Raquel Aldana

Ms. Aldana was born in Guatemala and moved as an infant to El Salvador (her mother is Salvadoreña) where she spent the next eight years of her life, before returning to Guatemala. She came to the US in 1982, at the age of 10 with her nuclear family – her parents and two siblings (an older brother and a younger sister). She was fortunate to have been able to come to the U.S. with lawful permanent resident status, which her parents obtained through sponsorship from a church after her father and brother experienced persecution related to the civil wars in El Salvador and subsequently Guatemala.

Join me as I discuss with Raquel her immigrant experience and how that’s affected her life choices.

Ms. Aldana has now lived in the U.S. for twenty five years, over 2/3 of her life, but continues to have a very strong Latina and immigrant identity, although she is now a naturalized citizen.

Ms. Aldana’s work as a human rights lawyer raised her social consciousness about the dirty and civil wars in Latin America, including in her own countries.

She’s worked on high profile cases, including the assassination of Archbishop Arnulfo Romero in El Salvador and the forced disappearance of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, husband of Jennifer Harbury, in Guatemala, as well as many other massacres and disappearances of unknown victims. Through these cases, she learned how the intentional use of fear and construction of the “enemy” led entire societies to tolerate and even become complicit in gross atrocities committed against their neighbors.

She has also confronted the more direct complicity of states, corporate actors and foreign governments, particularly the U.S. in the commission of evil. All of these lessons today make her very sad to witness the repetition of all of that in our treatment of alleged terrorists in this new War on Terror.

I’ll be asking Raquel about her views on the current state of politics in the U.S. and what her studies have taught her about how we arrived at this point.

Ms. Aldana obtained her B.A. in English and Spanish from Arizona State University, graduating summa cum laude and with a Phi Beta Kappa National Scholarship Award.

She proceeded to obtain her J.D. at Harvard Law School, where she served as Articles Editor of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

She spent one of her summers during law school at the Supreme Court of Justice in Costa Rica at their Alternative Dispute Resolution Program, and another at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

After spending time as an associate at a large D.C law firm, she worked at the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in Washington, D.C. as a staff attorney where she litigated human rights cases before the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. As part of her work there, she also traveled to Latin America and the Caribbean to conduct training workshops on the Inter-American System and international human rights law or to investigate violations of human rights.

What kind of cases did Raquel work on, and what did she learn from them?

She is now a tenured Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she teaches courses on international law, human rights, immigration law, and criminal law and procedure.

Ms. Aldana was a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala City during parts of 2006 and 2007 where she taught courses, as well as conducted field research, including interviews with several prosecutors and victim representatives, on victim participation in the criminal process in Guatemala and on the criminal investigation of femicide cases.

What prevents or motivates victims to participate and how can we apply this knowledge to our own lives?

She has written multiple books and articles, including being a contributor to the book Everyday Law for Latinos. She has also done many presentations, both academic and community-centered, and organized conferences, served as lecturer, keynote speaker and moderator. Among others, Ms. Aldana has put on “Know Your Rights” workshops centered on immigration law, which she’s presented at workplaces, schools and community centers.

Learn more about Raquel’s work in the immigration field and hear what she’s gleaned from presentations she’s given.

Ms. Aldana met her husband during her Fulbright work in Guatemala and they are currently expecting their first child.