Doors

This morning, I saw a political ad that inspired me to write this blog. A political ad you say? Yes, for MJ Hegar. A combat veteran, a Texas Democrat and a woman. See her ad here. http://www.businessinsider.com/texas-woman-running-for-congress-used-doors-in-viral-ad-2018-6?utm_source=facebook

The ad focused on the doors that were closed to her, doors she had to kick through. She was a pilot in the Air Force and served multiple tours in Afghanistan and advocated to end the ban barring women from certain elite jobs. Her representative refused to meet with her so she decided to run for Congress. By the end, I was cheering for MJ. And, it made me think about my own doors, doors I opened that were closed.

USC Law was the door that opened the slowest. After my disaster of a senior year of high school, I took my GED and waitressed, my dreams of attending Claremont McKenna turning to dust. But something kept me going. I always knew I was smart. My mom taught me to read when I was three. I devoured everything I could get my hands on to read and soon (after an obsession with Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume), I was reading literature along with my mom’s Harlequin romance novels.

Whatever it was that kept me going, I am glad it did. My time at Mt. SAC junior college was not easy, but it was rewarding. I had to beg for rides, and schedule my classes around my waitressing job, but it was worth it. I ran the newspaper and got stellar grades. When I transferred to UC Riverside after four or five years, I thought it was as good as it gets. I could not even imagine law school at that point. I was making history in my family by being the first (along with my twin who had transferred to Cal State) in my blue collar family to get a Bachelor’s degree. My dad grew up poor in Montana and drove a sixteen wheeler. My mom was a waitress who got her high school diploma later in life. My parents worked hard. And, my parents always stressed to me that the way out was to get an education.

When I graduated UC Riverside, manga cum laude, my parents were there cheering. I wish I could go back and hug my dad and never let go. He would live to see me graduate from USC Law School. I almost didn’t apply. I aimed for a couple of low ranked local schools, and then on a lark, I decided to go for the gold and apply to USC. When I got the red and gold large acceptance envelope, I screamed.

Law school was hard. My first semester was disappointing and I remember the professor that wrote “are you stupid?” in bright red pen on one of my exams. But instead of letting his comment bring me down, it made me angry and I vowed to prove him wrong. When I managed to get much better grades second semester and As my second year, I was on my way. After making the honors literary journal, I wrote my note on law and the literary “other” (quoting no cases I focused on James Joyce and Joseph Conrad using Edward Said’s Orientalism as a lens), I knew I was close. When I graduated in the top twenty percent of my class, I knew I had won.

Then large firm practice. It sucked. I never fit in at the large Texas law firm, in fact, the largest and most prestigious law firm in Texas. Maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe I wasn’t meant to. Then, San Francisco. Again, not feeling comfortable. Not finding my purpose. It wasn’t until I moved home that I found who I was again.

As an attorney at the public defender’s office, I have to kick doors open all the time. We are the underdogs. We serve the poorest clientele who need us the most. Our job is to help them through a system with grace. My job is to protect the constitutional rights of the mentally ill. I feel privileged to have this job. It is a gift to now kick closed doors open for others.