HLS 200: A Latina\u27s Story about the Bicentennial

This essay sketches an arc from my childhood to being an Harvard Law School student to my academic work and professional commitments as a law professor and an alumna of Harvard Law School, working to increase access and success in the legal and medical professions for students and faculty of color. I compare aspects of legal and medical education using demographic data as well as some observations about how diverse faculty have transformed the two professions in their respective approaches to and rationales for diversifying the professions and examine the work being done by diverse faculty in law and health. I describe a project we have developed in the UNM Health Sciences Center on cross-cultural mentoring to improve the communication and interpersonal skills of a diverse set of mentors and mentees. I return to cross-cultural mentoring as one way of weaving together insights from law and health thereby strengthening both