A JOURNEY TO EMPOWERMENT

Lawyer gives immigrants the chance that was given to her

By Jessica Estrada

Iknock on Yunuen Mora’s door. As she lets me in, I see her laptop open, a thick case file, notebooks, and books sprawled across her table. Anyone would think this is a bit of a chaotic mess, but as I talk to her, I realize this is the research and her hard work to determine a decision for one of her clients.

As we say our hellos, I get the tour around her new home. Yunuen and I went to high school together in Chula Vista, California but did not run in the same circle. We vaguely remember one another but did connect recently after a friend’s tragic death. As small of a world as this Earth is, our daughters are now in the same elementary class, and we are new neighbors in the same condominium community.

Yunuen is a lawyer in San Diego, California and her focus is on immigration law. Yunuen said that she was an immigrant herself and was intrigued by her own historical experience. Her father came to the United States from Tijuana, Mexico and brought his family along when she was in 7th grade.

As a young 12-year-old whose life was interrupted for ultimately a better life, she is thankful that her parents made the decision and was always curious about how the process happened.

“As a child, I never really knew the history or reasoning of how we came to the United States. It just kind of happened.”

Yunuen’s father became a citizen through the Bracero program, which allowed Mexican workers to fill seasonal jobs on U.S. farms. Since her father was a citizen, as she explained, and since she and her siblings were underage, they could also become citizens of the United States under the family-based immigration law.

Yunuen said that her father would cross the border to work occasionally and cross back to Tijuana to build his medical practice. He finally decided that he wanted to establish a better life for his family in the United States. When I asked Yunuen what her father thinks of her career choice, she mentions that she imagines he is proud since he refers clients to her.

After high school, Yunuen went to University of California, Berkeley, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree both in psychology and sociology. While attending the university, she immersed herself in a course in which that introduced her to law. In one of her courses, she had a project in which they engaged with the immigrants in the fields in Salinas, California.

Yunuen worked with the agricultural employees and translated brochures for those employees from English to Spanish. She explained that she would see throngs of immigrants arriving in the fields.

“They would all live in these little huts or houses on the fields, all bunched up. Someone would fly over the fields at night and spray pesticides, and the effects that they would have on these people were so harmful. Some ended up with cancer, and others had babies with missing limbs. It was horrible to see and none of them dared to speak up because they were all scared,” said Yunuen.