Guest Column: What Brought Me Here

The Trump Administration has waged an unprecedented, unlawful attack on the Golden State. At California DOJ, our teams of attorneys are on the front line, filing legal challenges to hold the President accountable for his lawlessness and to protect California’s people, values, and resources. This is on top of their already challenging and demanding work defending workers’ rights, advancing public safety, protecting our environment, and so, so much more. Often this means long nights and weekends, but our attorneys have risen to the challenge, tirelessly fighting for justice on behalf of all Californians. As we reflect on the last year, I asked Honors Deputy Attorney General Cindy Ventura to share a bit about her journey to the practice of law and how it feels to fight for justice here at DOJ. This is what she had to say:

I can’t walk into work without thinking about what brought me here.

I’m a first-generation Latina lawyer from Southeast Los Angeles. My parents immigrated from El Salvador. They worked in factories, in restaurant kitchens, in dishwashing jobs. Their efforts to provide our family a good, stable life were tireless. And yet, it was still hard to make ends meet. I grew up watching how easily they could be treated as expendable, how language barriers and lack of legal awareness could be used against them.

That never left me.

Now, as a Deputy Attorney General in the Worker Rights and Fair Labor Section of California DOJ, I get to use one of the most powerful tools in the country to fight for people like my parents and the millions of Californians whose work is taken for granted and exploited. In this role, I work closely with teams across the Public Rights Division to hold employers and corporations accountable when they attempt to profit off of our most vulnerable communities. I’ve also worked with our federal accountability partners to hold the Trump Administration accountable when it breaks the law.

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I’m the youngest attorney in the section. And while it can be intimidating sometimes, I’m surrounded by attorneys who are brilliant, generous, and deeply committed to justice. That sense of collective purpose is what fuels me and reminds me of home, because in Latino culture, collectivism isn’t just a value, it’s a survival strategy. We fight together. We protect each other. We advance together.

That’s not theoretical for me.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is down the street from where my parents still live. That reality — that proximity to fear and trauma — isn’t distant history. It’s ongoing and terrorizing hardworking communities. Even though my parents are U.S. citizens now, they still ask me if they should carry their passports, just in case. I think often about the fact that the time period we are in isn’t unique, and the suffering and uncertainty is just one version of what communities all around the world continue to feel today.

It’s so easy to feel helpless in moments like that. But choosing to act and choosing to be part of institutions that can stop harm is how I push back against that helplessness every day. That’s why I’m especially grateful to work for an Attorney General who leads with courage and stands up for workers, immigrants, and the values that make our communities stronger.

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I started this job right before the election and it’s been one of the greatest honors of my life. I get to wake up each day and try to make sure the people who don’t have the access, or language, or representation, or means to fight back, aren’t forgotten or dismissed.

When I think about the future, I think about the people of California who don’t get a say. Who are most often the ones impacted the hardest. I want every worker to have equal opportunity, dignity, and someone looking out for them.

This work isn’t just a career for me.

It’s the response to a childhood where I watched how power worked and who it ignored.

Working at California DOJ is my way of refusing to let that story continue unchecked.

— Cindy Ventura
Deputy Attorney General
Worker Rights and Fair Labor Section