Daniel's Essay
I still remember attempting to translate our eviction letter: “Failure to agree to a new contract for the leased property has resulted in immediate order for vacancy.” With one line of text, the landlord had kicked my family of 5 out of our 1-bedroom apartment because we could not pay $2,500 a month in rent. After living in San Gabriel for 8 years, it was the place we first came to after leaving Colombia. We were forced to move on 3 days' notice. At the time, I felt as confused as I did frustrated; it seemed so unfair that we were getting to leave after we were forced to stay in our living room while renovations took place, none of which we had agreed to. “There is just no way this is legal,” I thought. It wasn’t until 4 years later that I realized that we were being taken advantage of, and the law could have been on our side.
Alas, we packed our bags, found a place, and put our heads down. As “illegals” should. Once in community college, I pondered this mentality in a political theory class. In which the professor explained that the elite class has now evolved to use immigrants as a means of expanding their capital, and due to fear of law enforcement, 95% of abuses by bosses are not reported by immigrant workers. It was then that I decided to get involved with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) to protest this abuse.
While volunteering at a community event with CHIRLA, I came across a Salvadorian family who had just been evicted after their landlord had doubled their rent due to “changing financial landscape of the local market,” or in other words, gentrification and the opportunity to make more profit. They didn’t know what to do, but they did feel a great sense of injustice. In a situation I was all too familiar with, I used my new experience and knowledge to not let history repeat itself. I explained that in the City of Los Angeles, landlords are permitted to raise rents for units (built before 1978) by up to 4% every 12 months. I helped them fill out an intake form and a Rent Ordinance Complaint. Because of one line of text, the family left with a sense of relief and will to fight, in great contrast to the faces of defeat they came in with earlier that day. Experiences like that reinforced my commitment to a legal education, one that would allow me to wield that law in favor of those least versed in its elitist language but most indeed of its reform and protection. I decided to take this a step further in the Senate.
During my time in the Senate, I worked with the Judiciary Council to assist with issues ranging from immigration to wrongful evictions. Ironically enough, I once sat on the other side of the table from my CHIRLA colleagues, really listening to their concerns about updating the immigration registry laws. This role showed just how hard it is to change the laws. So people pleaded for us to do something as simple as changing the registry data to make them eligible for citizenship after decades of hard work. But in those meetings, I learned that without the ability to understand the law, I felt more powerless than ever. But I also learned that for every outdated law on rent control or green card status, there is a person who has made their career goal to change just one line of text in the law to change thousands of lives. I want to see change, I want to
I have also come to realize that, despite all my struggles, I come from a position of great privilege. I was lucky that my parents worked 7 days a week in factories and deliveries to support my siblings, so we could focus on our studies. I was lucky enough to continue in the San Gabriel school district and had access to programs like debate, which taught me English. I was lucky enough to live in a state like California, where, despite being undocumented, I was able to both access a quality high school education and be the first one in my family to attend college. Even as I complete my studies at UCLA, they continue to work even as their jobs are targeted by immigration enforcement officers at the orders of the executive branch. I could never afford the SAT, so the LSAT will be the first standardized test I take in my life. Obviously, nobody we knew had ever applied to law school. But that never stopped me from working 3 jobs to pay for undergrad, support my family, and keep my dream of a legal education alive. I hope that scholarships like this will give me the tools and knowledge, so that my work ethic can be used efficiently towards becoming a law student and eventually, a lawyer.
Much work remains to be done to ensure economic justice for low-income families and immigrants. With a legal education and the opportunities that I’ve received, I hope to take on the torch from the generations of advocates who came before me and continue their work within the legal and political systems to guarantee that every hard-working person has access to a quality education and socioeconomic mobility. I want to be the one changing lines of text in law and precedent to change lives. As the immigrant communities across the country, full of grandparents, parents, and children with the same dream of living in dignity, continue to be attacked by Washington, I have continued my advocacy work with the same goal in mind: to make those dreams a reality. This goal has pushed me all these years and made me realize that I have come to feel at home, once people stop feeling taken advantage of, once they are able to stand up for themselves and their dreams, once they realize that we, immigrants, can live in dignity thanks to the law.
