white and the blue as we heard advocates crying out in Spanish and English, for the truths that we all hold so dear, the right to be a whole person. The right to be paid for the work you do. The right to aspire toward and obtain an education, to be free of fear.
We were there, crying out that this country should be for us all. We are one nation, with many people–the more diverse we are, the stronger we are. !Si se puede!
“I know this – your boss is making suckers outa you boys every minute. Yes, and suckers out of all the wives and the poor innocent kids who’ll grow up with crooked spines and sick bones. Sure, I see it in the papers, how good orange juice is for kids. But damnit our kids get colds one on top of the other. They look like little ghosts. Betty never saw a grapefruit. I took her to the store last week and she pointed to a stack of grapefruits. “What’s that!” she said. My God, Joe – the world is supposed to be for all of us.”
–Edna to Joe in Waiting for Lefty, by Clifford Odets
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Who will be my champion?
Student loan monsters keep me up at night.
Who will be my champion?
A professor once told me a story; it was some time early in her career, I believe.
She quit her job as a high paid associate to become a public defender; her family all told her she was crazy. I think she took something like a 90% reduction in pay. But she had to follow her dream to help the poor, she said. The problem was that she could not afford bus fare to meet her clients at the court house.
What a damn shame. I think she told me that to encourage me to consider that not everyone who wants to serve the poor, has to become poor to do it.
At the time I was struggling between financial security and the dream of legal aid and poverty law. I will never regret my decision to pursue poverty law.
Sometimes, however it is all just too much. Some days the work never stops coming, the load is so very heavy and the road seems lonely. The clients dance around in my head, long after I leave the office.
Who will be my champion?
I am proud of what I do; I am happy that I am advocating for them. I am passionate about access to justice. And yes I feel called to champion those who are often underrepresented by being a poverty lawyer.
I am not here to get rich, but some days are harder than others.
I am blessed, I have a roof over my head, I am making regular payments on a modest car and I have nice things. But, I am also not financially secure, by any means.
Who will be my champion?
All of the advocates championing the cause for legal aid funding are crying out for resources to ensure that the countless folks who are desperate for access to justice have a better chance at it. Their advocacy will make our client cases stronger and the work we do more efficient.
Here are just a few articles touching on the crisis affecting legal aid services and access to justice in this country. Grant Makers Need to Help the Poor Fight Legal Injustices, (Texas) Legal Aid Services Face Funding Crisis, Right to Lawyer Can Be an Empty Promise for the Poor.
Every day, everywhere we turn there is a new and different or old and languishing crisis that begs for advocates to cry out, to seek that justice be restored. As a relatively new attorney, every day I wake up, with a battling internal sense of both impending dread and hope as I come to the office.
I think: I must find a way to do poverty law with some form of work-life balance.
Those words work-life balance are kind of a joke to me. They are just something people in the United States say to each other to feel better about the looming deadlines and long hours that we tolerate at work; most people talk about work-life balance because their work keeps them from their own lives. But what happens when your life is purposed by your work?
I am a poverty lawyer and I breath in the desire for justice and I breath out as I work for equality. Work-life balance has never come easy to me. I recognize that if I am not careful to work for it–this balance, then no one wins.
Who will be my champion?
Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying, right?
