I can do all this
I can break away any shackle
And make mountains disappear
I can do all this
Through Christ who strengthens me
My name is Virginia Martinez and I'm an attorney
I was born and raised in Chicago
And my first memories really of Chicago are from an area just south of Chinatown
25th in Wentworth where my family lived when I was born
Chicago was and still is in some ways very segregated
And in that area there were, of course, the Chinese that were in Chinatown
One black north of where we lived
The area where the street where we lived and those blocks around it were mostly Italian
And then there was an African-American community
I went to public school and I was the youngest of six children
We stayed there until I was 12 and we had to move because the expressway went through
And when that happened, my dad decided it was time to buy a house
In renting from an Italian family
And I had noticed that the Mexicans that were in that area
And Chinatown lived in the basements or the back apartments of buildings
But except for my aunt who, my aunt and uncle hold a house in Chinatown
We were renters
And when we were forced to move
My dad had a choice of either going to Bridgeport which is where a lot of the rest of the families were moving to
Or what he chose and what we could afford was to move to Pilsen
At the very same time people were being displaced because of the University of Illinois
At what was then called Circle
Campus being built in the Maxwell Street, Roosevelt and Halsted area
Where my godparents lived and so I was very familiar with that area as well
And it was one of the most exciting places in the city
First of all it was very mixed
There were African-Americans, there were Mexicans, there were Greeks, there were Italians
St. Francis was the Mexican church in the area
And so we would go there and go visit my godparents and go to the flea market, Maxwell Street
So it was really an exciting place to be on Sunday morning with all kinds of things going on
Music, sales, deals
So people had been displaced there because of the University and they were also moving to Pilsen
At the time Pilsen was still Czech and Croatian, Bohemian, Eastern European
And slowly Mexicans started moving in
As I said my dad bought a house and we lived on 19th Street between Trupe and Lomis
I ended up going to Harrison
When I was in high school I really wanted to take a carpentry wood shop
But I was not allowed to because girls were not allowed in any of the shop classes
So I took typing and shorthand which ended up being a good thing
When I was about to graduate my typing teacher sent me to find out about a program at Loop College
Which is now Harold Washington College, one of the city colleges of Chicago
And they tested me and they said oh we'd love to have you
And I really was not planning to go to college
At Loop College I said I really want to work and they said oh yes
You go to school in the morning and then in the afternoon you find you a job in one of the offices here downtown
So yes you'll be able to work
I said great so I signed up
I had very little self esteem and confidence that I could make it
I know that one of the reasons that I didn't really have confidence that I could make it in college
Was that a teacher in high school had told our honors class that
We weren't going to be able to compete against students from the North Shore
I always tell this story because I want to make it clear that
Even though she may have been saying that to encourage us to do better
Words have an impact and those words have never left me
I felt like maybe I wasn't going to be able to compete against these people
Who I didn't even know where the North Shore was
So I didn't even know who these students were that we weren't as good as them
And I had been told, we had been told in both in high school and in elementary school
That we didn't have some of the resources that other schools have because we were inner city students
Once I got in I was fine
And I was taking again, typing in shorthand, but also core classes
So that I could earn an AA degree, associate of arts degree, which I did
And once I earned that, I started to work full time
My first full time job was at Zurich Insurance Company
And I was the secretary to one of the claims managers
I would have dictaphones, I would be listening to he and other people
Dictating letters and other documents in my ears while I was typing them
It was interesting and at the same time I was doing a lot of reading
And the Vietnam War was going on
The gangs had taken hold in Pilsen
There was a lot of violence, a lot of things going on
And I kept thinking the world is going to fall down around me
And I'm not even going to know because I'm still going to have to stick the phone in my ears
Typing what this person is telling me to type
And at some point, as I said, I started reading about the Chicano movement in the southwest
And I also had joined Olas, the organization of Latin American students
And so I became more aware of what was going on
Positive efforts, challenges to the way things were
Especially for Latinos, especially for Chicanos
I was asked by one of the attorneys who worked there
Asked if I spoke Spanish and I said yes
And he said, where do you live?
And I said, Pilsen, he said, oh, that's great
You know, I have a friend who's got an office
Reyes and Lopez, honorators Lopez and Manuel Reyes
Who had an office a few blocks away from my house, as it turned out
On 18th Street, right across the street from Marullion
So I went there and they hired me and I started working part-time
It started out just Saturdays and then sometimes I'd go in after my full-time job
And so when I decided to quit Zurich Insurance Company and applied to UIC
I kept my part-time job with Reyes and Lopez
And got to learn about the other kinds of problems
That were facing my community, not only the gangs and the violence
But also people being defrauded of their funds, their money
When I was about to graduate, honorators asked me
What are you going to do now?
And I said, I'm going to go to grad school
I'm going to become a social worker
He said, go to law school, we need bilingual attorneys
Which I knew, because through them
I had met all of the Latino attorneys in the state of Illinois
At that point, which were 15, Manuel
And also in our office was Cesar Alarque
Who was a law student at the Paul University at the time
He was just about to graduate
So my parents had moved to Texas in the meantime
When I started UIC, they had decided to move to Eagle Pass, Texas
And so I told my parents that I was planning to go to law school
And they said, my mother said, why are you going to do that?
You've gone to school enough, you know, you've got a good job
They treat you well
I said, yeah, no, I know they treat me well
But I'm on the wrong side of the desk
And I realized that there was a need for bilingual attorneys
Just seeing the kinds of problems that we're facing in our community
And actually I decided then to take the LSAT in my last year at UIC
Fortunately, I scored high enough on the LSAT
And applied to a number of law schools
I was accepted at both Northwestern and DePaul
And around the same time, I also saw a small ad in the newspaper at UIC
That talked about the Legal Opportunity Scholarship Program
For minority students who were interested in pursuing careers in law
So I applied for that
And Cesar told me, you should call Dean Taylor
If you're interested, he can help you find out more about financial aid
So I called Dean Taylor and I said, I've applied, I've been accepted
But I don't know yet what to do because I don't have any money
My parents have been retired and moved to Texas
And so I said, I don't know if I can do this
He said, send in your deposit, we'll figure it out, we'll find a way to fund you
I said, okay, with that encouragement, I sent in my deposit to DePaul
And then found out that I had gotten the Legal Opportunity Scholarship Program
And that's how I ended up going to law school
When I talk to young students, and I always do, if I'm invited
I go to schools or community organizations to talk to students
Because unlike when I was growing up
And I saw no Latino professionals, I want them to see Latinos who have made it
Who have gone to college despite challenges, despite not having any money
And who have been able to graduate and contribute to the betterment of the community
And so I tell the students that I went almost by accident
It was a plan, it wasn't my plan, but it was a plan
But I also tell them that each time when I thought I wasn't going to go to school anymore
Opportunities opened, and when those windows of opportunity open, you have to be ready
Which means that you have to have good grades
So I had been a good student all through school
In elementary school, my parents made sure that we had books, that we had time
That we did our homework
Neither one of my parents graduated from high school
So their goal was that all of their children graduate from high school
And we all did
Beyond that, they really couldn't help because they didn't have the experience
They didn't know anything about college
So when I was applying, I was kind of on my own
I ended up going to the Legal Assistance Foundation
Which also was two blocks away from my house
And I was working there when I graduated from law school
So I was hired as an attorney, and I stayed there for a year
I had two or three opportunities to go to national conferences
Where I met Vilma Martinez, who was president and general counsel of Maldiff
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
And in fact, I had the opportunity through Olas
To go to the Chicana Conference in Houston, which I believe was 1971
And that's the first time I met Vilma and also Graciela Olivares
Who also was an attorney
And I was really impressed by the two of them
And so I would always ask when Vilma would talk about
When she would talk about what Maldiff was doing in Texas and California
I would raise my hand and say, but what are you doing in the Midwest?
You fly over us to go to Washington, but we have a huge population
And we need those same kind of resources in Chicago
After I was already an attorney, she said, what are you going to do, Virginia?
We need somebody, and we have a program called the Intern-Extern Program
Where we bring in young attorneys from around the country
And then they become our contact in those areas
I ended up going to San Francisco, which was then the National Office for Maldiff
And I spent a year there meeting some of the top attorneys on voting rights, on education, on employment
And when I came back, they gave me a stipend to help me set up my own private practice
They were able to get some funding for a census project in 1979, I believe it was
And once the census project was complete, and we knew it was going to mean that we were going to look at redistricting
We received funding from several Chicago foundations
And so Maldiff opened the Chicago Regional Office, which was to cover an 11 state Midwest region
And when they did that, I became the first regional counsel
And as I said, critical time redistricting was coming up, and so that was our first case
The first major cases were the redistricting case of the state of Illinois and of the city boards
That's so important because at the time the only Latino elected officials were Judge Sarah
Who was an elected judge of the circuit court, and Irene Hernandez, who was Cook County Commissioner
And we knew that the reason we didn't have any alderman or state representatives was because of gerrymandering
As the population grew, what they, those in power would do is to cut the population
So that we never had enough in one district to elect a person of our choice
So when we opened the office and started working on that issue, we would hold press conferences
And we would meet with the community about designing a map that was more favorable to us
So that we would have an opportunity to elect people of our choice
I would testify at the City Council and at the state legislature and say, if you do this, we will sue you
If you do this again, we will sue you
They had never been sued by the Latino community, and so they were really, and we're not about, nobody was about to give up their own power
Nobody was about to give up their own district, and so they designed their maps and we challenged them
And there we were in federal court, myself and Ray Romero, who was the staff attorney who I had hired
And then we brought in the Puerto Rican legal defense fund from New York to work with us on the case
Because we were doing it on behalf of all Latinos in the city, including the Puerto Rican community, which has also been gerrymandered
But we were like kids on the block
We were young attorneys up against some of the toughest attorneys in the city
But we won
And that was, I always thought, my most significant contribution to changing things in the city of Chicago
I'm not so sure, and I'm not so sure I'm down
But it is certainly what made a name for me in the city
Latinos were finally being recognized for the power that we should have
And for the power that we did have, because we now had a way of challenging things that were being done to us
Illegal things, like gerrymandering
But I also, at the same time, during that time, realized that I didn't really like litigation
In any case, I decided I didn't want to stay there
So I left Maldives and went on to work at a number of non-profit organizations
Latino Institute
Voices for Illinois children when it first opened
And then at some point I ended up at Mujeres Latinas en Acción
I really loved my work there, and that also gave me an opportunity to go to the UN Conference on Women in 1995
That was held in Beijing, China
And two lessons that I learned in Beijing were that it's always important to have young people at the table
And to be with you as you do things
The second lesson was that there's more than one way to tell a story
In Beijing, there were all kinds of issues being raised in many, many different ways
We can never forget the people on whose shoulders we stand
Some of them are people, are families
My mother had a very hard life
She always said that about everybody else, but she herself had a very difficult life
She was put in an orphanage by my grandmother who hitchhiked with my mother and my aunt when they were children
From Waco, Texas, where my mother was born, hitchhiked to Chicago
Once here, my grandmother, it was the depression and my grandmother couldn't take care of them
So they were put in an orphanage in Indiana
Even before that, both of them had been sexually abused
So from her, I learned a lot, but part of it is strength
It is overcoming, overcoming things that happen to you in your life
I was also molested and I have forgiven and I have figured out a way to not impede me
There are always people in our lives, my dad, who is very strong and very honorable about everything
So we were poor, but he always paid the bills on time
We were never evicted from our apartments as I know other families
Suffered in those days and still now
He was a person whose word was law, his word was important, it was truth
And so I learned that from him and so I make sure I do things to honor his name, Martinez
Which I keep, the name means something to me
But there are others, the women who, before I was born, years before, have paved the way for us
Viola, Armino Ross and I were the first Latina lawyers in Illinois
I was the first one to go to court, they were not expecting to see me
I think that I have always kept in mind that goal of making things better for people in Pilsen
It has expanded to people, not only in Pilsen, but poor people in general, women, children
I no longer live in Pilsen, but I still serve when I can
I'm on board of Gats Hill Center and I go to the schools and talk to students whenever I'm asked
And participate in activities when I can
I think that there's still a lot of work to do in the city
Even though now we have Latino elected officials and we have Latinos at a lot of levels
We're still underrepresented in decision making positions
We're still underrepresented in the universities
Both in terms of the students as well as the faculty and administration
Of the universities, of the public schools, almost everywhere
One of the things that I've been doing as a volunteer is to go to Dilley, Texas
To a detention center for women and children, most of them are Central American
Women and children who are fleeing violence in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala
And they come to the US seeking asylum, which is a right under international law for them to seek it
We all know that education is key to not only an individual's growth, but to the movement of our community
And so I would like to stress the importance of education again and again and again
I can do all this
I can break away any shackle and make mountains disappear
I can do all this
Through Christ who strengthens me
