5th Grade Creative Writing Contest

This year, more than 200 students from three schools in the Southern California area participated in the annual 5th Grade Creative Writing Contest sponsored by AILA and the American Immigration Council. The students penned inspiring and creative poems and essays about why they are glad that America is a nation of immigrants. After undergoing several rounds of screening by generous attorney volunteers, we narrowed down the entries to the top 10, which were sent to a panel of esteemed judges including Fabricio Lopez, Principal Counsel of Immigration/Minors for the Walt Disney Company; Sarah Brunet, Co-Chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee, American Bar Association – Young Lawyers Division; and Dr. Stewart Chang, Assistant Professor of Law at Whittier Law School. The judges selected the SoCal AILA Chapter’s winning entry, Ms. Chloe Luong, who was entered into the AILA National competition. Chloe’s submission received an honorable mention at the National level and her entry is set to appear in the Summer 2018 issue of Skipping Stones Magazine, a nonprofit magazine for youth. The SoCal AILA Chapter’s Awards Banquet was held on Sunday, May 20, 2018 at the Omni Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles to honor the participants, their teachers, principals and volunteers. We thank the AILA members who generously contributed their time and financial donations to this event. AILA SoCal continues to be committed to this very important event that educates our youth about the importance of immigration in U.S. society and history and we look forward to sponsoring this event again in 2019.

We thank the AILA members who have generously contributed their time and financial donations to this event. A very big thank you to attorney Jenna Robinson, AILA Southern California liaison, who devoted her time to organizing the event, collecting the stories, reviewing them, and preparing for the annual awards banquet.