{"id":18565,"date":"2022-07-06T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/?p=18565"},"modified":"2022-07-06T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:17:14","slug":"traduciendo-esperanza-translating-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2022\/07\/06\/traduciendo-esperanza-translating-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Traduciendo Esperanza: Translating Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Gloria Contreras Edin ’05 has been a Mitchell Hamline trustee since 2019.<\/p><\/div>\n

For attorney Gloria Contreras Edin \u201905, it\u2019s not enough to practice law. It\u2019s her practice in life to give people hope \u2013 something that shines from a dark place where she had little hope of her own.<\/p>\n

Contreras Edin\u2019s goal as a child was to survive. Born and raised in an unsafe part of east Los Angeles, she lived in an abusive household. \u201cI felt trapped in an unhealthy environment that instilled fear and insecurity,\u201d she said. She left home at 15 because being homeless, couch hopping, and sleeping in cars were better options than living in that house.<\/p>\n

Contreras Edin was always hungry and by age 17, was a pregnant high school dropout. But she caught her first glimpse of hope around Thanksgiving that year. \u201cA random woman gave me a bag of groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more than just food to me; she gave me a bag full of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after her son was born, Contreras Edin found an apartment where she could live and work, showing and renting apartments to college students – with a baby on her hip. \u201cI thought, if they could go to college, so could I.\u201d It took a while, but she eventually completed her high school credits and bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n

Contreras Edin met and married her husband during college and moved to rural Minnesota after graduation for his new job. They were surprised to find a lot of Hispanics in the community, and she was content to live a simple life in the country. But that changed when she found work providing English-to-Spanish translation for courts and lawyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw firsthand how their fate depended on what was being translated,\u201d she said. \u201cWithout proper translation, or any translation at all for that matter, the outcome was grim if not hopeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that point forward, I wanted to do more for this specific group of people \u2013 my people \u2013 so they too could understand and experience what justice and the pursuit of happiness truly is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mitchell<\/a>

This article first appeared in the Spring 2022 issue of Mitchell Hamline Law magazine.<\/p><\/div>\n

Contreras Edin applied for and won a Bush Foundation scholarship, which she used to attend Hamline Law. There, she was inspired by Professor Howard Vogel. \u201cHe constantly reminded his students to be true to our ourselves and our values,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t enough to call ourselves lawyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat forced me to go deep within before I went out. And when I did, my vision became crystal clear and things moved quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

After law school, Contreras-Edin was executive director of the non-profit law firm Centro Legal. After three years, she decided to start her own firm at her kitchen counter. Fourteen years later, Contreras & Metelska<\/a> has served thousands of clients from over 25 countries on a wide range of immigration issues, committed to helping families stay together in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Contreras Edin also serves as a Mitchell Hamline trustee; volunteers with the food shelf Neighbors Inc.; and has been a judge for the Metropolitan Economic Development Agency\u2019s Million Dollar Challenge, which awards $1 million every six months to local BIPOC startups.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt brings me so much joy to see someone\u2019s face light when we hand them a check to start their own business,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat it represents is an entire community\u2019s high hopes for their success.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s their American Dream coming true.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For attorney Gloria Contreras Edin \u201905, it\u2019s not enough to practice law. It\u2019s her practice in life to give people hope \u2013 something that shines from a dark place where she had little hope of her own. Contreras Edin\u2019s goal as a child was to survive. Born and raised in an unsafe part of east … <\/p>\n

Traduciendo Esperanza: Translating Hope<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5668,"featured_media":18567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3,5],"tags":[28,442,457,458,34,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-18565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-alumni","8":"category-features","9":"category-news","10":"tag-alumni","11":"tag-board-of-trustees","12":"tag-gloria-contreras-edin","13":"tag-howard-vogel","14":"tag-immigration-law","15":"tag-trustees","16":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}