Nicholas Miramontes

Student

“More Americans should visit other countries and learn about the people. At minimum, it would make them grateful for all we have here.”

“I’m a traveling man, and as soon as I graduated from high school,” says Nicholas Miramontes, future immigration attorney, “I headed out with a backpack for Europe. I saw England, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland. In fact, if you dropped me anywhere in the world, I could go into that culture, eat what they eat, celebrate, dance, learn their language and feel at home. I just really love people,” he continues, “and a lot of them have helped me during my travels. So someday I hope to return some of those kindnesses.”

Nicholas is a certified paralegal who has worked at the Superior Courts in downtown LA, all in preparation for applying to law school. “I think all of this experience will help when it’s time to transfer to UCLA or Berkeley,” he says. “And I think that being bilingual will make immigration law a real strength of mine.” He reports having a lot of mixed feelings about anti-immigrant laws being pushed currently in the U.S. “Some of the points being raised may be valid,” he says. ”But no one—in any country or any time—should ever be deprived of their chance for an education.”

To further understand people of all races and cultures, Nicholas has also studied French, German and Russian. He numbers among his friends one family where dinners are conducted in Spanish, German and English—with Nicholas sometimes interpreting various instructions. When told such practical training might qualify him for work in the U.N., he replies thoughtfully, ”You know, that’s a distinct possibility.”

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