Oral History Program Cristina Ortega Interviewed by Kandice Harris 27 September 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Cristina Ortega Interviewed by Kandice Harris 27 September 2021 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Ortega, Cristina, an oral history by Kandice Harris 27 September 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections & University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Judge Cristina Ortega conducted on September 27, 2021 by Kandice Harris. Judge Ortega shares her childhood experiences growing up as a Mexican immigrant in Utah. She shares her experiences as the first in her family to attend college and law school, her career as an attorney, and her involvement with many Utah committees and boards. She also discusses her recent appointment as a Second District court judge. Also present is Alexis Stokes. KH: Hello. Today is September 27, 2021. We are with Judge Cristina Ortega. Kandice Harris is conducting the interview, and Alexis Stokes is filming. When and where were you born? CO: I was born in El Paso, Texas; March 16, 1976. KH: Okay, would you talk a little bit about your early life and some historical background? CO: I was born at St. Thomason Hospital. My mom actually went over the border to have me in El Paso, so I grew up predominantly in Juarez, Mexico. I lived there with my mom; my mom was a single parent. My dad never really was a part of my life; I never really knew who he was. He actually still lives in Mexico. We lived in Juarez with my mom; we had family in Juarez as well. I think I did first grade in El Paso and then my mom's company relocated from El Paso to Utah. That's how we ended up in Utah. The company moved to Freeport Center, and my mom was super worried that she wasn't going to find a better job, so everybody else in the company relocated. She was the only woman in her company. She worked for Birmingham 1 Bolt, and they made bolts for mines. So she thought, “Well, if everybody's going,” and she felt comfortable enough with everybody that she knew. Me, her, and then my grandma came to kind of help with the transition, and we ended up here in Utah. I think we ended up in Roy first. I know next to the Burger Bar there's an extended stay hotel, and we lived there for a while, and then we moved somewhere. It's actually kind of interesting. We lived at these apartments close to Weber State because I always remember, me and my grandma would walk kind of like where the FedEx store is, right there on 36th.There used to be a fabric store and she loved to do things with fabric, so we'd always walk from wherever the apartments were to the fabric store. I always remember on the opposite side there's a house, and my grandma would always steal the fruit, and I'd be like, “You can't steal the fruit.” She's like, “Well, it's on public property. I can take whatever I want.” We lived in Ogden for a while and then we ultimately ended up in Clearfield. I started elementary school. I don't remember much about school in Roy or Ogden, but I know I remember starting, I believe, first grade, at South Clearfield Elementary School. I really didn't know that much English when we came here, and my mom obviously couldn't teach me, so she just sat me in front of the TV and I learned English by watching ‘The Love Boat’ and ‘Fantasy Island’—I'm dating myself—a lot of soap operas my mom would let me watch— that's how I kind of learned English. She told me, “Just be really quiet, do as much work as you can.” It was always just me and my mom. 2 I've lived in Clearfield since then. I went to South Clearfield Elementary. I went to North Davis Junior High. I went to Clearfield High. I just picked things up really quick with the language and I got a lot of encouragement from teachers, but never really knew where it was going to go, education-wise. Not until I got to high school where I thought, “I don't know what I'm going to do next.” No one in my family had ever gone to college. I had a few cousins who had graduated from high school, but that's really all there was. So I went to Weber State. I got into the early college program. I was in Clearfield High and I remember I was in English class and the teacher was handing out applications for, I guess, early college concurrent enrollment. I didn't get one and it made me really angry. Like, “Do you not see me as college material?” Someone left it on their desk, so I took it. I filled out the application, I got into the program and I thought, “This is my make it or break it moment. I need to figure out what I'm going to do: if I'm going to do college or not do college.” I thought, “It'll be my senior year of high school. I'll see if I'm cut out for it or not.” I did early college and I loved it. I came here to Weber State, and it was… The most life-transforming experience I ever had was to be at Weber State because I thought, “I'll just give myself a year.” But I got super involved. I kind of made Weber State my home. I always knew I wanted to practice law. When I was learning English, I watched ‘Reading Rainbow’ and one of the episodes was this girl's older sister was an attorney. I saw her in the courtroom and I just instantly became fascinated by the whole thing. Even though I was super shy, I became fascinated with it. 3 So I did my first year here, became super involved. Then I came across somebody in the Academic Advisement Center. His name was Ned Laff. It was years ago. I just went in just to say, like, “What am I doing? What do I do? What classes am I supposed to be taking? What am I supposed to be doing?” He was actually the head of the Academic Advisement Center, so I lucked out. He was just this guy from Chicago, super cool guy. He had Birkenstocks and shorts. He's like, “Tell me, so what do you want to do?” Just the way he was was just very chill. I just told him—I'd never told anybody. I said, “I want to be a lawyer, I want to go to law school. I want to be a judge.” I thought he was just going to just say, “Child, take it down a notch,” but he actually looked at me and I felt like he was looking right through me. He said, “You totally do not see yourself there. It's coming out of your mouth, but I really don't think you believe it can happen. It can totally happen.” I was just blown away that he could see right through me and see my insecurities and not really knowing. So he kind of set me on the path and said, “You can do it. You can do English. You can major in anything you want.” I love to write, so I did English at first, and then once it started getting into Shakespeare and Chaucer, I was like, “I'm out. I can't do this!” KH: That's fair. CO: Then I went to political science, and it was interesting but not interesting enough to me. Eventually by then, I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor, so I got involved with the Criminal Justice Department. Once I got involved with the Criminal 4 Justice Department that was life-changing as well. I met really amazing people. I met Michelle Heward, who is now Judge Heward. She's a juvenile court judge. She was a professor up here, and she's absolutely helped me, mentored me. Then, when I was done graduating from Weber State, I went to the U. I worked in youth corrections between law school and undergrad here at Weber State, because I was so involved in the criminal justice program. I did youth corrections, so if I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, I'd want to work with youth in the criminal justice system. So I worked at Girls’ Detention, O and A, Farmington Bay, and I took a year off between undergrad and law school and worked there. Then I got into law school and got into the world of law. I was the only child. I just actually learned this maybe a month or so ago: I have a son, he's 16 and he'll have conversations with my mom and ask her questions. I think he was trying to test, like, “How smart really was my mom when she was younger? ‘Cause I don't think she was that smart.” I was telling him, “Well, my mom didn't have the luxury of helping me with my homework. She didn't know the language, so I was on my own.” I've kind of been hands-off with him, school-wise, because I never had anybody. I had to figure it out on my own, and that was it. There'd be times I would cry. I remember, I cried in fifth grade because I had to learn the preamble to the Constitution or something, and there was no one there to help me. My mom couldn't tell me, “You're saying the words right.” I had nobody. So we were having that conversation, and I didn't know this, but my mom told my son Gabriel, “I couldn't help her out academically, but every week or once 5 a month, I would go physically into the school because I wanted them to know that I cared about your education.” She almost made me cry. “I would go in and check, and all I needed to say was, ‘Is she okay? Is she doing okay? Everything good?’” and they would tell her, “She's doing great.” I did not know this until like a month ago, and I thought “Mom, I didn't know that.” So she was really invested in my education, but it was never pressed upon me because my mom didn't know. When I graduated from high school and I told them I was going to college, my mom had no idea what that was about. She had no idea. She was just like, “Okay.” We got Pell Grants so she didn’t have to worry about that. She still, to this day, will bother me about not getting my high school ring. I told her, “I didn't care about my high school ring, but I wanted to do more.” When I went to law school and I announced to my family I was going to law school, my grandparents actually came and had this intervention. They came up from Mexico and they said, “What's wrong with you? Are you lazy or do you not want to work?” because they just didn't understand. They're like, “Why are you hiding behind books? You need to get out and you need to get a job!” I told them that I'm working, I'm studying. They just didn't understand it. So I promised them. I said, “I promise you, law school's the last school I'm going to go to. Trust me, everything's going to work out.” It was awesome because when I graduated from law school, they were all there. All my aunts and uncles came. My mom's from a family of eight. They all came. My grandparents were there and my cousins were there. They still, to this day… I think they know now that I'm a judge, they know what I do. But prior to that, I don't think they really knew what I 6 did. I remember one time, my uncle, after I had my son, asked me, “So do you take the notes for the attorneys?” I said, “No, I am the attorney.” “What are you talking about?” So one time, just to kind of show the family what I do—my son had to have been like maybe in first grade or kindergarten—I had a trial that was kind of close to where his school was. So I told my aunt, “Can you guys come in?” My aunt, who I call the newspaper of the family, she's the gossipy one. I knew she'll tell everybody exactly what I do. I told her, “You guys can watch me do my closing.” So my son and my aunt came. They watched me do my closing. It was a sex abuse case. I did my closing; the defense did their closing; I did my rebuttal. It was done. I'd go and say, “So what did you think?” I think it's just cultural, I don't know, because my aunt said, “That man, the defense attorney, he was amazing.” Like, what about me? It was funny because my son, who had to be in first grade or something, he got it. He's like, “You were great. The way you argued, the way you went back and forth.” I mean, he dissected it, and I thought, “You need to tell the family,” because according to my aunt, I did nothing in this trial. I've been the first of everything. It's so hard for me sometimes to explain. I mean, clearly with this new opportunity I've been given, they absolutely get it. They know I had family in 7 town. Now that we're able to do court via WebEx, we're still not in person, I said “Perfect, you guys all need to watch this.” My aunt said, “Well, one of your uncles was falling asleep, but he did see what you were doing.” So I know they're proud of me, but it's just so foreign because all of their jobs have been doing line work and you work eight-to-five and you're there, whereas with me, it's total flexibility. It's so different. I kind of feel like I've taken that huge generational leap for my family. That's what I call it, the generational leap, because my son is already thinking about college. I mean, he thought about college since elementary school, but it's different now as far as what's expected of us. Education-wise, I'm working hard. Growing up in Mexico, there's opportunities that I think would have been taken from me had my mom not come to Utah. I think coming to Utah was the best move my mom made for her and I, just because of the environment that we were living in. Juarez, there's a lot of drugs, there's a lot of cartels, a lot of violence, so I don't know how my future would have been. Even when I was younger, my mom recalled a story when I was a baby: her and my aunt, they had this apartment and they said they woke up to a noise and there was a man looking over the crib, like this guy was about to kidnap me. My mom and my aunt, I think, went and got pots and pans and were able to get him away. So she took me out of a really bad environment, where I don't know what my fate would have been. We came here to Utah and it's been our home ever since. I don't think I'll ever leave. I love it here. 8 KH: How easy was it for your mom to move from Juarez up to Utah? Were there a lot of immigration issues? CO: No, my mom had her resident card, so she had her green card. She had gone through the whole process and she actually became a citizen when my son was, I want to say when he was in kindergarten or first grade, because we both got to go see her become a US citizen. KH: That's so awesome. CO: Yeah, she had everything already lined up. I think the huge thing for her was we left our support system, but luckily she came with a big enough company with all the other men and their wives that we had kind of a support system. Then my grandma lived with us for a while, so we had that. But for most of the time, it's been me and my mom. Gradually, I had other uncles who kind of migrated to Utah, and they've lived here, like my cousins have grown up here. We kind of have spread out here in Utah, Texas, Arizona, California. KH: What was it like being a person of color in Utah growing up? CO: You know, initially when I first got here, I felt like a total outsider because we didn't speak the language. We did not look like anybody else, and I did feel it very early on. I would get picked on at school by the other kids. I would get called names like “beaner”, “wetback”; “Go back to Mexico”, all these things. I never experienced that because growing up in Juarez and going to school in El Paso, you look like everybody else. In elementary school there, I got away with speaking Spanish. So it was very, very hard at first. 9 I actually met one of my really good friends, who still is one of my good friends to this day, in first grade. She was getting picked on because she was new and they were kind of picking on her. I came in and we kind of gravitated towards each other. But as I got older—it's kind of sad to say this, but growing up, I just stuck to my own kind. You gravitated because you knew what each other were going through. You were dealing with the same type of discrimination. I remember one time I had a friend in elementary school who had invited me to her house and I was super excited, told my mom, “Oh, my friend, this girl invited me to her house. I'm going to go to her house after school.” I really don't think she told her parents much about me, because the whole plan was, “Yeah, they said you can come over, have dinner and then they'll drive you home.” We'd gotten there before her parents and then when her parents got home, immediately… I feel upon seeing me, they said, “Oh, we got to go. You need to go home.” So I had to walk home. I had no idea where I was. I just remember I was crying, walking down, and people would stop to help me. During that time, it was a huge thing about kids being kidnapped and the McGruff houses. So any time anybody came up to speak to me, I would panic even more. I would cry and run. I remember I finally found the street where we lived and my mom was worried, about to call the police. So I dealt with that, and so I think my natural instinct was you just kind of hung out with people who looked like you. I did that all throughout elementary school, junior high, high school. When I got to Weber State, it was different in the sense that here is where I feel I learned about who I was, because all through my education, little to high 10 school, no one taught me my history. You can't take pride in who you are, you just know what other people portray you to be, and they're not positive images. That was another huge thing about Weber State when I came here. Me and a friend, Pat Garcia—he was a year ahead of me as far as high school. He graduated and he was at Weber State—We started the MEChA Chapter here, a student organization, just because I think we were at that age where you want to know who you are. There is a Chicano history class that was taught here, which was mind blowing to me, like, “Wow, like we're going to learn about us.” So I think that was the huge shift for me in college, learning to embrace knowing what our contributions were. We started doing presentations to like elementary schools in Davis and Weber. We'd go to high schools. We went to Ogden High. I remember that. A whole bunch of us, there were probably five of us that were college students and a whole bunch of Hispanic youth. We asked them, “Okay, what do you guys think a college student looks like?” They said all kinds of things. First of all, they said light. They said they walk fast—I don’t know what that had to do with a college student. A heavy backpack. Then when we told them we were college students, they're like, “No you're not.” We're like, “We are college students.” Just those little things. I remember I went out and did a presentation about Mexican-American contributions to our country, and we did it at an elementary school in Layton. I remember little kids coming up to us who weren’t Hispanic saying, “I want to be Mexican, I want to be Mexican,” which was just so empowering because we don't teach enough history. 11 I mean, it's not just one history. There's a lot of histories. When you know what contributions you've made, that was totally empowering to me, on top of what Ned Laff had told me, about “You can absolutely do it.” This empowerment is like, “Yes, my voice matters. I am going to just break barriers, I'm going to get as far as I can.” So that was the transition. I mean, it's sad to say that I had to stick to people who looked like me, but that was kind of the norm as far as understanding who you were, your experiences, your struggles. They were the ones who could relate to what I was going through. KH: How big was the Hispanic community when you were growing up? CO: Here? It was close to almost nothing. I mean, if you saw somebody else, you freaked out. “Oh, my gosh, they look like us!” Now there's stores. I mean, there were never stores before, and then there started to be stores. So I think it's clear that the demographics are changing and they're going to continue to change. Early on, you couldn't help but feel like you were an outsider. I was just looking to find some way to embrace my culture somehow, but there was really nothing there. Obviously with my family, we're very traditional, but when it's your family and it's not portrayed to the mainstream and it's not accepted, you kind of… I wouldn't say I was embarrassed, but I thought maybe I shouldn't say anything. Maybe I shouldn't stand out. Then when I got here, I was brown, loud and proud. It was amazing. KH: So what type of traditions does your family have? CO: We have everything. Just something on a side note when it comes to tradition: like I told you earlier, I learned English by watching television. My family, 12 predominantly we speak Spanish at home. To this day, there's little things that I will still say. I remember when I was in law school, I asked my friends, because we were hungry, “Let's go to a booffet.” They're like, “What's a booffet?” I said, “Where it's all-you-can-eat food. Have you guys never heard of a booffet?” My friend said, “It's called a buffet.” I'm like, “Curse my family!” But we've had all their traditions. Everything revolves around our family. We would do Christmas Eve staying up late till midnight to open presents, and I would tell everybody, “Yeah, Christmas Day, we sleep that day and then we wake up and then we eat more.” It's all about Christmas Eve and the party. That's the one thing that my friends, even to this day, say, “You guys have a celebration for everything.” It's like, we do, we have a celebration for everything because it's all about uniting the family. All those traditions, and I've tried to pass those on to my son. A lot of that also has to do with our faith being Catholic. They're very entwined with our culture. Coming up is Day of the Dead. We've embraced that. We do an altar in our home to honor those who have passed. Everything revolves around our family, so anything and everything we can do with our family, we do. It revolves around food as well. We eat a lot. KH: Food is always important. Why did you choose to attend Weber State? CO: I was telling you earlier, at that time, this program was being offered to do early college, and college wasn't even on my radar. I just thought, “I'm going to 13 graduate from high school.” I really had no plan for my future, so when this opportunity, this application I took, came up to go to Weber State, I took that opportunity to attend Weber State. I think it was the best choice I ever had because I got to stay home, be with my mom, and really focus on my studies. I mean, sometimes I wish I'd lived on campus or something, but it was just such a great opportunity, a commuter college to be at home and come on campus. This became my home. So that was really the reason why that was the opportunity. Of course, as I started attending Weber State, I thought, “Oh, I want to go to the U.” But the U didn't have the programs I was looking for, and I'm really glad I stayed. My son, you know, he wants to go to Utah State or the U, and I'm like, “What about Weber State? It's a great campus. It's a great place to study.” I loved Weber State just because it was a small campus, you could be super involved. You got to know your professors, really just reach out and have that mentorship. I got jobs working at the Academic Advisement Center. I worked for the College of Applied Science and Technology. They had a summer bridge program, so I was a mentor. Any way that I could be involved on campus, I knew that was going to be my ticket to finish, because I have a lot of friends who worked and their jobs would kind of sideline them and they never got to finish or come back. I thought, “I just need to live and breathe and be on campus.” I got super involved with MEChA and I think I served a term as the Latino/Chicano/Hispanic senator, so I just threw myself into it. I thought, “If I'm going to do this, I need to be 100 percent about this. This is the only way I'm going to make it.” So I'm so happy that I came to Weber because I think being 14 somewhere further would have distanced me and I wouldn't have had that connection, that kind of tie to keep me centered. I don't know that I would have finished, I honestly don't. KH: Okay, you kind of mentioned one already, but who were some of your favorite professors? CO: So, Michelle Heward, definitely. I remember Frank Guliuzza. He was in the political science department. When I was doing political science, I took classes from him and we would do mock trials. I loved it. He was just so charismatic, so smart, super supportive. He really got me out of my shell because I'd always been a super shy kid growing up; I did not want to stand out to anybody. But when I came to Weber State, that was my time when I learned more about who I was, where I came from. That just totally changed everything for me. Being in mock trial and being critiqued and being observed in that way and doing public speaking in that environment really, really helped me out. So, I mean, standouts for me are Frank Guliuzza and Michelle Heward. KH: Okay, you already mentioned MEChA and student government. Would you talk a little bit more about what it was like being involved as a senator? CO: I loved it because your voice mattered. I got to be involved in different groups. Like I was telling you, I always kind of gravitated to people who look like me. But when I became involved in student government, I met so many amazing people in student government, as far as all of us having that objective of making Weber State just amazing. All of the activities that we did as far as building that camaraderie between everybody, it kind of opened my mind more to coming 15 more out of my shell. Anything I could be involved in on campus, like whenever there were events, speakers—I mean, to this day, sometimes I'll still look on your website like, “Who's here, who's coming?” I brought my son to events—Dolores Huerta was here a couple of years ago. I forgot his name, but they made a movie about him, about the Klansman. KH: Oh, yeah, the Black Klansman. I know who you're talking about. CO: Yes, he came here and I actually had worked with him at the Davis County Attorney's Office because he worked there. I always tell my son, “You need to take advantage of all of the events, all the speakers, everything, because it just opens your mind as far as just what's going on in the world.” I don't want to say that that's being a nerd, but I feel like I'm a student at heart. I just always want to keep learning something new. I went back to his school, Clearfield High, a couple of weeks ago because they did an alumni thing, and I told him, “I'm going to start coming to your assemblies.” He said, “Please don't.” “This is so much fun!” I just think I gravitate to anything where you can learn more, be exposed to more, and any way that I can be involved with youth, I'm all about it. KH: Okay, so you mentioned that you attended a lot of events while you were a student here. Were there any that stood out to you? CO: I'm trying to think. Just whenever there were speakers. I can't even remember the speakers, but there were tons of people who would come. I remember Edward James Olmos came here to speak. 16 KH: Oh wow. That would have been awesome. CO: Yes. Then when we were in MEChA, we would get certain funds to bring to host for Hispanic Heritage Month or that sort of thing. I remember we brought this group called the Chicano Secret Service, and his name is Lalo Alcaraz. If you fast forward to now, for the movie Coco, they actually brought him in to kind of provide feedback and perspective on what Day of the Dead means and the culture. But I remember we brought them and I think that's what I took pride in, just the same way I felt I was being exposed to different perspectives, that I was a part of bringing a new perspective on campus and kind of showing people, “Maybe you never considered looking at a Chicano comedian, but here's one we brought one for you.” I love the dances and all that stuff, so anything that kind of just expands and opens people's perspectives, I was all about that. We brought the Chicano Secret Service, which I thought, “I can't believe we brought them here. That's amazing.” Any time I got to hear people’s experiences, I would love to hear that. KH: Okay. As I was doing my research about your time at Weber, it mentioned one of the bills that you passed was to bring a bilingual person into the multicultural center. Was it not like that before? CO: You know what? I don't know. You did do your research. I don't remember that. I think maybe because at that time, like I said, I'd been empowered, and so I think at that point, I was trying to figure out how we can make more services accessible to everybody. Because obviously I spoke Spanish as a first language and then was able to become proficient in English. Then when I was at Weber 17 State, I would go out to the elementary schools and be a bilingual tutor for kids, and it really broke my heart how they just felt so isolated. They kind of were—I don't know what the word is like, they were made to stand out like, “Oh, you can't speak English, so you have to sit back here,” and they were kind of separated from everybody. I don't know, maybe that had something to do with it, just to make it more inclusive, because that's just the way I've always been. I just want to be inclusive. I want everybody to feel like they belong, because for so long I felt like I was kind of pushed to the side, so any opportunity I have to just bring people together… I’m assuming that's why. That's a genius idea I had. KH: What years were you at Weber? CO: I graduated from Clearfield High in ‘94, so I did early college my senior year. I was here from ‘93 and I graduated in ‘98. KH: I feel like you've answered a lot of these. What were some of the challenges you faced while attaining your degrees? CO: Oh let's see. Like I said before, I called it uncharted territory. I didn't know what I was doing, but luckily I met the right people like Ned Laff, who put me on the right track, and then Michelle Heward. After I thought about English and then I got to that part where I thought, “I don't want to do English anymore,” and then political science, I think I had taken a juvenile law class. She was a juvenile prosecutor at the time, and I just thought she was amazing. I thought, “Wow, a woman lawyer. She's amazing. She's a professor.” I went and talked to her and said, “I want to do what you're doing. Can you help me?” I told her, “I'm majoring in political science, but I don't like it.” 18 She's like, “You can major in whatever you want. What makes you happy?” I said, “Criminal justice makes me happy.” So that's what I majored in: criminal justice law enforcement. My minors were legal studies and Latin American studies because I was able to bring in my Spanish and that sort of thing. I think that was just the only struggle I had; it was the same continuation of when I was younger. I was always on my own trying to figure it out, but here it was totally different. There were people who I got connected with who just had this vested interest in me and absolutely helped me. I was always the person who studied last minute, the morning of. KH: I definitely have done that at times. CO: I was at the writing lab, back then when… I feel like I'm dating myself, but I didn't have a computer at home. I'd come to the writing lab and plan it out like, “Okay, I'm going to get here at 5:00, it closes at 2:00, I'll finish my paper between those hours.” Everybody did that, but I guess that's the way I learn. But once I got to law school it was a totally different game. You can't cram last-minute when you're in law school. It's a process. So I think that was the challenge: I had to refigure things out. But here it was different because I had resources of people who were super invested in me. KH: What was Weber State like when you started? I was wondering if there's anything else that you liked to mention. Was the campus pretty open and welcoming? 19 CO: Oh, absolutely. Once I came in, I was lucky because like I said, I was in my senior year of high school, but there were people that I knew who had graduated prior, who graduated in ‘93. So I gravitated towards them and thought, “Okay, let's see who makes it past their first year.” I just always had that mentality. I gave myself a year like, “Okay, this is it, make it or break it, a year. Either you didn't make it or you're not going to make it.” It's like I said, in that one year, I just met the right people. I've always considered this to be a home. I've been so lucky that here in undergrad this was my home. Like I tell my son, “High school is the best, but I'm telling you, college is amazing. You learn so much about yourself, take advantage of every opportunity.” For me, I think Weber State was just this playground because there was everything available. If I wanted to go watch a lecture series, I could, or dances, football games, the whole social aspect of it, hanging out at the Shepherd Union, even though yours is way nicer now. Ours was really small. KH: Oh, was the second addition not built then? CO: No, no, no. Girl, I'm all the way back. When I brought my son here, I think to see Dolores, I was like, “No, this was not here, you guys are going to be spoiled. This is amazing.” No, it was totally different but for me, it was like a playground because I was constantly encountering new opportunities. To me, it was a playground, I loved it. KH: What buildings were most of your classes in, since you changed majors a couple of times? 20 CO: Most of my classes were in the social science building. That's where I basically lived. KH: And how did you feel about that building? CO: Is it still the same? KH: No. They've completely gutted it and changed it. CO: It's different? Oh, I want to see it, it was weird. That was your home for your classes, and so that was it, that's where you were. I remember trekking all the way up. I had to do microbiology twice because I didn't do that well the first time; I did not like science that much. Those are cool buildings, those are nice. But yes, social science was my building. KH: How were you involved on the University of Utah campus? Were you a part of a lot of organizations, school took over your life and so you just focused on studying? CO: No, I took the same formula I did at undergrad and I applied it to law school. I was scared to death of law school. I thought, “What am I doing? This is crazy.” It was kind of the same thing when I got to the University of Utah. It's a smaller class. I think we were maybe 125, 200 students? I remember my first week. There's an intro week to law school. You go in and they just prepare you for hell. KH: That sounds like grad school. CO: Once again, I didn't look like everybody else, but by then I thought, “That's okay, because I'm going to be the one that's going to be the first, and I'm going to keep leading the way. This is perfect.” At that point, I think I started telling myself, 21 “Your perspective matters, you bring something to the table, so this is awesome. You will be the one that will stand out.” It's funny because my best friend to this day, she was also starting law school that week. I saw her, and it's horrible to say this, but I thought, “I'm not going to like her. That girl’s weird. I don't want to talk to her.” I thought she was a foreign exchange student. I don't know why, because her husband was with her. I thought, “Why is that guy with her? Why does he keep talking; he must be translating something. I'm just going to stay away from that.” She actually is half Mexican and half Chippewa. We got involved in study groups together. When I saw she was in my study group, I thought, “Oh, that girl’s in my study group.” But we became fast friends and I became super involved. There was already the minority student organization, there was the Native American student organization, so I became involved in those. That's where we kind of had our family. I always feel like, and I tell my son this: wherever you go, especially in education, you need to find your family, your tribe. That's what's going to get you through it. Those are the people you are going to go to when you're at your low. Those people are going to support you when you're in your high. They're the ones going in the trenches with you. They're the only ones who will understand what you're going through, so you need to find them, find them fast, and that's how you're going to endure. So I found my tribe there and we're still friends to this day. Our kids have all grown up together. They're all the same ages. 22 I became super involved in the Minority Law Caucus, the Native American Law Caucus. I knew, obviously, from Ned Laff, build your resources networking, so I became a law clerk at the DA's office. I knew exactly where I wanted to be, so I started building those connections and working with law clerks there. Other law students who were law clerks started building, networking with them, so I became super involved. I took that formula I had here and that's what got me through. I made really good friends. I think that's what gets you through the process. You need to have people to vent to and cry to. “I don't know if I can do this,” especially when you take the bar as you graduate and they say congratulations. I said, “That doesn't mean anything, I have to pass the bar.” I took the same formula, and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law was small enough that I've always made these institutions my homes. That was my home. That's where I have my friends, we raised our kids together. We all practice law. One works for eBay, one's a federal magistrate, so we've gone to all these different areas, but we still gravitate, and we don't talk about work. We just talk about our kids. KH: That's awesome. What was the process for studying for the bar and how long does it take to pass the bar? CO: Oh, it's horrible. I graduated in May of 2002 and the bar was in July. My friend Cecillia, the one who I thought I would never like, we banded together. I lived in Davis County so I literally— KH: Oh, so did you commute from Clearfield to campus? 23 CO: I've always commuted. I commuted from Clearfield to Weber State, Clearfield to the U. So during that time I told her husband, “I'm moving in with you guys. I don’t care what you say.” So I lived with them for the whole month of June. It was fear that drove everything for us. We would be at the law library from like 8:00 a.m. to when the library closed and we just studied. We went postal a couple of times, I'm not gonna lie. We went crazy. One time, we were outside of the law school and we just had a horrible day studying and I told her, “You know what I've heard? I think if we scream, it's like a stress release.” I'm like, “You go first, you go first.” So she screamed and it was like the wimpiest scream I'd ever heard. We didn't know this, but there was a class in session, it had their windows open. So I said, “I'm going to top you,” and I let out the most blood-curdling scream, but all of a sudden we heard shuffling, because I think everybody thought somebody was being murdered. They all came out to see and we had nowhere to go because the area we were in was a blocked area. There was a huge garbage can; I said, “Hide behind the garbage can!” So we hid behind the garbage and we're hiding, and then all of a sudden the professor’s like, “This is not funny!” I was like, “I'm sorry.” So you go a little crazy, but it was a month. We just studied and you need to learn all these different topics—contracts, business, organization, and some of the classes I had not taken in law school, so you have to learn the basics. I had papers where I would write so little. I'm like, “I'm going to have all the subjects on one page.” We would write and that would be our notes. I remember the night before the bar, we lost a comrade, another colleague of ours who studied with 24 us. Three days before the bar, like, “Where is he? Where is he?” We were able to get ahold of him. He's like, “I've locked myself in a hotel. I feel like I just need to be by myself.” I mean, it made us crazy. The night before the bar, me and my friends said, “Okay, no more studying. We know what we know. That's it. There's no more we can stuff into our brains.” But that morning I cheated and I pulled up a business org and I just looked at it one more time. That just so happened to be one of the questions that I was asked, so I'm glad I cheated in that way. I went in my t-shirt and PJ pants. I was too tired to even get dressed. It was a two-day process where you're at a table with another person. You have a laptop. I think part of it was multiple choice, and then you have an essay. I remember they said to bring earplugs because you can hear everybody. It was a two-day process, and it was the most horrible experience. I tell everybody, if I ever leave the state, I'm going to a state that has reciprocity because I'm never doing that to myself again. KH: Completely understandable. How long did you have to wait from taking the bar to finding out you passed? CO: It was horrible. I found out in September. We knew the bar results were going to come out so me and my friends decided, “Let's go to Vegas and we'll get the results when we're in Vegas and whatever happens, happens in Vegas.” We found out there and it was just like, “Oh, my gosh.” KH: We're here, we can go party. 25 CO: I didn't even care about the score like my friend. She cared about the score. I said, “It doesn't matter. Pass, fail, that's all that matters.” We passed; I could care less about how close I was. KH: So were you allowed to start working before you got that result then? CO: I was a law clerk at that point, so I kind of already knew I wanted to be at this Salt Lake County district Attorney's office. Once I passed the bar, there weren't any openings. Usually the way it worked was you were a law clerk, and if there is an opening you were hired. During my time, there was a situation where no one's leaving the office right now, so you might need to go work somewhere else and then apply again. But it just so happened right around the time that I was looking for another job, one of the prosecutors there got a judicial appointment to be a juvenile judge, and I was brought in. It all worked out. KH: What resistance or battles did you face as you progressed in your career? CO: Once I graduated from law school, I worked at the Salt Lake County District Attorney's office. I was there from 2002 to 2010, so I was there eight years. I don't know if it was the timing or what it was, but that was the best office. I did not feel like I was going to work. I felt like I was going to school every day, like high school, and I was hanging out with my friends. It was awesome. I was a baby prosecutor so I was learning to try cases. I was watching more seasoned prosecutors doing trials or making arguments, so that student in me, I just loved it. I love watching and then applying, so that was effective. “Maybe I can apply that to my style.” I learned so much and there were so many seasoned prosecutors who kind of took me under their wing and would have me be co-chair 26 with them for trials. I'm naturally a very nosy person, that's why I became a prosecutor. I wanted to know everybody's business, like, “Oh, what did you do, let's see what happened here.” I just love the whole process. I had no resistance. I loved my job. It was perfect. Then an opportunity came up to be a prosecutor in Davis County, and in Davis County, it was kind of a shift just. I think Salt Lake is a little bit more liberal, a little bit more open-minded. So when I came to Davis County, it was just a little bit different for me. It wasn't until I came to Davis County that I ever thought about myself being a woman lawyer. I don't know what it was. Certain people would question my decisions, not within the office, but just in general. I just felt like I was being looked at differently because I was a woman. I felt that personally and I've never felt that before. Those were some struggles that I went through, just realizing, because you make it that far. Eight years into your career, you're thinking, “Why does my gender matter all of a sudden? I never, ever had to encounter this.” But then it became an issue, and I thought, “This is really, really weird. I don't know what's going on.” I then left Davis County and went to work at the US Attorney's Office, which was back to a more collegial environment where I felt like my input mattered. All of my colleagues respected me and they didn't look at the fact that I was a woman or anything like that. I was a colleague and they knew I could pull my own weight. So I think that was the only time, just that little shift. I don't know if it's Davis, I just don't know, but it was just this weird thing where all of a sudden I felt like, “How is me being a woman relevant to anything? It should not be 27 relevant. I've proven myself.” I think by that age, I was in my thirties. I thought, “No, I'm more than capable. Something is wrong with you.” KH: Agreed. Would you walk us through what it's like preparing for a trial, going through a trial? CO: I remember the first time I had to prepare for a trial. I call it “Trial by ambush.” They gave me twelve files—this was when I was in justice court—and said, “These are twelve files. These cases, these twelve files, they're all set for trial on the same day. It's your job to figure out which one's going.” I thought, “How do I do that?” So you just get thrown into it. I think my entire life, just being thrown in, you just learn, “Okay, I have no choice. I will figure it out.” I learned really quick how to organize. When you prepare for a trial there's so many different aspects to it. For the most part, most of my career, I did special victim cases. I did all child sex abuse, sexual assault, I did a child homicide. All cases, you take seriously, but those cases, you know, there is kind of more of a vested interest, especially on that child homicide case I had. I remember I was just finishing my day because they had an attorney of the day. If you were the attorney of the day, anything that came in, you'd be responsible for it. This detective called in like at 5:05 and said that a child had died under really unusual circumstances. I was new to the team and I thought, “This is too much.” So I ran to my team leader and said, “There's a child homicide. It's 5:05. I'm off at 5:00. I can't do this. This is a lot.” He's like, “You can do it. I trust you.” You take ownership of your cases. Preparing for a trial is the same way I prepare for it when I'm screening a case. If 28 I was screening the case, I would look to see, “Okay, what do we have and what don't we have? How's the case going to be attacked? If it's going to be attacked in one way, is there further investigation that we can do to fill those holes?” If you don't have enough, you don't have enough. I mean, that's the process of being a prosecutor. A prosecutor has an awesome responsibility: you decide if someone's going to have charges filed against them or not, so you need to make that determination. Is there enough evidence for this to go forward? I remember I'd have people—victims' families or victims’ attorneys—say, “Just file. Let's just see what happens.” I'm like, “Well, that's not the standard.” The standard is, is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction? Do we have the evidence or do we not? It's not like we're making up a story. I remember I had one detective tell me, “I take it really personal when you declined my cases.” I thought this was a learning moment for him. I told him, “Okay, but it's not your fault, because the facts are what they are. You either have them or you don't.” That's the hard part of our job. Sometimes I believe somebody did something, but what I believe and what I can prove are two totally, totally different things. I can't proceed with what I believe, because that's wrong. So I told him, “Look, if this was a report, a story you were creating for me to file charges and you're right, I declined it, you should take it personally because you're a horrible story writer for me not to file something.” I said, “But that's not your fault. You've done your job. You've done the best you can do and that's it.” 29 Sometimes you have to assess your cases and say, “Yeah, there's enough there, but is there enough for a jury to convict somebody?” These are really hard decisions to make, especially in special victim cases, when you have to tell a family, “We don't have enough to go forward, and ethically we can't.” A lot of mine was really building rapport with victims, especially children, to make them feel comfortable being with me in the courtroom, telling me things that clearly they don't want to talk about, but we need to talk about. I am a people person. So before any case, I want to get to know who you are. Who are you? You need to get to know who I am. We need to know how we work off of each other, because that's the only way we're going to be able to proceed in this matter to really get all the information we need to get out and just be comfortable with each other. I've had to testify before and I thought I would be amazing because of what I did. I was horrible. I sat up there and the attorney asked me a question—it was something that I had observed—and the whole time the attorneys asked me a question, I was talking to myself like, “Oh, I'm in the courtroom. I'm sitting next to the judge. Can you repeat that question?” I did that three times, so I then learned how hard it is. I mean, you have to talk about really hard things. All eyes are on you. You're being critiqued left and right. I think that the hardest part for me as a prosecutor is telling children to adults, “You didn't do anything wrong, but yet the microscope, the light, they're all on you. They're not on the offender; they're on you. They're going to attack you. It's not fair. That's the way the system works.” 30 Really early on, it was just building that rapport of trust, because eventually sometimes you get to a good resolution. Other times you get to something that you don't expect, but you need to have that trust to say, “Look, I'm sorry, I can't go farther in this case. We need to dismiss or we need to make an offer.” But once you build that trust, I think that's a good foundation. I think that's where everything starts with as far as preparing for trials. KH: Okay, great. Thank you. What are the differences between being a county and a federal prosecutor? CO: The initial difference between being a county prosecutor and a federal prosecutor: as a county prosecutor, for example, if a police officer brought a police packet, a case file to me to review, federal prosecutors, state prosecutor— you view it the same. You review it, make sure—do we have enough evidence? Does everything meet the elements? Are there charges that we can file? In the state system, once I make the determination: yes, there's enough for it to be filed, I filed the charges. I filed what's called an information. I list the applicable charges, and then I write what's called a probable cause statement; that's giving notice to the defendant or the accused, “These are the charges and this is a summary, a statement, explaining why.” For example, a DUI: someone saw this person swerving on the road, we saw swerving, could smell alcohol, so that they have notice. The prosecutor in a state matter files the charges. The federal system is different. In the federal system, a person is indicted and they're indicted by a grand jury. That was a huge difference for me, is not having that power to say “I'm going to file on this case,” or “Nope, I'm not going to 31 file on this case.” I still have the power to decline a case, but if I wanted to file it, I didn't have that power. I had to present my case to a grand jury. It's a group of people across the state of Utah who come in, they sit in and listen to cases that are presented by our office, and you present your case to them through a witness or a number of witnesses. It's kind of like a mini trial, and they decide if your case should go forward with the charges that you're presenting and the evidence that they hear. You kind of lose that power because they're the ones who decide. The penalties are entirely different, state and federal. In state, I don't want to say they're lenient, but in the federal system, everything's based on a calculation as far as someone's criminal history. I had to start doing math again, which I did not appreciate. You come up with guidelines with months, so there's a window of time for which they will serve. The penalties are steep, where in the state system, it's more discretionary. So I think it was a benefit for me being a state prosecutor, then going to federal, because a lot of people who were already in the federal system, when they wouldn't get what they wanted as far as what they were recommending to the judge, they would take it really hard. Me, I thought, “Wow, I never got this in the state system.” They are like, “Why aren't you upset?” “This would have never happened in the state system,” just because they're so different. The penalties are very different. In the federal system, you're limited to certain charges. For example… all state charges, you couldn't transfer them to be federal. There's certain federal charges, and then the state system 32 has a lot more opportunities for you to go through the cases. So that's the main difference. KH: Would you walk us through the process of becoming a judge? CO: I initially wanted to be a juvenile court judge because, like I think you guys have gathered, I just love working with youth and that's kind of what I gravitate to. But going to the U.S. Attorney's Office, it really opened up my mind because when I went to the U.S. Attorney's Office, like I said, totally different systems. I thought, “Oh, I've been a state prosecutor for 16 years. I'm going to the federal system— cake. I'll be fine.” It was the most humbling experience because I think by that point in my career, I thought, “Wow, I don't know everything.” I had to learn a lot of things over again. That kind of opened my mind to think about district court and the adult system. The process typically is, obviously, you have to be a practicing attorney. You fill out this application that asks a lot of questions. It's kind of like a law school application or grad application. They ask you a lot of questions. They do a background check. You provide a personal statement as to why it is that you want to be a judge, explaining why you want to be a judge. The applications are submitted… I'm in the second district. That is Weber, Davis, and Morgan, that's 2nd District. There is a judicial nominating commission, I think that's members of the community. There's a couple of members from the community who are not attorneys; the rest are attorneys. I think there's one judge that presides as part of the commission and they review the applications, and from the numerous 33 applications they narrow it down to, I think, 10 to 12 people that they pick from the application process and they interview you. The nominating commission interviews you. Each person asks you a question. Each time it felt like I was in an interrogation room. They would sit me in the middle and they would be surrounding me, and then, you want to talk to everybody and you feel like a robot, and they just ask you questions to vet you. “As far as you know, how would you handle this situation,” or “What would be your judicial temperament? What judges have you observed and what styles would you emulate from them?” I mean, it's a myriad of questions. Once they interview the 12, the nominating commission narrows it down to five. The five go to the governor's staff. You interview twice after that. First, you're interviewed by the governor's staff. That is the council for the governor. The head of what's called ‘CCJJ’, the Commission of Criminal and Juvenile Justice, they interview you, and then you interview with the governor. Once you interview with the governor, the same five people interview with the staff and the governor, then the governor makes his decision. The way you know you've got it is the calls are made. The governor calls the person he's appointing, and if you don't get it, because I applied twice before, you get a call from the governor's staff. I have been the recipient of getting the governor's staff, and of course, I've always asked, “Well, who did he pick?” The governor always makes an amazing choice. This last time when I applied, I remember I was driving with my mom. My cell phone rang and it said, Fairview, Utah. I told her, “It's the governor.” 34 She's like, “How do you know? He lives in Fairview, Utah?” So we pulled over and it was him, and it was the most amazing call ever. I had to excuse myself because when I interviewed with him because of COVID, it was done by a Zoom, so I did it from my house. You know how things work through Zoom. You’d think we've mastered Zoom for the most important interview of my life. My laptop died right before, so I had to connect with my iPad. I thought, “Okay, you've got this.” Sat there and waited for about twenty minutes and I thought, “Oh, they're testing me. They're watching me to see if I get upset,” so I just smiled the whole time. Twenty minutes late. I did the whole interview and then when it was time to end the interview, I thought I had pushed ‘exit’ but I didn't. So I sat my iPad down and I was about to say some choice words, that this was the most horrible bleep-bleep-bleep experience ever, but something told me not to. In that quiet moment, I heard some shuffling and I thought, “Oh no!” I opened the cover on my iPad and the governor is sitting there smiling with his staff. I thought, “Do they think I'm spying? I'm not spying!” I didn't know what to do; I didn't want to say, “Oh no, sorry,” so I did the dumbest thing. I went like this [fumbles around] and I couldn't find the button, and I finally pushed the button. I thought, “Okay, I didn't get it.” Then I went and hid my iPad underneath the mattress. I thought I turned it off! So I told everybody, “I didn't get it. I think he either thinks I was trying to be slick and spy, which I was not, or I clearly don't know how to exit an interview.” So when he called, I said, “Thank you for overlooking that blunder.” He said, “Oh, that happens to all of us.” 35 Not when you're interviewing with the governor, no, sir. Not with the governor. That was it. It was an awesome call to get. He's like, “You're going to be a trivia question because you'll be my first judicial pick.” I thought, perfect! So, yeah, that's the process. KH: What was the swearing-in like? CO: That's a good question. Once you're appointed, you still need to be confirmed by the Senate. It was just like graduating from law school, but you need to take the bar and you're not done just yet. I had to go to a—I forget the name, but it's the judicial commission at the Capitol. I was interviewed there in an open hearing by legislators up at the Capitol. That was terrifying because they're the ones who say, “Yes, we approve,” and then it goes to a floor vote, or “No, we don't approve,” and you don't go to a vote. That was the most terrifying of all of this experience. Just because that's it, like, “Wow, you guys will make the determination if I'm going to go forward or not.” They all asked questions. They have you give a personal statement. I listened to prior hearings just to kind of get a feel of how people were, and that made me feel a little bit better knowing, “Okay, I've got this.” Once they send your name, then you go to the floor for a vote. Those happen on two different days. One day, that was the hearing, my mom and my son came, and I terrified my mom. I didn't think she'd take me seriously. I said, “Look, they may ask you anything. I'm a good kid, right? I'm good. I don't have to worry. You're not going to say anything.” 36 So she was terrified when Senator Weiler said, “Oh, can we please have your son and your mother stand up?” My mom was terrified. She thought they were going to ask her questions. My son's like, “You know, you had Grandma terrified the whole year. She couldn't even think straight.” Then it went to the floor vote and that was a different day. It was an amazing experience because you're on the floor, and they vote, and they talk about you a little bit, and you're sitting on the side. I was being so strong. I think, “I'm going to be strong. I'm not going to cry. This is it.” Senator Escamilla, I knew her, and she knows me. Her daughter and my son have kind of grown up together. She just started talking about how a woman of color, a minority, how far I've come, and she started talking to my mom in Spanish, telling her, “You should be so proud.” I thought, I had my mask on, “She's going to make me ruin my makeup.” I just started crying because it was just so emotional. I think that for me was the culmination of having my mom there with me, and my friend giving her this huge shout-out and respect, like, “She's here because of you.” It was absolutely true. Then to have my son there and my son was proud of me. Finally I was able to compose myself and to address everybody once they voted yes. It was unanimous, which was amazing. I had my friends up, friends that could come. There's this little gallery area where you can watch. It was an amazing process. It's stressful. It's like the highs. When I was interviewing with the governor, I was 37 at one hundred and ten heart rate, guys. I thought, “Is it going to go down? This is not normal.” It's got the highs and the lows, but it's absolutely worth it. KH: Great. I guess I'm thinking like Hollywood, is that them approving you? That's you being sworn in and you're a judge? CO: The Senate approves it, so it's not official until they vote. The Senate approves, and that's when it became official. KH: So is there a separate ceremony? CO: Yes, there should be one. Because of COVID, I haven't had one. There's an open house that you're supposed to be able to have, so I haven't had that. The really scary part was, I'd been a criminal prosecutor, so I've watched judges. I've observed, I've been in court for the past 18, 20 years. I started March 22nd this year, and I came into an empty building because all the other judges had already mastered how to do court from home. They had everything. So I came in, I called it the haunted house, there was nobody there. I started with no one in the building. You can call people, you can phone a friend, but it's not the same when you can just walk down the hall and say, “What do I do, what's going on?” I have a criminal background, so I'm very well versed, I feel very comfortable doing my criminal matters, but I also do civil matters, and I have zero experience with civil. That's been another part of me trying to become a student again and try to learn this. I'm learning in the civil world and that's been, I think, the biggest challenge for me right now. Luckily, I can put this to the side like I have, the criminal part; I'm good to focus everything on the civil, but it's still hard when I'm making rulings. Then I look up and say, “Does that make sense?” 38 KH: How has COVID-19 affected your life? CO: I think it impacted us all; I don't know if it impacts us all the same. For me, this past year that I got to spend so much time at home, I got a chance to slow down. But I think to me it's been to my detriment just because I'm used to being very fast-paced, and having to slow down, I think I became a little bit lazy. I think all of us have become a little bit lazy—just the routine. I was always the person that was up at 5:00 every day working. Then when COVID started, if I had court at nine, well, I wake up at eight, stroll in front of my computer. But also for me personally, it solidified for me more how important my family is to me. We weren't able to see each other. That was so hard for all of us not to be able to see each other. We barely had a huge family party here in Davis County over Labor Day weekend and we had family come from Texas, California. Then with everything happening, I thought, “I don't think that's a good idea.” But we were all vaccinated. I'm like, “I still don't think it's safe.” Luckily, knock on wood, nobody got sick. It was just so nice. My son and I try really hard on a whim, we'll travel. “Let's go to California. Let's go here,” and to just have your life shut down and be home, it was very, very hard. I think one thing that impacted me was I was working 24/7 because there was nothing else for me to do. Having my office at home, I felt guilty if I wasn't working, so it was super unhealthy, like there were no boundaries. I was working all the time, having anxiety all the time, being anxious. That's why I was going into the building. But then after the second week, I thought, “I can't do this, no one's here. I'm just going to do it from home.” 39 Within the last two months is the transition back to coming into the office, because more of the judges are coming into the building. It's so nice to have other people in the building and to have those healthy boundaries. I think that's what I learned. Healthy boundaries, like when I'm off, I'm not going to go home and turn on my laptop and work some more. I'm off and I need to dedicate time to my son or being with my family. I think it's a myriad of things; it was a roller coaster as far as really appreciating being home. For a while, I tell people, “I feel like I’m a college student living in a frat.” I'd be up all night, sleep most of the day. You kind of had to find your schedule, but then it became unhealthy, so there were so many challenges. For me, I realized that I am a creature of routine and a schedule like that totally threw everything off. So I'm trying to get back. I even got dressed today. This is huge. I went and walked around the building, like, you guys, do you see this? I do have court clothes because we just have to wear a robe, right, so I can get away with wearing casual underneath. Well, that year too, I went from dressing every day, suits, skirts, heels—like, this is the first time I've worn heels in a very long time. I think I became lazy. KH: I feel the same way. So have you had a case or a trial that's been Zoom and one that's been in person yet? CO: I will take pride in saying this. I'm the new judge and I tried the most cases in Weber County. I've done three jury trials. Everyone told me, “Your trials are going to go.” I had two back to back. I had one week and the following week and I was terrified. That was the first and second week of June, so I just started, right, and I 40 was terrified. I was terrified because no one else had had a trial go, so I couldn't watch. I thought, “How am I going? I've done trials, but I've never done trials as the judge.” They went, even though everybody assured me they wouldn't go. Well, mine went and I just did one last week, the week before. We've been doing jury selection via Zoom, which I think is the way to go because you bring people in, they sit there for hours. We have accomplished the same thing, having them in the comfort of their home. We picked them. We do one day where we pick the jury via WebEx or Zoom, and then they come back either the following day or a couple of days after, and then we do it in person. The way it's different is they would sit where the audience section is, they sit there socially distanced. We don't have the public coming in yet, but it's broadcasted for the public to see because all the courtrooms have to be open to the public. We have one courtroom in the building where we try these cases; the jury is socially distanced, and we have dividers between the defendant and his attorney, and everybody wears masks, so we're still practicing all of that. Jury trials have come to a screeching halt, even though I've done the most jury trials. It's only one trial per day per building. That's been a little bit difficult for people not being able to have the opportunity to have a trial. But all of mine have gone, and it's interesting now as a judge to preside over a trial because as a prosecutor, it's so different. In one of the trials in June, the prosecutor wanted to introduce something. If I was the defense attorney, I probably would have granted his objection, but I had to turn over to the defense attorney. “Sir, do you object?” 41 “No, I can't interject. Right?” That's their strategy. It's been just this new role in having a poker face, not reacting when something happens. That's been very interesting, but I've loved every minute of it. KH: Is the poker face hard? I think I would struggle. CO: I've had an amazing poker face until this last trial, we actually had to wear masks. The other two, we were at that point where you didn't have to, but I had a mask on. Thank goodness I did, because something happened during the trial that—I knew I had the mask on, so you know now that you can react. Even though you still smile, it's like, “Why am I smiling? You can't see me smiling with my mask on.” But I did react, and thank goodness my mask was on. But no, I'm really good at keeping it poker. I mean, that's part of being a judge, right? You have to be neutral. Everybody has to feel like they have a fair shot, that you're listening to both sides. As a prosecutor, I had one of the victim advocates say, “I don't know how you do it. You have the most amazing poker face.” I'm like, “Well, we can't react in court.” I witness attorneys in court as a judge who react, and that doesn't help the process. I feel it lessens the professionalism of the process because we're all there with one objective: we want to have resolution, but to stoop to that level and make faces or just make snide comments, it's not helpful. KH: What committees or organizations are you a member of? CO: I've actually had a really, really awesome opportunity early on. Currently, I am a community board member for the University of Utah Hospital. I like to be involved 42 in things that are totally different from what I practice, just to have that balance. I'm also on the advisory committee for the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. I am on the board of directors for United Way of Salt Lake. I also had this amazing opportunity to be appointed by the governor to be on the Board of Regents for the Utah System of Higher Education. It was over all the different universities, which was amazing because we obviously got to meet all of the presidents of the universities, be exposed to all the different campuses and how they're all so unique and offer something to all of our students across the state. Prior to that, I was on the Board of Trustees for the University of Utah. I've been on the advisory board for Big Brothers, Big Sisters. I've just tried any way that I can be involved. Especially with the Board of Regents and the Board of Trustees, that was really important for me because I wanted to be involved in higher education and really working on those pathways from K-12, going into college, because I think it does go back all the way through K. You have to start kind of planting that seed very, very early on. So that's my interest as far as boards or being involved. Any way that I can be involved working with youth, mentoring, I want to be involved. Those are the boards that I'm currently serving on right now. KH: Okay, great. How have you stayed connected with Weber since graduating? CO: I have to say it's been off and on. Clearly, when I was on the Board of Regents, I did have that connection because we would come on campus, we would get invited to events and it just for me reignited why I love Weber so much. I don't think I'm the first person to be guilty of this, but when I graduate, I thought, “I'm 43 going to keep on, continue, I'm never going to turn my back on Weber State,” and then you get busy. You start working, you have a child, and your life just gets consumed, and you're juggling all these different things. I'm really thankful that I got reconnected with Weber State because that's where I met President Mortensen. He wasn't president then, but he was amazing. He would always be super, super nice and invite me to events. For me, that became a crucial part of really introducing my son to, “Look, you want to be involved. These are different things you can be involved in on campus.” I would always look for little things that Weber State offered, like engineering, little classes on the weekends. I'd bring my son, for myself, selfish reasons to come on campus, but also just to kind of just do something different. There's so many different things that are offered, so I've tried to reconnect, stay connected that way. Clearly, when I was working in Salt Lake, it's hard because I'm so detached, I come home. But I feel like now that I'm in Weber County serving, I tell everybody, “I'm literally down the hill from where everything changed for me,” so I can't help but think about Weber State all the time. It's just up the hill. What can I do to be involved? So I'm trying to get more involved in that way. KH: Awesome. What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? CO: I've received awards here and there. Honestly, a lot of the recognition I received was at the U.S. Attorney's Office. That was a great office. I think that's one of the things I miss most about that office. It’s such a supportive environment. Everybody really recognizes your contributions to the office. I did receive a lot of recognition there, which was amazing. 44 But I have to say, I think I was telling you a couple of weeks ago, I went to my son's homecoming assembly and they had two alumni talk and I was one of them. A couple of days later, someone from the school emailed me and said, “We want to include you in our Hall of Fame as far as alumni.” I have to say that has to be right now my greatest, because my son is super proud. It's someone from Clearfield High, and after I was done talking, they asked us certain questions. When we were done, I stayed for the assembly because the assemblies have gotten so good. These kids are amazing with technology and everything. When I was done, I had maybe a handful of girls come up to me and say, “Can I ask you questions? I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a judge. I'm interested in criminal justice.” I just gave everybody my number and said, “Call me. Any questions you have, I can help you.” I think that recognition to me is really important because first of all, my son approved of all the answers I gave. I said, “Did I embarrass you? Did I live up to my end of the bargain?” For me, the fact that I am going to be in their hall of Fame is amazing to me because it's Clearfield High. It's one of the institutions that I came from that made me the person I am today. Falcons for life. KH: Great. How have you become a mentor to others in your field? You kind of mentioned a little about that. CO: Yeah, any opportunity I have, I've gotten involved with the Utah Center for Legal Inclusion. It's called UCLI. They try to pair attorneys up in the legal field with students. It can either be from high school or college who really want to see 45 where is it going. Any opportunity I have to talk to especially Hispanic youth, I go. I've gone and done panel discussions. A lot of it is just telling people my experience, like what I've talked to you about early on, because a lot of them will come after. It's powerful because after we're done for them, they'll come up to us and say, “Your story is my story. You're exactly the same way. Single parent. My parents don't know anything about how to help me with higher education. I'm going to be the first one. I learned English when I was here.” There's so many connections we have with our youth. That's one way I like to get involved. I've recently gotten involved with another organization where it's specifically designed for women leaders in the community. Any way that I can help, I always think like I might be that Michelle Heward to somebody. If I can just be that for one person, that will be enough for me. Any time for me to share my story, I think, is helpful because it tells them, “Oh, yeah, if you can do it, I can do it. Absolutely you can.” KH: Great. What advice would you give to Latinx women starting in your field? CO: The one piece that I've learned throughout the years, and I think it comes with growing into your own and really recognizing your strength: I actually wrote it down on this huge poster board, and I put it in my office. I wrote, "Don't underestimate what you bring to the table, because your perspective matters," and it's true. We all have different experiences. How boring would it be if we just have the same people with the same experiences? We need to have that diversity. That's where you get these different perspectives, different ideas, different feedback. 46 That's the one thing I would tell Latinx women, is that your perspective, your experience, your struggle, it matters. Sometimes I have women talk to me or even my own friends say, “I don't know if I can do this.” I tell them, “Come on, look at our history. Look at where we've come from. You came to this country, you were first generation, look how far you've come. We've overcome so much adversity. This is nothing compared to what we did on our own when no one was there to help us. and now you have your tribe. So I'm telling you, you can do it.” For me, that's crucial, that your perspective matters. Always know that you bring something to the table. Another piece of advice I would give, and I think is kind of a given with everything, is that hard work and preparation, they're the great equalizer. That's one thing that when I heard that, I thought, “That's exactly on point.” If you work hard and you prepare yourself enough, no one is going to outshine you. Even to this day, sometimes I suffer from what I think we call imposter syndrome. I sit here and think, “Okay, he picked me, why did he pick me?” when the governor called. But then I thought, “You know what? No, I have the experience.” Then I start thinking, “Oh, wait a minute. Okay, Cristina, When you applied for this position, I had to list at least 23 or 30 people in the legal community who sent emails out and they rated you. They wrote things, and clearly no one must say anything bad about me or else I wouldn't be here.” So I try to do that. I think just to tell everybody, no matter how far you get, even as a minority, as a woman, you still suffer from that because you're always put in a position 47 where you're the only person who stands out. It's like, “Why am I here? Am I here to check a box?” Because I don't want to check a box. I want to be here because I bring something to the table. I think we're constantly questioning ourselves. I know I am, but I think that makes me want to raise the level and do what I do; hard work, preparation—I need to outshine. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but it kind of is my driving force, to show people that I'm here because I earned it, not because I check a box. KH: Awesome. This is kind of a random question, but how do you feel about TV shows that depict the law? CO: I love SVU, Law and Order. I love those shows. KH: How accurate though? CO: Any other show is not accurate, but Law and Order, I think to an extent, is accurate. I watch it. Actually, when I would meet with victims and witnesses, I would tell them, you know... When witnesses are testifying on that show and people start yelling at you and there's these dramatic moments? That doesn't happen. It's very boring. I tell them it's boring because we all respect each other in the courtroom. I may not like the person who did something to somebody, may have hurt somebody, but I am going to be nice to them. I'm going to be respectful to them because this is a court, it's the People's Court, and we have to give it its due respect. So, it's realistic to an extent. But the drama? I tell people, “I've never seen that drama in court.” I wish I could have some of that drama in court. We don't 48 see that drama in court. That's the only show I would say. Anything else? No, not even close. KH: So that's all the questions I have for you. Is there anything else you'd like to share? CO: No. You asked really good questions; thank you. KH: Okay, great. Thank you so much. CO: Thank you. 49