4.3 How did Carlos get to where he is today?
Whitney Chappell and Carlos Ruvalcaba
How did Carlos come to own his own immigration law firm? In this video, he tells us about his studies and career trajectory.
Transcript: “I was 14 when I got to the United States, and I enrolled in high school. I, uh, I didn’t speak a word of English and so, of course, I was in the ESL program. And it wasn’t a really good experience for me. Sadly, my ESL teacher wasn’t very helpful, and I really wanted to get out of that program as soon as possible, so I did. After a year, I managed to get out of the program, and by the end of high school, I was already taking AP classes in English, which is, uh, really cool, I think. Uh, after that, I went to UTSA. At first I wanted to study engineering, then I decided that it wasn’t–it wasn’t what I was interested in, so I switched to Spanish. Uh, I thought it was going to be easy and also I also studied Psychology because I thought it was going to be interesting. After that, or during my undergraduate years, I also volunteered at local law firms, local immigration non-profits, where I did a lot of paralegal work, representing individuals who were seeking asylum, victims of human trafficking, family-based attorneys, I drafted a lot of declarations, I met with a lot of clients, uh, and that was a very eye-opening experience for me. Um, I then decided to go to law school, and after law school and passing the bar exam, I worked for two years in South Texas at ProBar. There I represented a lot of, uh, unaccompanied minors, mostly from South America, although from other countries, but mostly from South America. That job was really, really challenging, really rewarding but really challenging, because, you know, I represented a lot of victims of rape, incest, human trafficking… So I did that for two years, and so I kind of wanted to take a break from that, so I went to work for an immigra–for a law firm that handles, that represents cities, so I was a city attorney for about six cities in South Texas. I did that for two years and, and then right at the beginning of the pandemic, I got laid off, and thankfully, I got laid off because then I decided to open up my own law firm because I wanted to be my own boss, and I wanted to represent cases my way, and, um, the law firm has been open for almost four years, and it’s been really challenging. My husband and I started together, working out of our apartment during the pandemic. We didn’t have an office, and now we have over 20 employees. We’re really proud of the work that we’re doing–I know that we’re doing a lot of impactful work for the community, and I’m just really proud of where we are.”
Many students think about their future as a straight path from college to their forever career, but Carlos’s success story demonstrates that there are often many twists and turns in the road as we work toward our dream job. He moved, he changed the type of law he practiced, he started over from scratch, but ultimately he went from working at a kitchen table to having a large team at his own law firm just a few years later. I hope this serves as inspiration for the students reading this book–sometimes the darkest of times turn into moments of rebirth, an opportunity to find a new and better path.
