Equal Rights Advocates: Addressing the Legal Issues of Women of Color

On February 21, 1991, reporters and television cameras crowded into a small conference room in San Francisco to hear an announcement by representatives of three local public interest law firms-Asian Law Caucus ("ALC"), Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund ("MALDEF"), and Equal Rights Advocates ("ERA"). The media had come to hear about the firms' victory in a case that would affect the rights of hundreds of thousands of workers in America. At the request of these attorneys, a federal district judge in Fresno had just ruled that undocumented workers in this country were protected by federal civil rights law. At the press briefing, the decision was announced and explained in English, Spanish, and Chinese. The story was covered not only by Bay area reporters, but also by Univisi6n, a television station that broadcasts in Spanish throughout North and South America.