The first week anywhere is usually a bit nerve wracking. There are all sorts of new trainings to go through, all sorts of information you need to absorb, all sorts of people you need to meet, etc. At my internship at the ACLU, I was lucky to have some familiarity because of my work here last summer, nevertheless, I still found my voice cracking a bit when responding to my mentor. Within a few hours, I realized that it had no reason to! My mentor's name is Gerrlyn and she is very kind, funny, and is doing the job that I hope to be doing at her age. She is still young, but has an amazing wisdom from her years of working as a community organizer. When Gerrlyn started telling me about the campaign I'd be working on with her, I got so excited. When I am an adult, I hope to work for a non-profit NGO dealing with criminal justice reform (meaning putting an end to mass incarceration, racial bias in the legal system, over-policing, police brutality, etc.) or immigration reform. The current focus for the ACLU is on the district attorney election and getting people to vote in favor of their smart justice campaign. The smart justice campaign is centered around the goal of decreasing the number of nation-wide incarcerated people by 50%, eliminating racial bias, and much more. It includes all of the issues that I feel most passionate about. One of the things I have helped with this week is helping to set up phone banking. Something new that the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties is doing is that they are hiring people who were previously incarcerated and giving them jobs as phone bankers for this campaign. Through this, I have been able to meet some amazing folks with stories that perfectly illustrate why we need smart justice. One of those people is in the photo above! He was sentenced life in prison due to the three strikes law. For petty theft, he spent 17 years behind bars until his case was reevaluated and he was set free. There is no logical reason that someone should be stripped of their freedom for life because of petty theft. Now that he is out, he is hoping to go to law school to make sure that this doesn't happen to others. It has been an amazing experience to witness justice work in action. I am so excited to pursue this career path as an adult!
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What is this?Hi everyone! This is my junior year blog. Here you will find weekly reflections up until the completion of my junior internship. I hope you enjoy this inside look on my learning! Archives
June 2018
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