It’s official. Daughter of California farmworkers makes U.S. District Court history

Ana Isabela de Alba – the 42-year-old daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers who grew up in South Dos Palos using a sleeping bag until she was 15 – became the first Latina judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on Friday afternoon.

Accompanied by her mother, Ana Celia de Alba, and about three dozen relatives and supporters, the Fresno County Superior Court judge took the oath of office from U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd less than six months after being nominated for the post by President Joe Biden.

In a 7-minute ceremony, de Alba was sworn in to her new post.

“We’re so happy to have you as a colleague. We just couldn’t be prouder and more happy about her coming to this court and agreeing to serve with us,” Drozd told de Alba before swearing her in.

Becoming a trailblazer isn’t lost on de Alba.

“It’s been absolutely huge because you have an entire generation of people who think I don’t belong there,” she said.

Growing up, she didn’t have the luxury of counselors who believed in her desire to go into law or who could help her with the college application process.

“I felt very lonely,” said de Alba, who absorbed the necessary information by spending time with a friend whose parents were lawyers.

She then had her mother demand that she be given a chance to take junior college courses while in high school to improve her chances of going to college.

“It’s all about confidence. It’s all about being able to put your best foot forward,” said de Alba. “It doesn’t matter that you’re the first because you can still do it. You don’t need the five generations behind you to get to that point.”

Her humble background was brought up at the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting by Sen. Alex Padilla.

“Judge de Alba watched her mother and grandmother struggle with unfair treatment, as they worked together in some of the hardest jobs in the world,” said Padilla. “She decided that one day, she would become a lawyer to help families like her own.”

Padilla, who noted that de Alba established a workers’ rights clinic for low wage workers, called her “dedicated, fair and universally respected by her colleagues.”

“She will bring a deep knowledge of the Central Valley, and a passion for equal justice informed by her own family’s story,” said Padilla.

A fight for education

De Alba, speaking during an interview on July 6, noted her mother’s determination in making sure her only daughter thrived.

“I literally had to take my mother in sometimes when I was 16 and say, ‘I want her to take college classes’ because my school didn’t have advanced placement classes and I wanted to go to Harvard,” said de Alba.

The school discouraged her from taking those classes, saying the classes would be too hard and she would get discouraged.

“That was a little frustrating,” she said.

Her mother also ended de Alba’s days of working in the fields.

“I worked in the fields with my mom until about the fourth grade,” said de Alba, who by then was starting to get improper comments from male field workers.

Her mother said, “You’re not going to work here because you’re too little. I don’t want you exposed to that.”

De Alba kept working, but not in the fields. She put her reading and English skills to work as a paid tutor. In high school, she worked for an insurance company across from the high school before getting a job at the hospital her final two years.

Ana Celia also went to bat for her daughter when she wanted to go to UC Berkeley.

“My father was like, ‘Where are you going? You don’t need to go. You need to stay here and get married,’” said de Alba. “My mom was like, ‘OK, you have the brains for it. You got in. Do it. My mom was a great support.”

Ana Celia remembers when her daughter got poor marks in penmanship in the third grade.

“She spent her entire vacation alone, writing, writing, writing until she learned it well,” said her mother.

Ana Celia encouraged parents to “have faith in their children because they can if you teach them that they can.”

Deciding to go into law

De Alba’s idea of becoming a lawyer came when she was 6 years old and accompanying her mother and grandmother while they were picking tomatoes and getting paid by the bucket.

“My job was basically to go get the water so they wouldn’t have to stop there in the middle of the row,” said de Alba.

One day, she complained the water was dirty.

“The mayordomo (foreman) made an example of me. He said, ‘Oh well, if we’re all going to complain, we might as well call the media!’”

De Alba got upset. “I didn’t do anything wrong. This guy is not letting us have drinking water. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

That evening while recounting the experience to Fernando, the oldest of her three brothers, he responded, “Well, you’re pretty mouthy, so you should become a lawyer.”

“What’s a lawyer do?” she asked.

“They fight for people’s rights with their words. They argue all day.”

“Oh, sounds like a dream job for me.”

That sparked her career choice.

“My mom is very strong-willed. She’s very intelligent; one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” said de Alba of her mother who only got a second-grade education in Jalisco, México.”

Her mother, she said, is that there is no crying allowed.

“With my mother, we were never told to back down, be quiet. But we weren’t braggy,” said de Alba. “We certainly didn’t shy away from acknowledging that something was wrong and they try to stand up for people if we could stand up for them.”

Filling a big need on the court

De Alba will be busy trying to shore up what is the busiest U.S. District Court in the country. Judges carry twice the workload of the average judge in the nation.

“That court has been overworked and understaffed for decades really, because they don’t have enough judges and they have too many cases,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. “And, Congress has not had a comprehensive judgeship bill in 32 years.”

De Alba looks forward to the challenge.

“I love to work hard. It’s part of my DNA,” said de Alba.

Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 8 de julio de 2022, 1:22 p. m..