Jany Martínez-Ward was just a teenager when she experienced the immigration system from the inside.
She crossed the border and, in the process, had to be separated from her mother. It was a temporary separation, but the kind you never forget: when you’re so young and everything depends on decisions others make for you, fear learns to live in your body.
Years went by, and that girl became a lawyer. Not just any lawyer: according to Univision’s Primer Impacto program, she has now helped 36 thousand victims. Every case, every person who sits across from her, finds someone who doesn’t need to imagine what it’s like to be scared and have no answers.
That’s why her words carry so much weight: “I know what it means to survive”. She doesn’t say it as a slogan; she says it as her life story.
In the video, Jany herself tells her story and mentions a detail that left its mark on her life journey: a penny. A small anecdote that, she says, left a mark on everything that came afterward.
What she experienced as a child could have defined her as just another victim. She decided it would define her as someone who goes out to find the others.
