By Tamara Perez Cantalapiedra
Boston College Law School, 2L

When I was 17, I was so excited to turn 18 and my biggest worry was the thought of leaving my island to go to college. Jorge was dreading turning 18 because it meant he gets kicked out of the shelter and may be forced to return home despite fearing for his life.

When I was 13, my biggest worry was my World History class in high school, and my favorite thing to do was go to the mall to hang out with my friends. Zuleyka’s biggest worry was deciding if she wants to terminate a pregnancy a gang member forced her to have, if she even had the choice.

When I was 9, I my biggest worry was being late for volleyball practice and having to run an extra lap. Juan, meanwhile, loves telling the story of his mom and his "adventure" to the US, whom he was separated from because Title 42 did not allow his mom to seek asylum.

When I was 5, I did not have a worry in the world. Lucía does not have a worry in the world, but also wears a head bandage wrapped around her little head because she was in a car accident while her family was fleeing Ecuador. She says, "Don’t worry, they were all okay" with the sweetest smile across her face.

This summer, I had the opportunity to work with these unaccompanied minors at the National Immigrant Justice Center’s Immigrant Children Protection. Prior to this summer, I already had a strong interest in immigration law. For this reason, my goal for my first law school summer internship was to gain more specialized experience by working with either children or victims of human trafficking, and I got to work with both.

I was drawn to a career in immigration law because of my distinctive cultural background and legal status as a Puerto Rican. Despite being born on what is technically an unincorporated territory, I was granted US citizenship and spoke both Spanish and English growing up in a vibrant Latino community. The privilege of free movement between my home and the States was not afforded to residents of neighboring island countries like the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba.

Puerto Ricans abroad will often say they had no choice but to leave to pursue a better quality of life, especially in response to the natural disasters and the political instability we’ve experienced firsthand. But the reality is, other Latin Americans enduring similar or worse conditions do not have the same backup option. My connection to those other cultures and peoples as an intermediary between Latin America and America instilled in me a sense of duty to help those who want to come to the US in search of a better life.

For the past 10 weeks, I have gained valuable experiences including working on the legal theory for a human trafficking case, giving know your rights presentations to new arrivals at shelters, performing client intakes, drafting a cover letter for an asylum application, prepping a client for his merits interview, and even serve as the primary representative for a child in court!

It is no secret that in pursuing a career in public interest, one is automatically accepting to work in an industry where the salary is significantly lower than the potential a future lawyer can make. By working in the public interest sector, it is clear that we are not going to law school for the money, but the intrinsic motivation to help others through law. For this reason, I am incredibly grateful to Equal Justice America (EJA) for helping fund my internship this summer and for making it feasible for future public interest lawyers to fight the good fight.