Sarah Hooper and Benjamin Lawrence Aritao

00:01 Be there. My name is Lauren. Sorry. I'm 39 years old. It is October 31st 2020.

00:14 Imma Be A 8:41 a.m. I'm talking today with Sarah Hooper a friend of mine from California United States. We know each other we are both are no.

00:28 Sarah what are you?

00:30 Hi, I'm Sarah Hooper. I'm 37. It is October 29th in San Francisco, California, and I'm here with my friends law or who I met through a fellowship and Health Equity.

00:48 And we're both lawyers who are mucking around and Health Equity.

00:53 So let's start with where did you grow up? And what was life like

01:02 I grew up here in the Philippines in a couple of places. I was born in the national capital region where most of the business districts have freezing up and then part of my childhood was in the island where my father was born wishes or an archipelago is an island in the middle of that. My father was born and spent two years there. So it was 2 years getting to learn a little bit of the language near I feel like that instead of the Filipino language.

01:56 Back here again.

02:05 I grew up in a rural area in Northern California in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Not far from where gold was discovered in California there actually a lot of active Minds still up there people still mining for gold kind of a middle-class working-class area of California conservative religious and sort of interesting because our family was neither of those things, but it was a beautiful place to to grow up.

02:45 It sounds like we know we sort of was it kind of rural on the archipelago or what was life like out there.

02:55 So when we moved back to where Dad grew up I most definitely a change of scenery instead of a city like area. It was older provincial please houses were. It's Mom would fishes that business in the earlier days, and that's how she got all of them school and then the cast of my best memories.

03:44 They were some political unrest of the time and so it was just hard to get by and survive until we have gone back and stronger relationships. Are these wonderful memories of very little things just helping my mom still having so much more space to run to if I add to the same in the city the bread being wonderful and warm when you get it from the bake shop of edible was like, can you tell me a little bit more about that the area you can go up in some like

04:44 Grew up on opposite sides of the world, but sort of had similar experiences. I think when you grow up in those kind of rural areas it brings you closer to family and that appreciation for nature and then we spent a lot of time outside. My dad is huge fisherman. So yeah, those experiences just make family really important and and the people in the community really important. So I think that's interesting Leavells had that experience.

05:23 It was a long drive to get to anywhere from our house. So we had to be judicious.

05:34 Any food we need a door going into town for anything. If is always a an expedition or to the nearest hospital or something. It was always a thought process.

05:48 What were you like growing up law?

05:53 Describe myself as a growing up having been in two different very different places and then the language change. So in order to learn the island of Negros, so the name is hard for some.

06:29 It's I have to be careful with that. That's what I'm referring to when I say learning is also a lot of my neighbors and they made.

07:04 But then if I feel like we came back again access and little bit like that and can you describe yourself?

07:48 Throwing up

07:50 I was a nerd I I really loved reading and so we would go on a road trip and I my brother would be jumping out of the car to go, you know hike or something and I would be with a book in the back seat of the car wanting to stay there. So yeah, I mean, I think it it sounds like you had a really hard time connecting with people because of the language barriers. Did you do did you feel like you were an outside or a little bit?

08:27 Yeah, a little bit more changing schools and then being the new person through years of fire. So lunchbox Journey where you don't have anywhere to stay if you have your food with you and you're looking for where you belong and yes, I definitely found some wonderful friendships that Tuesday at the initial awkwardness of

09:05 Actually connecting with people and then the joy of finding out that if you can't have that connection.

09:12 The funny that you say that because it's funny that you say that because I think that you are incredibly warm and approachable and I never felt that distance from you, but I can I can see how having that experience as you were growing up with. That was something that's been in your mind a lot. But yeah, I don't know why.

09:39 I

09:43 Always felt like I didn't totally belong where I grew up and was excited to get out to the big city to get somewhere else and to be part of you know, something that felt bigger and it's probably how I ended up in San Francisco.

10:07 But there was that a lot of Robert like Economic Opportunity where I grew up and I think that was also part of it that I buy you sort of always knew that I was going to have to leave and there are a lot of people who stay and it's a it's a beautiful place to raise a family in a beautiful place to be but I just use it at some point I was going to

10:29 I want to be in a place like San Francisco where I am now.

10:40 So I wanted to ask about how you handle.

10:44 Got into the work you currently doing this story there. Just something that

11:00 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I always when I was a kid, I thought I would maybe go to medical school and then I tried some Labs. I remember at one point visiting a morgue and they passed around a human head and I thought this is not what I want to do. So I I think it really drew me to Medicine though was the you no human interaction and and working with people and I think I realized what I really wanted to do is was go to law school and be an advocate and so I I knew that undergrad and I actually majored in law and society and sugar.

11:54 Was on that pass for a while, but I didn't really discover health law, which is what I do now until I was in law school and

12:09 Didn't really realize that that was a thing that lawyers could do could be part of and you know, I think that was something I sort of came to as part of my training in law school and I think probably the the moment for me when I started putting the pieces together was

12:32 When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans when I started law school, and I remember just seeing on the news the photos of people standing on their roofs with water up to their rooms and just for the frantically, you know calling for help and I was shocked the. Something like that could happen in the United States. And so during our breaks. Are we get these week-long breaks every year. I went down to New Orleans with a bunch of my fellow law students and we interviewed people about their social and legal needs and I remember sitting in

13:19 The trailers that they were given by FEMA to live in while they were waiting for other more permanent housing and there was mold up half way on the edges of the trailer and they were talking about their asthma and they were talking about how they were self-medicating with alcohol and they were talking about all of the legal issues that they were dealing with and I think that's when it started to come.

13:53 Together for me that you know people's rights in a society are very much and their health and so I think that's sort of I don't know if I fully realized it at the time or put it together that that I would do exactly what I'm doing now, but I think it's what planted the seed for the work that I do. How about you how you know, how do lawyers get involved in in health? And how did you get to do the work that you're doing?

14:33 A store for me this journey as well.

14:39 Starts out as many stories do with a mother who really wants to for the past on her her children call. My mom has always been to start a force of good in the community that started going to move back close to

15:06 Neighborhood vet

15:15 Individual stocks the women there and provided some homework. They created a business that would make hair accessories department store. And I would remember my room. It's very close to their work area. So I would like outside in the morning and they pick me up and mom told me one one summer, you know, you probably shouldn't we should because it's going to teach you things.

16:08 And so do a lot of things that she asked me to do. I started dragging my feet. I'm going to like it. So we went out and volunteered to take care of children who are at the time of the time HIV with a big problem and needs and the lots of children were affected my family said and they were at the time so they were baronet / Sports person to give them some moments of sheer and ends.

16:52 Where at in the summer camp and that would be transformative. I remember waking up in the mornings and you know connection so you wake up and they're kind of all around you and maybe for the different ways by that moment where I was with them they were playing and one of them. I guess it's really hurt because I thought very beautifully but different so different and not everybody did so running down this hill away from the the rest of them and I remember posting and running after them.

17:48 Running after him sorry and then going to him and just sort of not seeing anything, but just being there. I felt that you need to know that someone's going to run after you if you want to know that we're not going to let you just leave like that. That's not going to happen to you.

18:06 So we left back in Action. They're worthless coming together and then after that and of indelibly put it into my head that sometimes the hurting hurting heart was on the way because he wants to be styled and he's got me kind of

18:28 I'm trying to figure out like a what does that mean for me? If I've been giving given them knowledge that. There's actually a way that I can in fact life the life of someone who was already been dealt terrible have from there a Cascade of my own place. Anyway, I wanted to make sure I gave an opportunity to go back to your origin story as well and hear a little bit more of what happened after you going to have your own sort of.

19:11 And how you discovered that yet?

19:32 What I think I I knew I mean it's interesting that you talk about your mom and how she distilled kind of certain values and you and I think you know, we both had really strong relationships with our families and I'm going to think before I had that experience just of seeing what was happening in New Orleans. My family had always been incredibly committed to serving the community. So my my dad was a primary care Doc and served, you know, multiple generations of the same family and the community and my mom was an advocate at legal aid organization. And so I think it was, you know, if you don't grow up wanting to be an advocate

20:25 And a public servant in that family. I'm not sure what happened.

20:32 But yeah, I mean I think it you know, we would talk about.

20:36 Policy and advocacy issues around the dinner table and I think it was just always part of my DNA and I just went through a process of trying to figure out what profession was going to help me with going to fit me and sort of help me serve the community like in which way could I best serve the community and I told you the story of you know, holding the head the human head. So I learned that was probably the medicine might not be for me but law school felt like being a lawyer felt like a way to help people and I know that there's so much cynicism about lawyers and what lawyers do and most people think of lawyers is being assertive money-grubbing opportunistic.

21:36 Corporate interest but I grew up, you know thinking of wise as something that was in service of community and you know, so I think

21:51 I think going to law school. I just it wasn't until I went to New Orleans that I sort of started to think about what my my practice was going to look like and do in law school life was able to have that experience of working with people in New Orleans. And then and I also had the experience of working at an employment law firm in so we were working with people who faced discrimination at their job because of their disability because of their health because of their race and I saw the intersection of those things that you know, that who you are and where you live and how much money you make

22:45 Really intersects with your your health status and Enzo legal. Advocacy can make a really big difference in getting someone access to care or in creating the conditions for them to live live healthy full lives.

23:05 And how I mean, how did you go from being the heart that follows to see what you're doing now?

23:18 Sarah I originally thought that I was going to become a literature teacher or Professor because I thought that

23:30 A picture with a weight

23:33 Positively impact your mind and maybe just get in touch with the best aspects of ourselves. So reading there were many many characters in stories that I felt like this is my belief of the time right now about how you know how things are like and different in different scenarios the stories and novels it opens. You are feeling right like this, you know, you can you can emphasize there's a way right and that's not for me cuz I would like for you to like talk to it to my friends in college and fuel

24:22 Woods stories from Awakening something in you

24:28 But that is awesome is amazing and it can change you and people so maybe it makes sense because I also grew up my family has a long expedition to restore my grandfather my father and my mom B-Legit Love Church environment than think so, they want us there too. And then that means you grew up listening to you with your recent comparable side story about caring about the little things because the little things matter so much and that's an idea that I learn from listening to the stories.

25:28 People can spark incredible change

25:38 Manatees weekend you can really be a force for change and then more and more of those being with children on in the summer volunteering and I realize that they're not the individual level. There's a persistent left most of the families that I was meeting in the people house music right up their level.

26:05 They're not at fault. And so many of these cases why I started realizing that there are other things about people they didn't respond more in the issues of the day and I didn't feel like I can tell stories where it was whatever profession but maybe more powerful lever. And that's what that be thinking. Maybe that's why your anyway and so is my grandfather. So let me continue exploring the story so when you had got into

27:00 The that road is being becoming a lawyer are you can you tell me more about what solidified for you if that was the right path or any experiences that come back to you as lipo here with some other people before I answer that. I think I love I love the piece that you just said about. You know, the power of story is to change people's minds and I just you know, one thing I've learned is that some of the most powerful advocacy is storytelling is telling people stories of you know, how how the conditions that they are living in and how their rates impact their health and their well-being and

27:52 And it's so funny cuz I think we you know in law school we learned I don't know about in the Philippines, but we learn you know how to make fancy argument make sophisticated arguments you pull out your drawing data Neutron economic argument, but sometimes the most powerful tools of persuasion is just a really compelling story of a person who has been harmed by the system that we've created for them. So anyway, I what you said just really resonated with me because I think those stories were why we get into this work and then it's sort of tot out of us in in law school and professional training and

28:37 I had to sort of figure out how to return to that and remember how to tell stories again. It's a really I think be the most effective Advocate. I don't know if you've had that. I don't know if you had that experience in law school, but I sort of felt like I had to come back to what brought me there in the first place over the course of my career.

29:07 Can I follow up with this question? Is there a story you can share that captures shares? I should have anticipated that follow-up question.

29:25 There's so many.

29:29 So

29:34 I guess I'm just trying to figure out which one.

29:40 Well, I'll tell you I'll tell you what kind of a personal story so my grandmother has fairly Advanced dementia and she was hospitalized earlier this year, which is really tricky there is tricky at anytime and I'm really tricky during covid-19.

30:34 The bank wouldn't recognize the legal forms that she had created to a point my mother and my aunt as her agent and what that meant was that we lost about two days and getting her into the right kind of care that she needed because of these look financial and legal issues and we have the legal knowledge and the sophistication that I was able to call the bank and talk to them about, you know to resolve the issue, but I think about how many people in the healthcare system that we built in the United States who are not getting the right care or the care they need because of the these complex financial and legal issues these barriers and for my grandma. That was a two-day problem and it was very frustrating.

31:32 But for other people it is weeks or months. So in San Francisco, we have veterans we have older people who are in the hospital for months because they don't have anywhere else to go. They don't have stable housing. They don't have the money to pay for the kind of care that they need and it's really harmful. They feel like they are in prison some of them it's it's not you know hospital is better than the street but for older people with Dementia or other mental illness hospitals are really disorienting places. They're not home like places, you know, there are nurses coming by all the time. There are new faces all the time. They're sleeping.

32:25 It's not a good place for them. But we've created these systems in the United States that are that require money and that require a lot of sophistication navigate and it's it should be the case that you should have to have a medical legal family to navigate that and so I guess part of what drives my work is how can we provide medical legal family for people who don't have it. But ultimately, how can we redesign our systems so that it's not necessary for you to have to have a lawyer and someone who's sophisticated and Health Systems to help you navigate things.

33:16 Tell

33:19 That's sort of what encapsulated what I am doing.

33:24 And how about how about you lie mean how what's driving you right now? And what does that look like in your daily life? Is there is there a story that you can tell about kind of?

33:39 What your ad because he looks like right now.

33:45 I want to First respond by saying how much I appreciate you sharing that personal story Sarah and probably still quite fresh. Old Navy pressure was there but also I feel like it's really in the strait is the problem that you were talking about family and we don't want anyone to be hurting or suffering now.

34:22 I see people listening will not hear it when I see this but I've got my little daughter who just came to me right now. And this is something you like to do in the morning Daddy time. I've been working from home in this time. I'd love to share just a bit of the there are several aspects to it. The general kind of container for the issue is human trafficking. The more specific area is around the child protection. And so I started working when I when I began in New Orleans that I'm in right now. I started out just a lawyer for survivors for victims of trafficking particularly a commercial sexual exploitation of the sex trafficking.

35:22 The industry and obviously they were exploited and and those who brought them in were profiting greatly from this business because it's it's vulnerable and because it's too much traffic and I'm needed a voice obviously the owner of my first few years of work to do. And along the way

36:00 Those observations and earnings from their lives and it got me realizing that even if we win in court the battle for them is just beginning they need to to find to take back their their control over their license agency. They need to be able to build a really likes from locus of cells and dignity that they can own and so in the Philippines one of the best ways to do that is to we can all make a power then that's really something that I started feeling. So strongly about her on the 5th year of my work because we had already started winning many many cases. And so the next question in my mind was what about their knives? What about their families? What about the children? Like what will the next generation and then their generation from all of this and so almost serendipitously. I got a call from a businessman in the US who had would learn about her work instead.

37:00 I want to open up opportunities for survivors of trafficking to have stable work and to reach the next level of their recovery wishes on their own destiny It Away by having work that can keep them economically safe and protected. So we started out around for about eight years now giving work two survivors of trafficking and so is the ladies that produce the paper better now marketed as the United States is also signed by the Survivor and if it's a way to express illustrate their beauty their story, but at the same time it's a quality product that has market value.

38:00 And that allows them to have the steady jobs and even in the time of this and then make I'm happy to say we've been able to keep things going the jobs are there and we've been journeying with them. So you been a long-term kind of Journey to just to be with them. And then of course, I'm just on a very personal level. I feel like it's just another way that I'm also honoring the ethos of my mom and my dad and a tenant brings me back home to go to the values that we talked about earlier where it all began and if you like, it just keeps getting reiterated that it's just another expression of our care and in the case of my family of our faces. Well, what do you see for the future law? Like if you could wave a magic wand in your work, you know, what would you like to see happen?

39:02 I love for my job not to be needed so that they are RV even the vision for the team. Is that the prevalence of the crime pipe before fighting Google down currently working on ending online sexual exploitation of Children online as well the kind of world. I'd love for my children to grow up in 10 years old if I could wave a magic wand I can type it there so many problems I'd like the ends and so many so much pain that I'd like to erase it just do that. I think the next best thing for that is for the Next Generation to actually discover how much power they have a lot of these seemingly intractable issues going to have a lot to fight.

40:02 And so for me, I would love to see the Next Generation starting to rise up already. And this is one of the reasons that I have a team member in my team who's actually the daughter of one of our fellows in our program in Sochi. I really felt like I want to start pouring so much of our cells into the Next Generation. There's this quote is in the public domain rise of the Isle of Minerva takes flight evening starts. Sometimes our wisest moments come to the end of our time and I also feel like it's a gift because it means that wisdom is for the Next Generation to take and if you want to give Wings to that next Generation, what do I do about really resonates with me? I mean, I I think that

41:02 Designs this medical Legal Clinic, where are law students are are helping low-income older patients with their legal issues affecting their help and I believe so strongly in the model and I also feel like it, you know, it shouldn't have to exist. So I think

41:22 I would love to see that the model isn't necessary in 10 years. And that what we have our systems where people can live full healthy lives in communities instead of hospitals and instead of facilities. And yeah that I think I agree with you. I mean, I think something I love about teaching is this idea that we're doing the work but we're also helping the Next Generation step into that step into that work and realize our own power and I've been you know, we're sitting here in the US.

42:06 5 days from one of the most consequential elections in

42:12 Our lifetimes in in history and I think the thing that gives me hope is that is the way that I've seen our students and our community really activated around Creative Solutions to problems that you know, as you said seemed really intractable, but they're they're not they're there things that we can address if we mobilize around them and if we start telling stories about where the harm is and what we can do together to address it.

42:52 I love that definitely resonate with you on that and I just want to share a memory that that I have of you when we were together in San Francisco. Some of our other friends who are also a lawyer rain storming right then how how can we even further Ambien factor using using rice and it was when you saw the the broken Liberty symbol on the shirt or the letters on the shirt with a gift that I have given you and described it the word Liberty spelled out but it's in letters that are broken and yet any person seeing if I can tell that it's supposed to spell Liberty and it's supposed to mean that whatever we come in and despite the differences in brontex. That's a wrap. We can look at something and know and understand how it can be fixed.

43:50 Then each person has weed in them when it needs a bility to make broken things O Tire because our brains are you look at those letters, and that was the message that's kind of went into to that design a friend of mine has worked on him for me is another mini story that could have been captured and that I think one of it was just a really special gift that you gave me and I wear that all the time. So, thank you.

44:36 Very meaningful

44:41 Sarah can you tell tell me if just a bit more about that your clinic and maybe a little picture for me have a clinic where are law students provide free legal assistance to low-income patients at hospitals and nursing homes around the city and they have the opportunity to work with healthcare providers in advocacy. So the healthcare providers often see that their patients who live in poverty have mental health conditions or have been criminally Justice involved have the social legal needs that are affecting their health and their well-being and you know Physicians are not trained to deal with those issues, but they see them in their patients all the time. So the idea behind this medical legal Partnership Clinic, is that will what

45:41 We just put a lawyer in the healthcare clinic and whenever these issues are coming up for patients our students and our faculty can go and actually advocate for advocate for their housing advocate for their access to food their right to have a say in their care and to plan for the future. So these are the things that are happening in the clinic at Hastings and I'm just incredibly proud of it. But as I said, the goal would be to not have to have a clinic at all and to really have systems and have a society where these disparities in access to housing and food don't exist and probably the most important Health intervention that we could do in the United States would be to assure people

46:39 Access to basic needs and so that they can live healthy stable lives.

46:49 Thank you. I love you. I love what you doing. I'm just giving hearing that young people who were working to learning to be lawyers. I guess the lawyers and future there are some some of them that might change them and really set them on it on the path of multiplying the effects of what you doing now and in my hope is as well that your your work does result in less and less need for that for these intervention, but I also want to argue with her.

47:36 Yeah, well, I think that's sort of related to what you know, I think what's really impactful about your work laws that you have moved Beyond rights any kind of recognized that advocacy is a much bigger things and just winning cases or providing kind of transactional support its advocating for the whole person. So there are economic their ability to support themselves and their families. And so I really admire that about your work that you've you've gone beyond, you know, it'd be easy to just stop at doing what what lawyers most traditionally but you've gone beyond that into the community to really address the root causes of people's pain and I think that's really

48:29 Incredibly important to be given me access to some beautiful life changing moments and stories a yearly tradition. We may not be able to do it this year because of the pandemic but we usually get together for the party Christmas is very big and it's nice to just see the the folks come in and they're enjoying themselves too dressed-up. It's all going to get their hair done if you performance SBC celebrate and that's what came to mind talked about his going beyond what the reward of that is that Retreat into this community that is able to celebrate. Whereas I may be years and years ago with prices.

49:26 But in between that prices and the time of Celebration, there's a bridge that we have to kind of deal together. And now I'm just suddenly remembering this lovely quotes and I can be on the road by walking it and just this idea that it may not look like there's a path to step on because we kind of did that and ventured out of the apothem weekend, we can continue carving together across the Philippines a us and just the way our communities there such similar are similar and a lot of solutions that I think are stronger if we're working together.

50:20 Yeah.

50:22 Law, do you have a story at the person you've served at 6 with you?

50:32 Obviously, we can't name any names because they're survivors but she was a firecracker when she was brought in rescue if they're not that she had already been suffering at Plantation reviews for 3 years. And so it's three years of Hell reading from the criminal Enterprise right is rape for profit. So she tell me how hard is how challenging it is to work with her and and how how powerful because she is just biting every hand the size to help her but just making things so difficult for her to help her.

51:32 Advocate and has her lawyer in Port and of course knowing that she needed someone to speak for her. It just allowed to kind of get in touch with receiving help I can speak in Port Orange going to do that for me and he's going to the champion my story in the end has helped bring about Justice for her. And so it began this journey where I feel like every person working with her did a small part in helping her referring to herself and recover who she was and by doing my part in the courtroom. It's helped the social workers in the shelter. For example talk to her about look people cared about and all of the stuff that you're doing the anger and the the things that are coming out of your mouth.

52:29 We know that these are the effects of being being with your soul is being torn apart and after many years. She was the one who told me that I think I was just told all the time. I just didn't know how to receive it. And so see you in that moment of growth in her and she's the one she's come this far she has overcome and she even see who she was and understand that that that's not really who she is inside and there's just this Integrity of who she is coming out that we all need to see if it's like giving for us as well to see that change in that story coming round and it was years and years of being there. It did not feel like work.

53:29 It just felt like being with another human being that and we needed her as well. So it isn't just about stepping on her being a savior. It is about helping one another cuz our freedom is certainly and I must attribute this to the to a Native American Elder said that our freedom is bound up Krishna particular place is about working together for something we all need.

54:16 I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

54:22 How are we doing on time?

54:26 Sarah do you have any Parting Shot for this conversation?

54:34 It's just been so wonderful to get to spend time with you and

54:43 I just hear I mean I knew a lot about your work, but I didn't know how you grew up. And so I think that was really special to hear that and I think it was just really lovely to hear how you do for both of us. Our families have been really important in shaping values and the work that we do so I thank you for sharing that with me.

55:12 I want to also use

55:16 The little time remaining to honor the things you shared the opening up with you did talking about your family and then the things you went through. I wanted to honor that and even the students that he represents because the I believe that they're also an extension of that. I believe they're fake and also make sure I wanted to the future time machine and how much you can bring about to change your community, and I want to thank you.

56:16 We are kindred spirits and this conversation has just solidified that for me and there's just so much on the unspoken level that I I feel like we're able to share like a wine maybe something I said, so genuinely with you, and that's one of the baskets were so thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

56:50 Continue the story outside. I'd like to just

56:58 Repeat a few ideas earlier that I mentioned that that mean a lot to me as work work that is able to keep a Survivor economic a deceased is incredibly in for the first month.

57:14 Oh, okay. I think we're good after that.