Fraternity, Not Fear: Serving North Carolina's Hispanic Latino Community, with Anabel Rosa

Welcome to Voices of NCAJ.

We're talking to members of the North

Carolina Advocates for Justice about what

it means to be a trial lawyer,

what it takes to be great at the practice

of law and how being a part of NCAJ

enriches their lives and careers.

Produced and powered by LawPods.

Welcome everyone to Voices of NCAJ,

the podcast for the North Carolina

Advocates for Justice. I am Amber Nimocks,

your host and director of

external affairs for NCAJ.

Before we get started,

I'd like to thank our circle of leadership

members for supporting NCAJ's mission

and this podcast. If

you're watching on YouTube,

you can see a list of circle of leadership

firms at the end of the podcast.

And to find out how your firm can join

the circle, go to ncaj.com/circle.

My guest today is Anabel Rosa.

She is the principal attorney at Rosa

Lawyers in Durham and this year's

recipient of NCAJ's Annie

Brown-Kennedy Award.

The award which was presented to

Annabellic Convention in June is given for

commitment to acquiring full freedom

for all citizens of North Carolina,

an exceptional advocacy that

protects individual liberties.

It recognizes active service in the local

community with a focus on the status

and welfare of families and minority

citizens. In his nomination of Anabelle,

NCAJ past President Kevin Bunn

praised her as a passionate advocate,

particularly on behalf of the

Hispanic Latino community.

The more difficult the environment comes

for causes, the harder Annabel fights.

Anabel, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having

me. It's such an honor.

Congratulations on the

Annie Brown Kennedy Award.

That is one of the highest

honors that the NCAJ can

give. It honors the legacy of Annie

Brown Kennedy, who as you know,

was a trailblazing advocate and

litigator in the civil rights and also

personal injury areas.

So it was well deserved and

it was to see you there with,

you had a whole crew who came to be

with you as you're honored and that was

really exciting. And in

your acceptance speech,

one of the things you talked about

and one of the things that the Kennedy

brothers,

when they presented the award recalled

was your experience of being a young

college student who moved

from Puerto Rico to Syracuse.

Tell everybody listening

what that was like for you.

Now that I think back on

it, some of it was naivete,

being naive,

embarking in such a huge

trip to go by myself.

I was 16.

I turned 17 the first month while

I was in Syracuse and I went by

myself. I mean, my father

took the trip with me,

but then he left me there and I

was 16 and I did not speak English.

It was quite an accomplishment

to register for my first semester

without saying a word. I mean,

I understood what was happening,

but in order to speak, you

need a couple of months,

two or three months and I did that.

That was quite an accomplishment.

Had you been to Syracuse to visit

before you decided to move there?

So many young people are intimidated

by the thought of just going away to

college at all.

What drove you to decide that you

were going to do this in a completely

different language?

I had big dreams.

I come from a typical Puerto Rican family

and the way that Puerto Rican families

for many years, because of the way

the economy worked in Puerto Rico,

a lot of families went to New York.

You have to talk about my parents

to understand all of this.

My father went to war in the

Korean War when he was very young.

I think he was 16 when he was in Korea.

And when he came back,

he had a previous family when he was very

young and that family was in New York.

And then my mother was

really a trailblazer herself.

She got her master's degree when women

didn't even go to college because there

was very little money.

The money was going to be saved

for the men to go to school.

So she had a scholarship and

my parents met in college,

my father with a GI Bill and my

mother with a scholarship. And so I

saw that and I think that I

absorbed that. So I had big dreams.

I wanted to speak English

like my older brothers did.

I did visit with them when I was

15 and they lived in Brooklyn.

I had a taste of what it would be

like to live in the big city and

to have big dreams and go after something

bigger than whatever I had witnessed.

And when you got there, you had

three majors, is that right?

Yes. I couldn't decide

what I wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to do

something with media.

I applied for a few schools.

I was accepted actually most of them,

but Syracuse attracted me because of

the communication school and they also

offered me a very good... I still had

to pay, and they were very helpful.

You could get there,

I think it was two weeks before everybody

else to become acclimated and they

were very helpful. That's how I

decided on that program. But then yeah,

I still wanted to do literature because

I love literature and I wanted to do

something in communications.

So I ended up with a lot of

credits and had three majors.

Your first job or one of your first

jobs out of school was as a TV reporter?

This is correct. I was not looking

for a job as a television reporter.

I wanted to do something with

my production degree since my

degree was in television production,

but that's the job they had available.

And I wanted to work in New York

and live in New York and I said,

"That's what I'm going to do.

" So there I was with a camera

and a cameraman and doing

stories in Spanish for a

Spanish television network.

Wow. How long did you do that job?

I think I did that for a couple,

maybe two years, a year and a half,

and then I met Mayor Dinkins.

I'm not an on - camera.

I always end up doing things

on camera or media related,

but I didn't see myself

as an on - camera person.

I also was in New York at a

time when there were riots.

There were riots in California.

There was a lot of racial unrest.

And the message that David Dinkins

brought to the city at the time was

something that I really resonated

with because he spoke of New York as

a gorgeous mosaic. He didn't

describe it as a melting pot.

His vision of New York was a place

where you bring in your little

piece and your color and what you

bring from you, where you come from,

and all of them together make New York

and make New York the great place that it

is. It's the way I've always felt

about our country, the United States.

That's the vision that I had.

And so I resonated with

him and he invited me to

join his press office. I

was very happy to oblige.

How long did you work with Mayor Dinkins?

So when I went to work with Mayor

Dinkins, he was not mayor yet,

so it was an exciting time to join. He

was a borough president at the time,

a group of young people

and people of all ages.

I kind of received a lot of

education from this group of people.

I think of them as my

first family in New York,

a family outside of my family

that embraced me and took

me in and educated me in

a lot of things.

And so I grew with that group and

eventually after the campaign,

we moved into City Hall.

That's amazing to have been able to

step into New York and have that be the

group that you became a part of. That

must have been incredibly formative.

So I worked with him for about seven

years, maybe eight. I have to tell you,

it was the best. I say that

about a couple, maybe two

or three jobs, but I mean,

I was in my 20s. My job was to,

I was part of what they

call the advance group.

So a group of people get to

anywhere where the mayor is

going,

you get there in advance of

him in maybe an hour before he

does. And so you know what's happening

in the room, where he's going to come in,

you know who is there. If there's press,

you find out what they want to know about,

you find out the answer to what they

wanted to know. When he gets there,

you sit with him and you tell him,

"Hey, when you come in this room,

this is who's going to be there." And

if there are members of the press,

you tell him what they want to know about.

And if he wants to know more,

you tell him who knows more

and you provide him with

all the information so that

when he goes in the room, he is able

to provide all this information.

And so I shadowed him. I was able

to go to all the Grammy Awards.

I flew helicopters every day.

I was in all the tennis games.

It was the greatest job for

a 24-year-old. I was like,

"How am I going to ever beat that?

" Right. How did you transition

from that, which sounds amazing,

to what led you to law school?

Part of my job was to write

speeches for the mayor,

anything that had to do

with the Latino community.

And there were other areas that I

would write. I chose to do housing,

things that I was

interested in at the time.

I felt like every time that I had a

question, I had to check with an attorney.

I also felt like the education that I

was coming with from Puerto Rico in terms

of constitutional issues or there

were so many areas that I though,

where could I learn these things?

And it fit in with going to law school.

And I mentioned it to Mayor Dinkins.

I remember it was today we

were flying over Boston Harbor

with the mayor of Boston,

I think, or a senator.

And there was another person in the

airplane. And I said, "I think Mr. Mayor,

I've been thinking about going to law

school." And forget it. It was his

campaign.

Because he had met my parents and

he had said he and his wife, Joyce,

they were going to take care of

me and he would not stop. He said,

"Anabel's going to law school.".

Once you manifested it,

there was no turning back.

The cat's out of the bag. And

so it was hard to leave the job,

but I knew it was the right thing to do.

I knew that he wasn't

going to be mayor forever.

I wish he was mayor

for longer than he was.

Then after that came Mayor Giuliani,

but I think I did the right thing and

I think that they knew it was the right

thing for me.

Well, did you practice in New York

or where did you go to law school?

So I went to Brooklyn Law School and I

took the New York bar and the New Jersey

bar at the same time because

you could do that at that time.

So you would take the bar in New York,

which it's an experience. I mean,

there's ambulances waiting outside at

the Jacob Javit Center because so many

people pass out.

I took the bar in New York and then

take the multiple state the next

day. And then you cross the river

and take the test the next day.

So they would schedule them that way.

And I remember my hair was

falling like flying around.

My brother drove me to the second test

and he's like, "What's wrong?" I said,

"What do you mean what's wrong? I

just took two bar exams back to back.

I couldn't fail it.

" That's what I was saying at the event.

I could not fail it because I wouldn't

have had the money to pay

my rent. So I was like,

"I have to pass one of these

two tests, but I passed both.

Not everybody can say that, passing the

New York bar on the first try, right?

So that was in 96.

So I became an attorney in 96

in New Jersey in 97 in New York.

And I did practice until my son was born.

I started doing PI in New York

with a firm Finkelstein & Partners.

He's still somebody that I talk

to every so often, Finkelstein.

How did you come to

relocate to North Carolina?

Your profession usually

has to do with also life,

things that happen in life

with my father passed away.

My mother was really sad.

I decided to go to Puerto Rico and

I wanted to spend a couple

of months in Puerto Rico,

but then I ended up spending six years

and becoming an attorney in Puerto Rico.

Then my ex - husband's

job was affected by the

construction crash of 94, 95.

And he wasn't finding any more work

in Puerto Rico because when the

economy hits the United States, it

hits Puerto Rico 10 times worse.

He had done everything he could

do there and his family is here in

North Carolina. So that was 2010.

One of the places I applied

to was James Scott Farrin.

So I came to my interview at James

Scott Farrin from Puerto Rico.

Oh, wow.

You started with James Scott

Farrin then in 2010 as PI attorney,

but you got quickly

involved with the community,

particularly the Hispanic-Latino

community serving as the mayor of

Durham, founding member of the mayor

of Durham's Hispanic-Latino Committee,

a member of Governor Roy Cooper's Hispanic

Latino Council on the board of Centro

Hispano,

and of course as part of NCAJ's

Hispanic Latino Legal Issues

Division and the DEI

committee. When you got here,

you had a full-time job, I guess,

raising kids and being a PI attorney.

What drove your engagement

in the community groups?

I think whenever you've had

to work really hard and you

had a hard time doing something,

because it was not easy to go from

not speaking English to then being

an attorney passing the bar in

four different states. I mean,

it wasn't easy where it's a struggle.

First you learn the language and

then everything else that happens and

financial struggles and whatever happens,

I think that then you grow a heart towards

people that you see are going through

the same thing.

That's another thing that I mentioned

when I was doing the award ceremony that I

used to grab the kids on Saturday mornings

and go to a church and teach English

as a second language.

That was the first thing we did because

I felt like we've been able to learn

these things.

And the people that were taking

the ESL classes who had just

arrived to the United States,

they didn't even know how

to say spoon or fork or

left or right. And the kids and I

would get there early and we would

make streets with whatever we could find.

And we would teach them

how to give directions,

how to order food at a restaurant,

how to count money and

how to get in the bus,

how to follow the bus route because people

who were coming to these classes had

never encountered any of that. They were

in refugee camps and things like that.

So that's how we began.

And then I became more involved

meeting people in the community.

The mayor asked me for help

and I said, "Let's do it.

Let's write some bylaws and create this

group and people can come here and look

for help.".

That was a time when the mayor was just

forming his Hispanic Latino committee.

A lot was changing about North

Carolina around that time.

And I guess a lot has, I mean,

certainly a lot has changed.

We have the Hispanic Latino population

in North Carolina just continues to grow

through the years.

What were the biggest sort of things

that you guys focused on when you started

this group and how has it changed

now? I mean, obviously there's a lot.

Yeah.

I think that we see a lot of positive

and also at the federal level,

a lot of negative and how do we continue?

How do we get up in the morning and

get out of bed with a sense of let's

continue growing and

let's continue hoping.

But I think that's what happens

once you get older and you've

been through so many of these changes,

you realize you can't stop because

things will get better at some

point. So at the point when I

became involved with the mayor,

it was Mayor Bill Bell and he

had a project to work on the

track,

I think it was track one of

the city of Durham had a great

need in this particular community.

And whenever they had meetings,

no one was showing up

from the Latino community,

even though there were a large portion

of the Latino community. Something that I

observed and I went up to him during

one of the meetings and I said,

"I don't live in this part of town,

but we need to get people who live here

to come out to these meetings." And I

had some suggestions because

at the time of the meeting,

it can be our communities working

all day and sometimes all night.

But if you hold a meeting

during working hours,

they're not going to come there

and they're at their jobs. Also,

a very high police presence.

Maybe some of these folks are

not documented. They might think,

"What is this about? " And then

some maybe meetings beforehand,

going to their houses and saying,

"This is what these meetings are about.

" So I had those suggestions and he said,

"I have though about all of

that myself. How do we do it?

" And so he put me in touch with his

people and then all of us together

figured let's create a group where

people feel comfortable coming to,

that there's going to be people like them,

that they're going to

understand the issues,

or maybe that they can be the bridge.

Maybe they can come to us and we can come

to the meeting. I mean, it took

us a good three years, maybe more,

but we did it.

I've lived in North Carolina all my life

except for a couple of years I spent in

Texas in the early 2000s.

Obviously a huge Hispanic

Latino population in Texas,

and so I became more

familiar with the community.

And then I came back to North Carolina,

I think in 2004 to seem

like that the influence,

I don't know if the population had

expanded or if the cultural influence of

Hispanic Latinos in the

community had grown,

but it seemed like there was a greater

voice or a greater opportunity for people

to have a voice in some of these

things. Whereas when I was growing up,

I'm sure there were plenty

of Hispanic Latinos,

but their representation was

not in leadership groups and in

community groups was not what

I understand it to be now.

That's changed a lot since

you've been here, right?

Yeah,

I think both the community has

grown and representation has grown.

I think people have come from the north.

They have come from even

Puerto Ricans when I came here,

I didn't hear. But when Maria

happened, the big hurricane,

a lot of people came up and they

came to North Carolina as well.

So there's been a lot of growth.

I was also saying at the award

how I actually cried tears

because at the NCAJ,

Hispanic Latino group,

there was maybe, I know in the

executive group, I was the 1%.

And then the next year after

being one, then there was 4%.

And then the next year and then this year,

the reason why I was actually crying was

because the door kept opening and more

and more attorneys were coming in

and young lawyers were coming in.

The things they were saying during the

meeting, I was sitting there thinking,

"This was my dream.

This was what I envisioned." And to see it

happen and to see that

they're taking up issues,

they're actually right now

they're engaged in trying to get

members of the Latino community

not to use notarios that announce

themselves as attorneys.

They've taken off this issue because

these people are running away with

thousands and thousands of dollars and

then they disappear. They're not lawyers.

So to see the young lawyers that

have taken up the leadership

positions within NCAJ and seeing

them do these great things,

to me, I was sitting there thinking, wow,

I'm just excited to

continue working with them.

I think I was in a meeting earlier

this week with Julie Dambrow,

our sections divisions person,

and she's saying that there's 300

members or so of the Hispanic Latino.

Do you know how long the

HLD has existed at NCA?

It was here when I joined in 2011.

Okay.

Yeah, right after I came into JSF,

I took James Kallen,

I became member and I have been

very happy about it every year.

I look forward to convention

every year. I learned so much.

I learned so much about the PI part of the

convention and just making

friends, people who support you,

people who answer questions.

And even the division has

a commitment to get suited.

They're very active in going to all the

different law schools and talking to

people. Is there any way that we can help

you? Is there something that you need?

Is there any information that we

can provide? Join NCAJ early on.

Because if you don't come from a

family like my mom was a social worker,

my dad was a teacher,

and how would I become involved in a real

meaningful way unless I

made some friendships?

And I found that at NCAJ.

You made a lot of friends at NCAJ,

not just in the Hispanic-Latino

division, but across the board.

And you have been a tremendous voice

for helping leadership navigate the very

unusual time that we are in right now.

You talked about the issue of notarios

and helping lawyers understand how to

help their clients and avoid those things.

What are the other challenges that

are most pressing for Hispanic Latino

division lawyers who serve this community?

Right now, everybody's living in

fear. The members of the community,

regardless of whether

they have status or not,

I mean legal status or

documentation or whether

they're in process,

there's just fear because a lot of

people live in mixed families where

somebody is in process and somebody

is a citizen or the reality

is you could be in a family

where there's every kind.

And so to live under those

conditions where your family could be

divided and where you don't

know what tomorrow looks

like, we have clients who

don't want to show up in court.

Regardless of their status,

they don't want to show up.

And the fear of driving,

fear of going to school,

it's to that level.

And it's real for what we have

witnessed at some of the work that

I do is one of my biggest clients

who keeps me very busy is El Centro

Espano.

And so they are deep in the mix.

The community comes to them and they

know of everything that is going on.

A lot of the people who

were detained were citizens

or in process.

And so people are scared and that

makes our job more difficult.

If we have a client who does

not want to come to court,

there are ways about that,

but that's not the way we

envision the justice system to

work. I am because I'm

in the diversity group,

I am still remaining and I

come to all the meetings.

I feel like I don't know if this

is okay, but I call them my kids.

I have to see what my children are

doing and help in whatever way.

Are you on the executive committee for

HLD again this time as you have been?

Because I'm in the diversity group,

I am still remaining and I

come to all the meetings.

I feel like I don't know if this

is okay, but I call them my kids.

I have to see what my children are

doing and help in whatever way.

Right. What do you expect that

they'll be taking on? I mean,

obviously there's a huge need for

information and communication about this

situation.

Obviously everyone knows that there

is something to be fearful of,

but understanding how that

impacts individuals as clients

is something that the HLD is uniquely

positioned to help with, right?

Yeah.

So the attorneys in the group

have been very active in

informing the community

about their rights,

always within legal boundaries.

This is what the law is. This

is what you can do. This is,

for example, for PI, which

is what I do the best.

You can have an accident even

if you are just visiting.

If you're here just for a visit

and you're a victim of an accident,

you have a right to pursue that.

Part of my job is informing people

that you can have a PI case,

that you can have a personal injury

case regardless of your status,

that it is not something

that should prevent you,

that it's not something that

should even come up during a trial.

A lot of our job is to

inform people of what their

rights are, if they're detained,

if they are just stopped

for a traffic stop. The

organization that I work with helps

people prepare their documents

in case that there's any

reason, not just being detained,

but if they fall ill,

they can prepare documents

that could be ready for any

eventuality they have the right to have

because they can continue owing a home.

They can continue owning

a house, owning a home.

And so part of what everyone is doing

is informing people and helping them

with all of those issues.

I guess I'd like to wrap up with just

some reflections from you on what it was

like to be honored with the

Annie Brown Kennedy Award.

What did you think and feel when Courtney

let you know that you were going to

receive the award?

Part of me said, "Well, I'm just

doing what I'm supposed to do.

" And then to be mentioned with

the names of previous recipients

was, "Whoa,

that's incredible." And then

the third thing was I feel so

good that the work that we're

doing is noticed and also that NCAJ

is choosing to showcase,

to show that there is this

situation in the community

that is something that we should all know

about and find out how we could help.

That felt like I said during

my speech, fraternity,

not fear. And I was

repeating Pope Leo's words.

Thank you so much for all that you do do,

even if you know it's what

you're supposed to do.

Not everybody does what

they're supposed to do.

So thank you and congratulations again

and thanks for being on the podcast.

And thanks to everyone for listening.

If you'd like to learn more about NCAJ

and all of our sections and divisions,

including Hispanic Latino

Legal Issues Division,

go to ncaj.com/join.

Thank you for joining us on

this episode of Voices of NCAJ.

For more information on the North Carolina

Advocates for Justice and how to join

or support NCAJ,

please visit our website at www.ncaj.com.