UW and the community

February 15, 2011

Celebration of Alena Suazos life to be held Feb. 16 at UW School of Law

Alena Suazo, who graduated from the UW School of Law in June, will be remembered in a memorial service at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16,  in William H. Gates Hall.

Suazo had been traveling on a Bonderman Fellowship when she contracted an illness and died in Guatemala on Feb. 9. Suazo was two days short of her 31^st birthday.

She had planned to become a public defender, mainly because shed been on the other side of the table and knew what it looks like. She wanted to help people who had felt as powerless and troubled as she had.

For seven years as a teenager in Camarillo, Calif., Suazo belonged to a street gang. Drugs, alcohol and petty crime were routine parts of her life. She also served time in jail after a theft conviction.

Her parents eventually decided Camarillo was the wrong place to be. They moved to Billings, Mont., and after Suazo went with them she decided she didnt want to be ashamed of her background on the streets – so she headed to college.

In an interview with University Week last June, Suazo said that when she first thought about law school, she didnt even know a lawyer and certainly didnt know what law school would be like. “I just knew,” she said, “that a person could do so much with a law degree. I believed I could use it to make positive change.”

And by Suazos own admission, her first days at UW School of Law were a shock. Things like middle-class paychecks simply hadnt been part of her world. She recalled, “I felt like an imposter.”

But then determination kicked in. Suazo eventually served on the UW Law School Diversity Committee and co-chaired the Latina/o Law Students Association. She worked in UW Student Legal Services and the Tribal Law Defense Clinic.

As a Bonderman fellow, Suazo received $20,000 for approximately nine months of independent travel. She had been exploring cultures that had been colonized, aiming to learn how they regained independence.

Suazo often gestured with her hands. Pointing toward herself, she once said, “Ive been fortunate — or unfortunate —  to have had the experience of having to have a public defender.”

Suazo wanted to help others who found themselves in similar need. Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large also wrote a column remembering Suazo.