Anya

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Latinx Leaders: Julie Chavez Rodriguez

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We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to chat with Julie Chavez Rodriguez (Cesar Chavez’s granddaughter) over coffee and holiday cookies. She shared her story of growing up in an activist family and attending protests as a young girl and how those experiences shaped her career and life trajectory. Ms. Rodriguez never lost her connection with her home state and now serves as Sen. Kamala Harris’ California State Director. As the state director, Ms. Rodriguez advocates for the rights of immigrants and workers in her home community. Our faculty advisor even brought her son, who shared with Ms. Rodriguez his school “hero project” that featured her grandfather. This conversation was a much-needed break from finals studying to help remind us why we are working hard to get our J.D.s!

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Third General Meeting

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At our third general meeting we reviewed upcoming events and made a very big announcement. This year the co-chairs and treasurer worked really hard to raise enough funds to take the whole organization on a retreat! We are planning to go some time in February and can’t wait to start planning. We also celebrated our November and December babies and we spent the rest of time playing fishbowl!

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Perkins Coie Networking Etiquette Workshop

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Thank you so much to Paul Navarro and Aaron Ver from Perkins Coie who came to campus last week and gave our 1Ls some essential tips on networking as students of color! Paul and Aaron gave us candid advice and perspectives on what students of color need to do differently in order to succeed in a realm that is brand new for most of us. We had a great time eating pupusas and asking questions about how to increasing our connections with firm folks at upcoming networking events!

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Cross-Affinity Mixer

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In La Raza we pride ourselves on fostering the Latinx community on campus, but we are also all about strengthening our relationships with our other POC peers. This weekend La Raza hosted a cross-affinity mixer along with the Law Students of African Descent, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, and Native American Law Students Associations at Berkeley Law! One of our lovely 1Ls hosted us in his home for a mixer before we all headed out to a club in Oakland. It was a great night of dancing, fun, and meeting friends in other groups.

Second General Meeting

Last week we hosted our second general meeting. Are one of our faculty advisers, Professor Haney Lopez, stopped by to introduce himself to our new 1Ls and give them a little bit of law school and life advice. We had a great time eating Panda Express and getting to meet new Raza folks. At the end of our meeting we made sure to take a group photo in our brand new t-shirts!

Native Land Acknowledgement


We take a moment to recognize that Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin) (Hoo-Choon), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo (Cho-Chen-yo) speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the historic and sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. This land was and continues to be of great importance to the Muwekma (Muh-wek-muh) Ohlone Tribe and other familial descendants of the Verona Band.

We recognize that every member of the Berkeley community has benefited, and continues to benefit, from the use and occupation of this land since the institution's founding in 1868. Consistent with our values of community and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the university's relationship to Native peoples. By offering this Land Acknowledgement, we affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the University of California, Berkeley more accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples.