Y. Esther Sánchez Vigil decided to make a significant career change after she was passed over for a promotion at the Social Security Administration office on the south side of Fort Worth.
Married with four children, she and her husband Emeterio Vigil Jr., a Fort Worth fireman, agreed that she would quit work in her 30s and enter law school. They tightened the family’s financial belt for the next three years, risking financial loss or gain. But she was a risk-taker most of her life.
Since her childhood, Vigil said, she had a calling to help the vulnerable, especially Latinos and Latinas who faced cultural and linguistic challenges to access services, to overcome racist practices, and to find justice in court. For example, she said, in a car accident, the monolingual, English-speaking police officer will more likely believe the English-speaking driver’s account over the non-English-speaking driver’s testimony…