This interview continues my Soy/Somos conversations with Latinos in the US. This is who I am/This is who we are. If you’d like to receive future Soy/Somos posts, please contact me here.
Natalia Marte
I met Natalia Marte on-line at the end of her long workday. Her warmth, her candor, cut right through the display on my screen. Here was this vital, young Latina attorney raised in inner city neighborhoods.
Natalia today is an attorney with the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court. She is a graduate of Roger Williams University and completed a Master in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Natalia earned her law degree at the University at Buffalo and is currently working towards a PhD in Sociology.
Can we start with your childhood, Natalia? What was it like?
There was my older brother, my mom, and me. I grew up in Crown Heights in Brooklyn; my mother, a single mom. Dominicana. My mom was very strict but also open minded. She let me to go to my friends in the neighborhood for some hours after school. Once the streetlights came on, I knew it was time to come home.
Now I know that my mother struggled financially. We would almost always eat rice and beans and meat. I’d tell her I want something else to eat, and she—Caribbean parents are strict—would say, eso es lo único que hay. It was easier for her who worked all day to cook a lot of food at one time and serve it throughout the week.
My mom’s main thing was, "don’t get pregnant," and "make sure you go to college." My mom didn’t fully understand the benefits of college, but she did see it as a path to living a purposeful and comfortable life.
When I was in middle school, we moved to Rhode Island. It wasn’t until the Met high school in Providence that I had more people in my life who steered me in new directions.
Natalia, I want to acknowledge here that you and I were introduced by my son who is Principal at the Met high school that you attended as a teenager. You are an esteemed alumna.
The Making of an Activist
Reading your resume, I see that you are involved on boards and committees for a number of groups--National Bar, young lawyers, women attorneys, women of color committees—and you are a practicing attorney. To what do you owe your push to accomplish?
When I went to college, I studied sociology and mental health. This is when things came together for me about the environment I was raised in and that I wanted to reinvest in my community. I had family members who went to jail, friends who went to jail. Taking courses in these subjects helped me grasp the societal and individual factors that create and foster the "hood." I decided to pursue a Masters, to change the conversation about what our communities need.
On the website for John Jay College in New York I saw an informative video about a woman who has now been my mentor for ten years. She had curly hair. Honest to God, it was the first time I saw a Latina as a professor. When I moved to New York and began my grad studies, I applied for a position in her department. Her name is Jodie Roure. She is an attorney and is also a PhD. She is one of the reasons I am going for my PhD.
Was the experience of knowing people in jail the catalyst for where you are today?
Definitely—and the deciding factor for me was when Michael Brown was killed by the police in St. Louis in 2014. A black man. Murdered. Large cities like NYC, DC, and LA erupted in protests. I went to the protests by myself, that’s how passionate I was about it.
Growing up in Brooklyn when I was 7 and 8, I saw police officers beating up people and arresting them--knowing that it was consistently done with my community. I remember reading all the facts about Michael Brown, arguing with people, debating. I started getting into grass roots organizing. I realized we would have to do something about the legal system. That’s when I knew I had to become an attorney, a people's attorney.
How did you reach out to this person who became your mentor?
Natalia on my screen
She was looking for a work study assistant. I was broke in New York City. I’d come with about $200, found an apartment on Craig’s List and did my thing.
The interview with her was not a normal interview. She wanted to know me as a person. No one before had taken the time to know me, besides my advisor Tracy in high school who was also amazing.
In the interview Jodie asked why I’d moved from Rhode Island to New York. I said I felt I needed opportunities. I was 19 and had moved by myself to figure things out.
She rephrased what I’d said: “You left your home where you were living rent free to live in a guy’s apartment you found on Craig’s List to make some changes in your community….”
I was speechless. That did sound kind of badass….
She helped me recognize things about myself. When applying to law school, I’d be sitting with her at her office, 9 and 10 p.m., while she helped me refine my statements for law school. She has kids and a husband!
Due to her advocacy, I was admitted to the Rising Scholars for Justice program, a law school prep program for underrepresented students.
Natalia, many of the people I’ve interviewed have spoken about a mentor—someone who has really seen them. They speak about a person who recognized who they were. And this has made all the difference.
Work Life
Can you give me a sense of your day to day at work?
I have a hectic day every single day. I will wake up very early 5:30 or 6:00 and go for a run or catch up with things I need to catch up at work. For the most part I have a typical 9 to 5. Because of all the things I am involved in I’ll have a meeting some time in the day. I try to use my lunch for that, or after 5. I am also a real estate agent on the side, so I may do a showing at 8 am or after 5.
Yesterday I was on the phone with a mentee from 7 to 9 am. She’s in her first year of law school and is having problems. She’d just received a letter and needed to go to a hearing and advocate for herself. I said, let’s put together a speech and the letter you need to write. This is what I care about. If this is what I have to do on a Saturday morning to help increase the number of Latinas in this profession by one more person, this is what I’m going to do.
Regarding your current job at the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, could you flesh out some of the issues that come up before the court?
We are an appeals court. If someone wants to appeal a decision arrived at by a jury or judge at the trial level, they will bring it to this court for an assessment and review by a panel of appellate Justices. The appellate court will decide to retry the case or agree that the trial court got it right.
We get criminal and civil cases—from rape, murder, gang activity, to people fighting about a new supermarket in the community. I will research the issues brought to the Court, laws that apply, summarize my thoughts as to which side got it right, and provide a recommendation to the Justices who are hearing the case. The Justices then discuss legal issues and facts pertaining to the case and reach their own decisions.
I believe it is important to bring outside background and secondary sources in some of the cases to help deepen the understanding of a legal issue. My background in psychology and sociology opens a window on some of these issues.
Do you see other Latinos working in your court? Are more doors opening?
Until recently I was the only Black Latina attorney in my specific court, but the Court increased its efforts to recruit diverse attorneys. I see that there is interest in diversifying the legal profession. The Court currently engages with the Northeast Region of the National Black Law Students Association to recruit talented Black and Brown future attorneys.
With other employers, too often, there is what I think is uneducated interest. There are a significant number of firms that have a diversity program. There have been times when they've reported that not one diverse law student has applied. The issue here is that there are many diversity programs and too few students of color currently in law school. To mitigate this issue, we need to start creating pipelines at the middle and high school levels and provide holistic support to students interested in becoming attorneys.
Another issue is that most of the firms have very stringent requirements. They expect the candidate to be in the top 10% of their class, on Law Review, with three internships under their belt. For the most part to place in the top 10% of your class you need to focus solely on studies. For many students of color who come from poverty or deal with other disadvantages, this is not realistic.
When I was in law school, I worked two part time jobs equaling 25-plus hours per week and still managed to get As and Bs in my first year--but I did not sleep. Employers need to understand holistically the background of the populations they are attempting to recruit.
Other Challenges
Looking ahead at the challenges facing your generation, what do you think are the most dramatic needs you will have to address?
There are of course enormous problems facing us globally. But I have to say—immediately pressing to my peers—student loans.
“I just signed the paper.” This is what I hear from so many.
When I was taking out my loan, I didn’t really understand the information. My parents had no way of instructing me. All I knew was, if I signed this paper, I’d be able to go to college this year—and that seemed okay to me.
If you went to college to get out of poverty, you are now back in poverty repaying these loans. It’s created a cycle of poverty all over again.
Representation Matters
Natalia, may I ask, how is your mom?
I miss her a lot. She’s okay. She still lives in Rhode Island. I used to go to New Jersey every summer—and plan to do that more often to visit my dad’s family. I hope to go back to the Dominican Republic end of this year to see my mom's family too.
Do you cook a la Dominicana?
I love to cook. I know you are familiar with the internship program at the Met in Rhode Island. In the first year I remember telling my mom that I wanted to find an internship as a chef. She wasn’t too happy about that. It worked out for me in the end because I’m passionate about law and social justice, and cooking now is my hobby.
What internship did you do at the Met?
One of them was at Brown University’s Somos journal, the Latino magazine on campus.
Like you said about mentors, there at Brown I met a person who became pivotal to my journey. Tracy, my high school advisor, took me for my first interview. We met, I think, a second or third-year student at Brown who was president of the magazine. She was also Dominican. As I was leaving, I told Tracy, “I want to be just like Bianca!”
It was the first time I'd seen a Latina who was Dominican, curly hair, medium skin tone, and she was in college. The only Latinas I'd seen were like my mother and my aunt who worked in factories or at the corner store, and it was good to see that we can certainly hold those spaces, but we can hold others too.
Representation matters.
And opportunity.